My girlfriend and I hit the Sunday/Monday shows coming away obviously pleased. Our plan was to fly home today after seeing some old friends in the city and return excited and rejuvenated for the new year.

Except we live in Syracuse. We were convinced the current storm was gonna get our flight canceled but delta said “whatever man, let’s try it”.

They get the plane loaded and then three minutes later tell everyone to get off. 3 delays/hours later I just turn to her and was like “wanna just go to the show?”

Haul our ass back to the city, changing reservations and scrambling to buy last minute tickets, all the while thinking “is this going to be worth it? Are we being idiots?”

Friends, the answer to both questions is “yes”.

What a show, what a run, and what a story I will tell way too many times to my friends in the years to come.

Remember that you do sometimes get a return on the faith you provide.

-Joe O’B

My review is simple. Was it the greatest show I've ever seen? No. Did it rock? Yes! First set was hit after hit, leaving little to be desired (other than maybe a little tempo). Second set was jam city, ending with a very appropriate cavern and first tube to bring the crowd back. The encore was fine, not great, but fine. Overall I'd give tonight a 3.85-3.9, it was a great show under normal circumstances, but tonight was new years run MSG, instead it was very good in comparison to the night before.

Night 3, the fabled 12-30 date along with all the hype in the world after 2 fantastic shows - Phish had to come ready to meet the expectations ready for this one.

The word for this show was "locked in" - the jams tonight nary wasted a moment - it felt like they all had a plan and they were all executed well.

No random bust out for this show - but a lot to offer. Another sandwich with chalkdust and Moma got us started. Tube, like usual was a massive dance party. (Crowd like usual was amazing and eating it up as they should!) But the easy highlight of the 1st set is the melt, which had my jaw melting to the msg floor at the end.

2nd set here the heat gets turned up, and this is where we get some HOT, really intense, focused jamming. My friend said he felt like every time the jam ended tonight, they had plenty of room to keep going and STILL keep it interesting, which I agree. Ghost thru first tube was just a straight up classic MSG dance party, you did not want to leave your seat unless your bladder was exploding or you had to catch an early train.

It was night I left the garden feeling satisfied despite the show ending well before 1130 and only a drift encore (I actually dont hate drift I just think as a standalone encore its on the weaker side of things) --- all in all this was a fucking fantastic phish show with strong jamming - our section on the chase bridge rocked as hard as ever!!!!

Set One: B
Set Two A

Rating: 4.3

Professional, workmanlike set list and show. A few high points (Axilla) in set one, good energy throughout. Second set was a bit aimless with the explorations, but ended with great energy. As with any “average” Phish show, it was excellent! In reference to themselves (see the night before), it was as certainly not their best. Possibly holding a little back for a big one the next night.

My only request for this show was no Tweezer, and the boys delivered! Tight composed parts, deep communicative jamming, and amazing segues back into songs. All of the first three nights have been of high quality in different ways: it’s truly an embarrassment of riches / “pick your poison” assortment.

As we settled into encore and I heard "It will all feel new," it dawned on me that this was a fitting theme for this night, where some classics were trotted out, but in typical fashion, with different takes that felt new and invigorating.

Jotting down some quick thoughts:

Set 1 - very nice. Would have liked to remove a song or 2 to allow more time for some of these other excellent jams to be expanded
- CDT-Moma Dance-CDT sandwich another fun back and forth. 3rd night in a row with a playback song, is this a tell for NYE?
- BOTT - really excellent type I jam
- Divided Sky and Reba - nothing fancy, just done right
- Tube - Soaring, funky, great type II stuff!
- SOAM - Evil Phish. Not unlike some of the versions of the past few years in its approach, but once again pulling itself from the Phish-induced wreckage was mind boggling, patiently and expertly done

Set 2 - Rocked hard, with the first 4 songs equating to about an hour of non-stop type II jams that went in different places. Ghost, Light, and Crosseyed and Painless were all standout versions in my book.
- Ghost: Great interplay, smooth and deft movements to different chords and tempos
- Light: Beautiful as always, but a little more juice and just a very pleasing set of melodies
- Crosseyed and Painless: So funky, so exciting, this one really got all of the crowd going and would highly recommend this relatively short but sweet version
- First Tube: Great set closer after a high energy Cavern that Trey teased us by pretending this was the final song, Trey really wanted everyone engaged here and brought it!!!

Not a sensational show, but an excellent one nonetheless, with several type I and type II jams that stuck their landings, and the band on their game playing all their classic and complicated tunes without a hitch.

One more night and crossing my fingers for more Phish magic