just the encore of night 2/halloween, extended "suzy".
listening to this weekend, trey is the reason why i am considering selling my MSG tix.
until they finally did some cool shit with set 3 last night. check that out.

I now have an extra for 12/4.

your own?

No, I'm still making it, but I "won" 2 tix through the lottery so I have an extra.

Great. At the moment, I have 3 extras.

not my link, but it's working for now

Nice, Fryxell. The Light is growing brighter now.

They can really do a great job covering an album when they don't try to go outside their vocal range (ahem...Quadrophenia....)

This acoustic set is all kinds of awesome. Makes me wish they'd do an all-acoustic tour.

I listened to the afternoon set from 10/31 today having only heard bits and pieces in the car on saturday: I really enjoyed it; I know a lot of it is not your cup of tea jon, but everything in that set (even "Kill Devil Falls" which is a stupid song with a killer jam) is right in my wheelhouse.

I was thinking of what my ranking of these "costume" sets would be and a huge consideration for me is "could the band that did this originally have pulled this off as good or better than Phish did?" In the case of The Who and The Talking Heads the answer is most definitely "hell yes", with The Beatles and VU its an emphatic "hell no" and with The Stones its a "probably not"

Home finally! I wanted to chime in that as a non-Phish person I really enjoyed the acoustic set and the final set yesterday. The final set esp. they seemed to finally put the "jam" in "jam band" - absolutely stunning! And yes, those last 3 songs (pre-encore) were excellent.

Here's the neat part: Bands in general are very wary of cameras invading their space on stage and obv. we knew our place and obliged. Sometime during the extended break between sets 1 and 2 on Sunday the truck was replaying the last set from Sat. in 3D inside. I believe Phish's lighting dir. was in there (to get some tips from production about helping the look). Also, I'm pretty sure that the band got to see some of the playback as well at some point because we were specifically asked to send one of the stedicams right out in front of them and "get in their faces" during the jam towards the end of the last set! (while the big balloon thingy was floating above) You may have noticed this on the screens, or on stage itself if you were close enough. This 3D stuff sells itself!

I cannot wait to see this final production in 3D! F-ing awesome!

Fot the record, I lived under the stage during the sets assisting the 2 stage stedicams via wireless.

Thanks folks - this was fun!

I listened to a lot of this today and holy shit is it good. That whole section Mike's through Slave really is some of the strongest playing I've heard out of them in a long time.

cybin, it sounds like you had an incredible perspective of this event. unbelievable!!

yail, i don't necessary like most of the new songs – they're growing on me – but i'm happy to hear them because they're yielding the most original jams by far. almost all the songs we know are seeming scripted start to finish, including 'improvisations'. Light was the highlight of the festival. Sugar Shack is sweet. I agree about Kill Devil Falls. I'm glad you're feeling the new stuff.

The acoustic set was extremely refreshing – mostly for song selection, as Trey's playing didn't really impress – and I would love to see them incorporate some in the fall tour. 11/1 third set was the best thing I've heard out of them in almost a decade. So happy they finished on top here. They'll get better and better this fall.

I have some theories and suggestions.

if i could rank them:

remain in light
loaded
exile
white album
quadrophenia

talking heads and vu signified a direction the band was taking and solidified it at the time. different case now in that the costume is preceding what they'll do for the rest of the year (and if it's space, hopefully, it'll have little to do with the stones). but the truth is phish is more of a rock band now than ever before.

I went out there from Asheville and ended up camping with friends in the Kid A campground. Top to bottom it was an incredible show. I'm in the minority in that I'm not much into the Stones, so I spent that set wandering through the sculpture gardens, getting some stuff to eat and drink and trying to get some decent photos of the installations.

I can't get over how much Kuroda did with the lights around the venue. Between the fire sculptures, the 8 giant flame thrower towers, the palm trees and the lighting at the Bloody Mary Bar, the place took on a real fantasyland feel.

Granted, each of the three nights I was in a headspace that was pretty condusive to enjoying the lights and all, but they sounded fantastic, as well.

My only regret was not getting a donut on Sunday.

And yeah - the acoustic set owned it all and I still seem to feel that the jamming was decent. But again, I need to hear them some more before I can really decide one way or another on the playing. Psilocybin and lysergic acid tends to fill in for any mistakes the band may or may not have had.

What a way to end my 35th Birthday Month.

Nice! You did at least HEAR the Exile set right?

"Psilocybin and lysergic acid tends to fill in for any mistakes the band may or may not have had."

Nice. Ecstasy kind of exacerbated it.

I've always thought acid and shrooms exacerbated mistakes/bands being "off" and X made everything cool-de-la.

... the sudden crash of a trey flub.

i'll say it again and again, this band will be better when trey stops trying to recreate notes, and let the rest of his awesome bandmates, who haven't faltered physically much (fishman's slipped a bit with trey), step up and shape their sound.

page mcconnell owned it this weekend and is clearly emerging as the one trying to push their sound.

I was within the concert field for the whole of Exile, I just wasn't listening that closely. I was back at the Coil and wandering at the time.

The tripping effect probably would've made me care more if it weren't for the fact that I was a) grinning from ear to ear all weekend and b) already on a (prescribed) medication to balance out my seratonin. Most of my crew was rolling throughout the weekend, so maybe their happiness rubbed off on me. I don't know.

I figure I'll get the mp3's tonight and start working through the weekend. I have a feeling I'll hear the flubs that did happen, but I still don't really care. I had a blast and that's all I was looking for.

Finally, that comment about Trey just letting some of it go - perhaps playing with a less is more approach - would probably work out better. And the biggest difference between current (clean) Trey and Trey from Phish 2.0 is that when he does screw up, he's not completely screwed for the rest of the song. He can usually improv out of the hole. That wasn't the case in 03/04.

fuck that sounds like fun. let me just say that it was really a trip to be able to listen along to these shows live. a real wonder of today that i could simulcast crisp audio. and just fucking weird watching tweets and message boards go off with instantaneous praise or criticism, note-by-note, literally.

i totally agree that less would be more. fall 97 for instance was arguably their best period because trey perfected being able to sit back, and when he did break out it was with machine guns ablaze.

i only hate cuz i care. i'll be following along.

I saw them in Syracuse on Sunday night. I met my cousin there for his birthday show, and a bunch of other good company. The venue was arguably the best arena I've ever seen a show in, rivaled only by others like it: a minor-league hockey arena seating 7000, with no rear of stage, just a brick wall, no ads, no lights, great sound, not a bad seat in the house. And the band responded in a serious way, playing one of the most energetic shows I've seen, and easily among the best I've seen since Big Cypress. One of the most fun times, unarguably, in that time too.

11/22/09 Onondaga War Memorial Auditorium, Syracuse, NY
Set I: David Bowie, Julius, Sparkle, Kill Devil Falls, Lawn Boy, Heavy Things, Funky Bitch, Sample in a Jar, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Let Me Lie, Beauty of a Broken Heart, Stash
Set II: Drowned> Twist> Piper> Big Black Furry Creature from Mars, Tube, Theme from the Bottom, Maze, The Horse> Silent in the Morning, Character Zero, First Tube
Encore: Good Times Bad Times

Bummed to be missing my boy's stag at the Albany shows this weekend, but will be at nights 2 and 3 of MSG.

You can download soundboards of this tour here, shhh:

Happy New Years...from 10 years ago.

Phish Dec. 29-31 1999 Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation

I'll never forget this. Not because I was there, but because I wasn't. I was working at Wachovia Bank and no employees could take off due to the Y2K hype. Ridiculous. I definitely considered quitting just to go to FL. I'd say regret to "glad I didn't have to deal with the hassle of being stuck in traffic for a day" is 51/49.

Close the shutters, draw the shades
Filter out the Everglades...