Set One:

1. Chalkdust Torture: opened the show with arguably Phish’s best and most Rock N Roll song from the early 90’s

2. Moma Dance: Phish 97 funk era song. If you see a lot of shows this song can be played out, but in this show it’s an interesting placement being in a sandwich because they segue in and out of back to….

3. Chalkdust Torture: end of song

4. Back on the Train: More rock and roll chugging along. Bonus points for it deepening the NYE Gag theories and at very least brought associations of Trey and Mike and their PSA for the NYC Metro system

5. Axilla Part II: More high energy rock and roll. I just love both Axillas. The first one is post apocalyptic Gamehendge dropping the buzzard, (is that a dead famous mockingbird?) with truly psychedelic lyrics. Want to know if it is true that when Phish was making Hoist, which is seen by the band’s attempt for mainstream popularity, that Axilla II was born out of a record executive note and push for them to be less weird than they are and have accessible lyrics. If that is true, well then I have to say that they succeeded. The imagery of sitting by the pool in the summer is a nice setting for this song. Maybe because of the selling out of the original psychedelic Gamehendge adjacent original version is why Axilla II was shelved after being played regularly in 1994 and 1995. Axilla II wasn’t played again until 2021. There was a 26 year gap for this. Nowadays it’s the regular version and Axilla I is the rarity. On Hoist though despite this possibility entirely made up selling out theory, Phish still made sure the song was psychedelic by adding the coda not originally associated with Axilla I. This spacey dark matter coda set is the first overtly trippy moment of 12/30/2025

6. Divided Sky: Arguably Trey’s compositional masterpiece when all is said and done. His prettiest.

7. Blaze On: The only 3.0 song of the first set. 2015’s message of hope song is an another modern day rocker.

8. Tube: lyrics ripped from Fishman’s 1980’s notebook. Funk and dance party song that ends rocking.

9. Reba: another stone cold Phish classic. Lyrically it is playful, surreal, childlike, funny. The Reba jam, many phans feel like the Reba jam is Phishiest prettiest music. The jam is heavily influenced by Frank Zappa’s “Inca Roads”.

10. Split Open and Melt: another stone cold Phish classic. Lyrically already trippy, complex compositionally, and the jam nowadays is basically Phish’s version of the Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star” adjacent “Space” that in modern times showcases just how psychedelic their lighting director Chris “CK5” Kuroda can get. Often feels like Phish is trying or actually is making contact with aliens

Set Two:

1. Ghost: unusual placement, nice!!! from the getgo the band is jamming full on interplay listener to eachother locked in. Not the funk funk funk, but patient jamming, laid back but thoughtful. Cerebral. Same feeling as the next two songs really. Which isn’t a bad thing. The flow is on.

2. Ruby Waves: I can appreciate it as one of the first songs Trey wrote that encourages stepping away from active addiction “escaping from the prison of lies”

3. Light: read this was inspired by Eckhart Tolle and the book “The Power of Now”. So New Age spirituality influenced. “Light” was among the first batch of songs Trey debuted after August 7th 2008 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn , NY venue capacity of 650.

4. Crosseyed and Painless: The first three songs of this set were all building to this peak of explosive energy.

5. Twist: A cool down of sorts because let’s be honest that Crosseyed energy is just unsustainable, but still they kept exploring musically and the whoos were a nice release after the tension and transcendence of Crosseyed

6. Cavern: Before this started Trey made it sound like this was the closer which Cavern is known for. Cavern, another Phish staple. Rocking with weird trippy lyrics. Surreal. Fantasy. A little funky too courtesy of Mike’s bass playing

7. First Tube. To fakeout encore and get this bonus just felt like a gift. And it’s atypically exploratory musically like the first three songs of this set.

Encore:

After “First Tube” ended I screamed something like “Feeeeeee, please! I haven’t seen it in like 20 yeeaars! last one I saw was Camden 09 and only one before that was Starlake 03. “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need.”-Brenda

Drift While Your Sleeping: Any song that isn’t a dance number gets bitched about being piayed at Phish shows. Phish shows are known for their dance parties. This show as a whole is more cerebral than dance party. It’s one of those shows that has relisten value for when you are by yourself driving, walking, sitting and listening, whatever. Drift is indeed an epic song and the message is about the power of love. it’s not all peaches and cream, but our days are fleeting anyway. “we move through stormy weather, we know that our days are few, and we dream and struggle together and love will carry us though”.

Alternatively, in the tweaked words of Robert Hunter:

“Some come to dance the night away, some come to make it just one more day. Whichever way your pleasure tends, if you plant ice you’re going to harvest wind”.