, attached to 2011-05-28

Review by Campster

Campster After the tour opening barn-burner, I had high hopes for this one. I mentioned the absolutely perfect camping at the equifunk campground - so let's just say, it was awesome to get an afternoon set from the heavy pets pre-show.

On to show time:

Theme opened the show in similarly surprising fashion to the Tweezer of the night before. Worked well for me here, no complaints.

NICU brought the dancing fun and was perfect in the two spot.

Cities...yes! I was hoping for a Berkley 2010 chilled out funk jam, what we got was an equally satisfying scorcher of a jam. Trey absolutely slaughtered this one. Remains a great version that I revisit 5 years later.

Halley's Comet, hasn't blasted off often in 3.0 so this one was a real treat. They played the song well and quickly moved into a nice jam space. Type II early in set I. This is certainly noteworthy at over 12 minutes, particularly in the modern era. It won't stand up with the all time best versions, but it's still awesome.

>Runaway Jim - really nice transition into a really awesome version. They hit a plinko style jam in the breakdown that was absolutely unreal. This deserves to be a notable version for me - despite not being annotated in the setlist. This was already a special set 1.

Gumbo was more than welcome and was a good version without being exploratory. Great song.

Quinn the Eskimo didn't quite hit the heights of the SuperBall version (which is the best version they have ever played for my money), but it still rocked.

Limb by Limb was nice and continued a set full of quality jamming.

Horn was a nice breather and I love that pretty melody.

Bathtub Gin->Manteca>Gin / GoldenGinTeca, whatever you want to call it - was absolutely bonkers. They absolutely crushed the classic Gin jam, with Trey hitting some really nice runs and the rest of the band propelling everything forward. The momentum was unstoppable and the Golden Age Jam was awesome with Mike and Phish driving this one and Trey eventually getting the lightbulb moment to play Manteca at a rather high speed clip. Return to the Gin theme capped off a truly glorious jam after a near perfect set.

Overall Set I: Woah, just two shows into tour and you'd be hard pressed to find a better set I in the entire 3.0 era.
Highlights: Cities Halley's>Jim Gin->Manteca>Gin (but really you can't go wrong throwing this one on top to bottom)

After that set, I was hoping for some more jams in set II.
They kicked off with DWD, which fulfilled it's end of the bargain quite well. This wasn't the longest version, but hit some awesome spaces. Standard Great type I rock out and a pretty cool effects, spacey type II section. It felt pretty ambient, which was really awesome.

Nice drop into Free, segue was butter out of the soundscape. Free was its typical punchy self. Good times had by all.

Numberline was up next and once they cleared the lyrics this jam just took off. This song almost always has a nice jam, but this version was different. I felt like this was straight out of the Grateful Dead playbook, with really nice interplay between all members without sort of filling up too much space. It shifted noticeably a couple of times between light and dark too, without really abandoning the structure. This one was just totally unique for me and Trey sank his teeth into the ending as well. Really Really great.

Makisupa Policeman was a hoot with Trey taking us on a tour of each band member's house. Mike's house brought us a great bass solo, but Page's house was pure unadulterated sex. Probably my favorite minute or two of the show was Page's house - just an unreal feeling inside the venue - people were getting down! Fish's house took us into comedy territory before kicking into ...

Hood! Nice mid/late set placement. This was before the great Hood renaissance of 3.0, but this version definitely stepped diagonally for a bit away from the sort of classic build. Another real highlight jam of the show. Interesting/unique version that is for sure worth a spin.

Cavern rocked as usual, and was perfect here. Great vibes continue. Celebration.

David Bowie! Great call to close down the set. This one fit the typical 3.0 style and was adequately amazing. I did think Trey ripped into the ending in better fashion than many previous version. Overall a perfect ending if not overwhelmingly unique (like the rest of the set that preceded it).

Overall Set II: Wow, great set top to bottom. I guess you could gripe that they played a standard Free? That would make you a pretty darn persnickety fan though.
Highlights: DWD, #Line, Makisupa, Hood (but really, like set I the whole thing delivers a great experience).

Encore: ADITL was a good call - a really awesome one to hear (and my first).

Overall show: Wow, this was by far the best top to bottom show I had seen. So many highlights, great song selection, and jamming throughout starting with song number 3 in set I!! This one holds up as one of my favorite shows. What makes it really great is that you can literally just pop on the first track and let it run, no lulls, no downers, no bad playing. I guess the only potential pitfall is no true signature jam in set II, and the makisupa doesn't translate to tape? I'm stretching.

4.25/5 Comfortably upper tier 3.0 - one of the shows of the tour.


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