Thursday that week was mostly spent puffing sweet herbs, drinking beer and hanging out with other phans that I knew. Busy day, laid-back night. On to Friday!

I woke up around 10am and the first thing I heard was "Sangrias! Ice cold Sangrias, 5 bucks each" so naturally I stumbled out of my tent and grabbed some for our crew. They were made with a ton of fresh fruit, strawberries, grapes, melon, kiwi, all sorts of deliciousness. It was the perfect way to get up on the first actual day of Magnaball. Sangria guy, if you're reading this, THANK YOU.

set 1:

Party favors consumed, mildly stoned, good to go. Everyone was so PUMPED to see Phish play! Simple was the perfect choice for an opener. The crowd probably would have accepted just about anything but Simple was really great, and had a good bit of jamming. I kind of had a "holy crap" moment when Trey started playing TMWSIY because I had never heard it before in a live setting, Thanks Trey! Such a beautiful song. Avenu Malkenu was another new one for me, and a tune that I love because it is based in a 5/4 time signature and has lyrics that almost no one knows how to sing Pretty solid start to the first set of Magnaball, I'd say...

The first really impressive part of 1st set in my opinion was Roggae. The band interplay was just insane during this tune, and I remember the peak being pretty great. Make no mistake, Cactus is the star of this version. Everyone sounded great but it was definitely Mike that stole the spotlight. Rift came after Roggae, another solid performance that had most of the fans dancing. Trey didn't nail his parts 100% but whatever.

The Bathtub Gin following is a BEAST. Between the awesome music happening on stage and Kuroda's incredible manipulation of the lights, I think most of us were already blown away by the 9 or 10 minute mark. Around 12 minutes in this Gin, Trey shifts straight into ROCK STAR mode!! Yessss! It peaks a few times and seamlessly transitions into a section I can hardly describe but is pretty funky and filled with spacey effects from Page/Mike/Trey. This lasts for about 2 minutes before once again we enter ROCK STAR mode! Trey rips this Gin a new a-hole and it just ends up being a glorious 1st set closer.

(I may have smoked an entire joint during this Gin because it was so good)

tl;dr highlights- Simple, TMWSIY, Roggae, Gin

--

SET 2:

Phish wastes no time in picking up right where they left off. The CDT that happens is absolutely wild -

Main theme > awesome Trey solo > back to chorus > Blast off

I won't do a play-by-play for this one, because it's not really necessary. What I can say is that the CDT is one of the most perfectly constructed jams of the year (while not being that long) and yet it doesn't really peak. Instead, it drops into a Ghost!

This version is pretty funky, and downright evil at times. Full of lurching, oozing guitar effects (Trey with his TruTron pedal)
and stereo delays. There's a moment where it seems they're going to bring it to a strange atonal peak but it kind of falls apart, and goes back to spacey weirdness. At one point Trey hits the reverse button on his delay pedal and makes the crowd feel silly for a minute, but they land on a chord right after that and make a pretty sweet transition to Rock and Roll.

Page kicking ass on the piano, and more rock star Trey here - this is where some SERIOUS playing happens and suddenly it made sense why they didn't just keep jamming on Ghost. For only a 10-minute R&R this is a fantastic version! Right after what seems to be a WTU? tease by Mike, they drop into a groove that had me almost 100% sure we were getting a Makisupa, but nope! Harry Hood was next. Another great segue in a night chock full of them.

Now if I do a review of every song here it will take too long... Hood is one of my favorite Phish songs though and there will never be a time when Phish plays it and I don't love every second. Like everything that was played at MB, this is it's own unique version. Not a Hollywood Hood, or a Mann Hood, but a Magna Hood.

The rest of the show? Well, you can imagine... I had no objections to any of it, and I danced my a** off. If you actually read this far, I commend you.

This whole 2nd set is worth listening to. Please do it if you have the time. Last thing to mention is do NOT miss out on this Slave. If you listen to this 2nd set and don't hit the Slave, it doesn't count. YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO SLAVE!!!

thanks for reading, I love you

~skytrainwand