Great Have Mercy into a very strong Hood, Trey tears it apart. I really enjoyed The Pendulum, it was a lot of fun and a great DEG. Short Icculus and a raging YEM to close. Help > Slip has some good jamming and they drop into Bag quite nicely. McGrupp is a lot of fun with Trey doing his Dylan impersonation and he's not bad. Standard fare to close out the show, oh and I LOVE Dear Mrs. Reagan, they need to bring that one back with updated lyrics.

There seems to be some nice progress in the couple months between this show and the circulating February show at hunts. Quinn is decent enough but the pure gold from this show is "Have Mercy" the middle section has some great Piano and Guitar interplay that is beautiful for any era, and something I will probably go back to which is saying a lot from this period. Hood is interesting because the middle section is quite different than what it will grow to be. Instead it includes teases from Col. Forbin and some other nice elements before concluding. The Pendulum is an interesting piece based on the fact that Phish has never known to be particularly politically charged (Jeff was probably the sole member who was) so it's cool to hear them do something like this. For cross over fans from the Dead community it is cool to hear the Help -> Slip suite with Bag at the end as opposed to Franklins Tower. The majority of the show is fairly lackluster and average for this year. Overall nothing to write home about besides the superb have mercy. But that's enough for a 3 star rating from me.

Fans of both Phish and the Dead will undoubtedly enjoy the "Help on the Way>Slipknot! second set opener, which I thought was very well played. The "Fade Away" encore starts strong, but fades away (no pun intended) after a minute or so. Otherwise, there isn't much to see here beyond some decent early versions of YEM (minus Mike's bass spanking) and Hood.
I think the most interesting listening "observations" of these early shows is the ambient noise of the crowds. You can clearly hear the entire bar having their own separate side conversations while the band jams away. If they only knew what they were missing!

This show is decent, with some phenomenal highlights, but there are also some lulls in it as well. A couple of notes before I get to my highlights. The first recording of Icculus is short and rather uneventful, none of the drawn out shenanigans we will one day anticipate. For YEM, they still haven't quite ironed out the "Boy Man God Shit" transition but the main composition is fairly solid and very funky. Finally, I wouldn't say that McGrupp is recited Dylan-esque (I was expecting weird singing with that comparison). Instead, it's more like a recitation, with poetic meter (which I guess you could say is Dylan-esque... but that's not what comes to mind when I hear that phrase!). Highlights:

1) Have Mercy: First known performance of this beloved cover, it has the absolutely gorgeous ethereal middle section, thanks to some reverb effects from Trey. Very cool!

2) Harry Hood: My god, this Hood peaks pretty hard. Perhaps the first great Hood I've encountered as I'm going through Phish's recorded history chronologically. Check this one out.

3) Help on the Way> Slipknot!: In particular, the Slipknot! jam gets pretty wild, with essence of some of the ragier Antelopes that would emerge in '92/'93. The chaotic rage dissolves into some absolutely weird spacey jam with lots of synth-effects from Page and then later some echoing bass from Mike. Eventually the jam seamlessly segues into...

4) AC/DC Bag: ...Such a cool little intro fpr AC/DC Bag! Very slick! The first recorded version of Bag is a banger from day 1. Great tune from the outset.

5) Dear Mrs. Reagan: First recorded performance of this song... meh, it's OK. Check it out if you've never heard this tune.