Great night in Cincy! I made plans to attend the show with several of my old tour phriends a while back, and since it was my girlfriend's first show, there were plenty of trusted people to give her different viewpoints of the "unfamiliar" scene. Sitting in VIP having pre-show cocktails, her questions were flying.

The first set was great, and started with a Wolfie's that had us rocking from the get-go. Fishman messed up the intros to Poor Heart and Moma, and had everyone laughing. The band razzed him and you could tell that they were clearly having a great time on stage. Well played versions of Peaches, Shaggy Dog, Light up, and I Saw it Again stand out as highlights to me. Of course, the Bowie set closer was awesome.

Second set started strong with DwD>Guelah, and then as it was beginning to get dark, CK really turned up the light show a notch, as the end of Kill Devil Falls light show into Twist was wayyyy cool. Also of note, during the Twist jam, I thought I heard Eleanor Rigby (which turned out to be teased the NEXT night during Maze, which later I thought was kinda strange considering I knew I heard it at Cincy) and mentioned it to my buddy Kingston, who said he thought he had heard it, too. I had played a Jerry Band version during the road trip up to Cincy and had thought my ears were just playing tricks on me, but evidently not.

The Halley's was great but seemed to end prematurely going into a phenomenal Sand. Loved that jam! Roggae kinda fell into a place I would have never thought, and turned out to be one of the major highlights of that night. I never really got that song before, having seen it many times since it debuted in summer 98, but loved it in Cincy. I remember when it seemed every show opened with Chalkdust and the Chalkdust near the end of the show was AWESOME and full of energy. I thought it was going to be the end of the show, and had really hoped they would play Golgi that night, and then they surprised me and went into a rocking version. That was a surprise to me and I pogoed like a young phool.

The Fluff encore was SICK SICK SICK and, although I didn't know it until texting some friends while in post show traffic that it had not encored in ages, I knew there was something a little extra special about it in the encore slot.

Happy crowd + beautiful night + quirky setlist = great show

Get a copy of this show for your perusal.

Cheerz,
Phred