Great tour open. I composed these thoughts about the Hood.

the Great Woods Hood. 18 minutes.... The band is so fresh, they're hitting the grooves like a symphony. 4 guys, no 5th or 6th musician to add counterpoint or orchestration, or to further open the rhythm... and still, they do their best to make each member of the band play an entire symphony-section's worth of music in each their line. Large groups make the music sound upright. Mistakes are felt less, each member of each section supporting one another.... Symphonies do better, but Phish are only 4 guys, representing a symphonic rock and troll approach. (Although the new material is usually more from a place of sincerity that is consistent with their development as human beings.... rock and troll).

[It's ] Early [in the] tour, the band ---- they really feeling it. They always top themselves with Stash and Hood at Great Woods. I swear, you will never find a bad version of either of those tunes at that venue. You've got to wonder what the story behind that is.

[a few minutes into the jam] Trey connects to this familiar chord progression in the midst of the jam; feels familiar, a minor pentatonic triad of chords, hitting once major and back..... He doesn't just abandon that theme relatively quickly, he then moves into this solo that builds on what came before. A few minutes later, he's toying with a simplified calypso sound that lightens the air and invites Page's piano work into equation, and a one on one with Trey and Page ensues while Fish and Mike support perceptively. Then, we get Trey playing this riff that could have come from the Tower Jam; ascending notes in alien form... moving into plinko, but plinko 2.0 for sure. Far more textured, and has an added eloquence compared to the former approach. They're able to take this plinko space a long dinstance without losing interest or momentum..... Then into arpeggios, and this half-calypso, half-funk pattern, giving room for Page to test the electronic sounds. It's growing more rhythmic, so Fish hits the toms, and Mike drops into this moody riff.... Mike starts pumping the groove into the aural tube, and the band goes straight alien until Trey starts to play these riffs that are associated with former eras of pure rage.... he kinda coasts in this fashion, takes pause, comes back in and Fish goes double-time! It's Page's groove now, as though moving towards Charlie Brown Vince Guaraldi territory. A quick modification back into the tonic key, and a lightning bridge is built right back into Hood. [I'm] listening to this one in 24 bit. Silky. The band is playing the shit out of this Hood peak, completely authentic to the moment. Complete unity. Trey flubs the entrance into the closing stanza ([but] not nearly as badly as Great Woods '09's Hood, one that's also worth a revisit). They close, as usual, on the sounds of triumph.