Alright Night 1 in Manchester down. First time at this venue and I really like it. It’s def a classic New England Phish venue, and the city of Manchester has welcomed us with open arms so far.

First set starts out good with some classic Phish songs. If I’m going to recommend anything from this set it’s Theme From the Bottom. This version was sick and it’s has this really cool type 2 jam that I need to revisit. Loved the Slave call to end set 1.

Set 2 starts out ok for me. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere Life Saving Gun rips me into a new universe. Might be the best version ever? I’ll let everyone else debate that. Twist is next and what a version it is, another must listen from this show. Piper has a nice jam and then Everything’s Right was very good, honesty the last part of the jam kind of reminded me of Slave. Very solid set.

Encore is just classic Phish and I loved it.

Overall had a great first night and am excited for the next two. I’d rate this one about a 4.2/5

Set 1

Moma Dance - Standard

BOTT - Standard

Wolfman’s - Show is annoyingly standard at this point
Theme - Above average for Theme. Just after the 8 minute mark it departs from a typical Theme major key jam and into the kind of bouncing psychedelic funk space that the band loves these days. Mike is heard from for the first time in the set.
Old Home Place - Keep the Phishgrass coming
46 Days - Dark, intense. Really like the way they play this tune these days.
BoaF - Standard.
Slave - Wasn’t very well executed to my ears

Set 2

Bouncing - Standard

Sample - Weird call

LSG - Typical LSG jam for the first half, then ends up in a major key bliss space for a while. Last 5 minutes are solid with Fish picking up the intensity and Page throwing down some nice ideas with Trey playing rhythm guitar. Was good in the moment but not a ton of replay value.

Twist - Fantastic. Starts in a typical Twist space with Trey playing short phrases and the rest of the band doing stocatto stuff. Around the 8 minute mark Page starts layering thick textures under Trey’s lines and the jam becomes more and more deeply psychedelic from there. By 14 minutes we are in a deeply ambient space reminiscent of the 2000/2003 style. Really really cool stuff. Trey had an opportunity to blow the roof off the place with the right setlist call here but decided to throw some cold water on the show with -> Piper

Piper - Standard. Wish they’d play this one like it’s meant to be played.

Everything’s Right - The most frequent 2nd set closer over the last 2 years is my least favorite in this slot. Jam is solid, gets into a Manteca space but they opt not to put a crab in our shoe mouth. Ending section is a boring major key bliss jam and the set closes.

Encore

Strange Design - Nice call

Hood - Something went wrong with Trey’s guitar during the peak and they didn’t quite stick the landing unfortunately

Suzy Greenberg - Nice little surprise to finish.

Good show for a tour opener. There’s room to get a lot better but this didn’t feel like a complete throwaway show like tour openers sometimes do. Should get rated around 4.1 based on how shows have been rated the past few years.