Set 1: The opening Tweezer, while not exactly 11/17/97's version (or, for that matter, Portland's), still gave both the band and the crowd time to stretch their legs to prepare for a wild and crazy night (oops, sorry to give that away). The rest of the set is pretty mellow, especially in comparison to some of the stronger first sets of the tour, but that's not the worst thing in the world. Fish's new song is, uh, something.

Set 2: Hoo boy. Let's break this up into bullet points:

- C&P comes roaring out of the gates, as full of piss and vinegar as it usually is, and after a blistering Type I jam slides into a mellower range as Page moves to the clavinet and Trey makes the call for major key. The resulting jam, while not particularly long, is still a fine sign of things to come;

- WTU? pops out at the back end (not quite a segue), and enriches our lives for a few brief minutes, even dying away to a hush nearly as gorgeous as that of Magnaball's defining version - proof positive that the band has really got a handle on WTU? nowadays;

- NMINML returns to Set II, gets grottier and nastier than the usual version, and with the flipping of a switch (in this case, a Crosseyed & Painless tease/quote) the band really starts cranking into the usual funk jam, Page hopping onto electric piano to add some nice color to the proceedings. I can't say this quite broke into Type II the way NYE '15's did, but it's still a strong version in the mold of, say, 7/25/15's. Then Trey, for whatever reason, pulls out the opening thread to Stash, and the rest of the band takes a second and a half to catch on, but a) I've heard much worse "r-words" in my life, and b) the band really never stopped playing, so I think a -> is apropos;

- The first second-set Stash since 7/2/11 features tinges of C&P in the "maybe so, maybe not" section, then Trey wanders back into WTU?, leading to a brief, charming mashup (always fun when Page follows along with Trey while the rhythm section holds down the fort), before the band absolutely rips apart the usual Stash jam;

- Ghost comes in next (Trey blasts into it so fast that one wonders if this is what he had in mind after NMINML and Stash was just a fun detour), and Trey tosses in both C&P and WTU? teases during the song, then as the jam blooms into something wider the band makes their way over to Fish's kit (first Trey to the Marimba Lumina - hey, he loved the mini-kit, too - then Mike and Page to Fish's kit) and they break out a crazy rhythmic jam (Fish sings/screeches the lyrics to NMINML & C&P too, the goof). And then, as the band returns to their normal instruments, Trey decides that one good idea deserves another, and they neatly -> back into a reprise of NMINML (does that count as a sandwich? Ah, the things you think about when writing a review at 4 AM);

- Trey takes another run at segueing into CDT after the botched try at SPAC (if you listen to the 7/1 Carini - and damn, should you! - you can hear him intermittently teasing it starting about 9 minutes in), and this time he pulls it off perfectly, leading to a wonderful segue into the song proper. We get more NMINML, WTU?, and C&P teases in the song proper (gotta love it when Trey is dialed in enough to actually make the teases fit into the song), then the normal CDT ending collapses in on itself into spooky ambiance, which leads to, uh, Meatstick;

- Meatstick is Meatstick, but Trey kicks on the Echoplex to change things up a bit, and things get a bit dissonant and weird, almost Ghost-ish, but instead the band builds up the fog of noise that told you Also Sprach Zarathustra was coming in the late 90s;

- And Also Sprach Zarathustra is exactly what we get, and both this and Cavern make for a fun (and, again, tease-laden) end to the set. The encore is exactly what it looks like.

Final thoughts: I called 6/28/16 a great '93-style show, but this is a great version of the '93 shows that *you remember*. Hell of a way to kick off the West Coast "leg" of the summer tour.

Not really a show reviewer guy, but I thought I might as well give my thoughts on this one.

All tour, I have sensed tiredness from Phish. Every time that 4th quarter of dad rock began, I sighed, because it just sounded like it was the easy way out; like they had enough.

You can call it trying new things; taking risks, but by most metrics, this practice sucked to blow. I wasn't asking for the second set to be structured a certain way, for jams to go type two, or every jam to do X,Y or Z, I just wanted the band to branch out more with the setlist structure (and maybe jam a bit more instead of shooting through midlife crisis song after veiled Christian rock song etc.), as did a few others, but if you even barely criticized the setlist flow or the band's choices as of late, then you got an obnoxious rebuttal from some fanboy, which either said ''Well I had a great time'' (who gives a shit?!?), or ''They're taking risks, and you're not 110% on board with it , thus you're not a real phan!''.

I'm exaggerating a bit but this The tour had it's fair shares of massive highs and plunging lows, the latter especially common as of late, to the point where I seriously wondered if this tour would be very pedestrian and a pretty big let down, but last night, Trey, Mike, Page and Fish quashed those thoughts with a cavalcade of great music that I was up at Sunrise watching this, captivated at every turn.

After a first set with a nice albeit slightly aimless but rare Tweezer opener, the greatest ass song since Sir Mix a Lot, coupled with great banter, The Crosseyed jam opened the second set and it was a wonder to behold: all four members are locked in and fully focused. It never really went anywhere, not too unlike the starting Tweezer, but damn did they want to, and that eagerness in all four was just fantastic to see. Then they went into WTU, led by a devastating > by Trey (devastating in the very, very best way possible). Page just murdered it here with the CS-80; as did Fish, with his thundering and utterly booming slow rolls, and while it wasn't quite as good as the 12/30/15 version, the interplay was truly great to watch and beautiful to hear.

NMINML came next and featured some good Page and Trey interplay, and Trey began the teasefest to continue the rest of the night with a Crosseyed quote, before messily diving headfirst into Stash, which did it's thing before heading into Ghost, where Trey hopped on the Marimba Lumina before Fish picked up the tempo and before too long, all four were manning the kit. This is all good fun, but seeing every two shows as of late is starting to wear a bit thin frankly, but hearing Fish wailing ''STIIIIIIIIIIL WAAAAAAAAIIIIITIIING'' and seeing Trey beat that Marimba like it owes him money was damn funny, and then they went back into NMINML, but then Chalkdust kicked the in door for the second time since the SPAC ripcord massacre (#NEVERFORGET), the band still seething and grinning with energy.

Chalkdust had a nice if pedestrian peak, then went a into weird, loopy and discordant ambient section... for about 20 seconds, before going into Meatstick. I wouldn't have minded if that last bit was stretched out a bit, but it was time for the Meatstick, which actually also had a really nice if small hypnotic jam out of it, at first led by Page before briefly going into space, then literally going into space for 2001, which... well does it's thing. Sensing a bit of a pattern?

Some of the songs in the second set here, many of which are tried and tested jamming juggernauts are just kind of... transients; staying for a while, not really doing much then leaving on their merry way. Still better than 50 minutes of Architect anyway. Then, it's Cavern to close the set and then Makisupa (and who doesn't love Makisupa?), Wilson and Good Times Bad Times for the encore.

OVERALL:

If I had one problem with the show, it's that some songs didn't quite reach their full potential, and often just kind of went by with little to no fanfare, but it was obvious that there was massive enthusiasm and willing by all four members, as evidenced by the constant, fantastic interplay and the number of great jams in the second set, and that really counts for a lot.

So I guess this is kind of one that I like a bit more for what it tries to do than what it really does, but damn does it have some great stuff along the way, and I can see a very bright Summer ahead.

Best Parts: Crosseyed > WTU, Ghost, Meatstick (yes)

OVERALL: 4 - 4.5/5

The show itself was incredible. I haven't seen Phish at the Gorge since 2003 & from the moment I got in I was totally elated to be witnessing such a fun & high energy show. Meatstick always delights & is usually my favorite tune of the night if I'm lucky enough to get it however last night Makisupa was the greatest thing that could ever happen. The whole encore was perfect. Some might complain there was no reprise but for me a three song encore with a Makisupa, a gamhenge tune & a cover is nothing to complain about!
That being said I do have one complaint. Not with Phish of course they can no wrong in my mind & heart ever. Its live nation that's a piece of shit. My boyfriend & heard the opener from the car, which really set him off in a state of pure anger because he's been wanting a Tweezer all tour & hadn't gotten one yet at any of the four shows he went to back East. We walked over during Simple & had just past the gates & the welcome to the Gorge sign on song 3. We waited in line for over 2 hours to park our car with little to no movement the whole time. They had no idea what they were doing or how to filter people in & get them parked. I heard from other phriendly souls at the show that many of us experienced the same awful waiting experience & complete disappointment with how much they are dropping the ball on many things. They have no problem taking our money & over charging us for everything but they can only put one guy at an intersection filtering in thousands of vehicles?
As much as the boys delight & remind me over & over why I do what I do to get to the show; if live nation is making me have thoughts like maybe I won't ever come to one of the most beautiful venues in the world for the most amazing band of all time there's something very wrong with that picture.
Thank you phish.net for continually being there for all of us super fans & thank you Phish for a killer show last night in which I could not stop dancing, smiling, feeling light hearted & grateful to be at your show for my 165th time.

Yup!! And uhh hah! Darn right tootin. Show was some filthy with a few teases of dirty and a waltz into chalkdust. Stash was my favorite, but i always like that one. Couple groups are still lookin for their campsites, good luck to them. I need to right more to post this review, i just wanted to stop at yup!!

Okay. It has taken me a while to organize my thoughts on this. First, as I mentioned in my review of the official .net review of the show, I agree that the Gorge is one of those venues where you really do have to be there to truly understand where the music is coming from. I am just as much of a re-listen dork as anyone else, and there are certainly some shows where I leave ranting about how "next level" it was only to realize after listening that there were really only some standout moments but that my on-the-ground psyche level was more influenced by my friends and "mindframe," if you will.

The Gorge is a different can of red, red worms, however. The place is just fucking insane. A wise man put it succinctly (prior to aping out in a man-dress): "Wow. This. Place. Is. Awesome." Fish really nailed it with that one. The place is quite literally the most awe-inspiring venue in the country, and would still stand high on the list of most awe-inspiring landscapes in the U.S. in general. Being a person for whom Nature and Phish are pretty much my two forms of "Church," so to speak, the thing that I found so incredible about the Gorge (and this was my third time there for the Band, having been in '03 and '09 as well) is that it combines my two forms of spirituality into one mega-experience wherein one becomes lost in both the awe of the Columbia River Basin AND the awe of Phish until it becomes almost impossible to differentiate between the two. On a side note, one of my and my wife's guilty pleasures is to occasionally watch an episode of "Planet Earth" on mute with a favorite Phish show/ jam on (psychedelics optional but encouraged) - when you get it right it can be really insane. After Night 2 (which I will review separately), my wife and I turned to each other and instantly said, "We were just in Phish Planet Earth. Holy Shit." But Night 1 was where it started.

Anyways, onto the review. The Tweezer opener caught me off guard in the same way that the 2012 Dick's Undermind did - I was all like, "whoa, it's business time!" and was then forced to find my game face in a hurry. I thought the jam was incredibly high energy, and a clear message that the boys were there to kick some ass. Message received.

The rest of set 1 was great (yea sure I may have chosen some other songs at points but whatever), and began to create a theme in my mind of Phish trying to "play like the Columbia." Hear me out: rivers ebb and flow, they crash and they calmly swirl, they run over rocks and they fly through the air in waterfalls, they can inspire awe, fear, joy and longing. Rivers embody the passage of time, the inevitability of change, and, as part of the greater hydrologic cycle, they are a part of the never-ending, cyclical journey of all water on earth. Water is the great creator and the great destroyer. I highly recommend listening to Water (Ain't Got No Enemy) by Fela Kuti for more on that topic.

While on paper the first set may appear to have some "ups and downs," when you are there staring at the Gorge behind the band (the back of the stage was open on night 1, whereas it was blocked off on night 2...why?) it all fit perfectly. A river does not choose how it flows from one moment to the next, it just flows. And that's what Phish did (with, of course, a few obvious "shout outs" to water, rocks, and chasms to end the set, i.e., Tide Turns (which I like more and more due to the similarity of the end jam with "Looks Like Rain"), Rift and Walls of the Cave).

Okay. Set 2. Wow. First off, I would like to make a formal proposal for .netters from here on out. If you don't like it, just throw it right back. My proposal is to create a "Type 3" category. Allow me to explain: We all know what Type 1 and Type 2 mean, but what do you call a series of Type 1 songs/ themes that are woven together throughout the course of a set to create a unified "braid" of music that can only really be listened to as one cohesive piece of music? Type 3. The official review mentioned a couple of similar shows ('93 Roxy and '14 MMP2), and I would agree that those two could be categorized as Type 3 as well. You just can't pick a "song" to listen to and get it. It's all or nothing. I can't think of any more off the top of my head, but I know there have been others. The second set of Night 1 of the Gorge was fully Type 3, made even more so by the aforementioned combination of "nature-awe" and "Phish-awe." To me, it felt like Phish had fully adopted the river mindset, wherein each log, branch, or piece of detritus that enters the river stays in the river, emerging from the water now and then in no particular order as it makes it's way toward the ocean. Also, let's look at the lyrics of the three songs that became the bobbing logs, if you will.

In "Crosseyed," the chorus of "Still Waiting" represents what? The passage of time...the endlessness of things...In "NMINML," which is chock full of references to the natural world and the unknown, one line that particularly stood out for me was "You see us as a window. You're happy that we're here, exposed to all the elements, when inside all is clear..." Yes, Phish, at that time and in that place you were literally acting as a window and we were ALL very aware of the elemental exposure...we were all No Men in No Man's Land...and then there was the "What's The Use?" which was by far the favorite version I have ever seen. Holy shit. You wanna talk about a song that captures the feeling of looking into the great beyond? Beyond yourself and into the endless void? That's it. I'm getting goose bumps just writing about it. That WTU was EPIC. It felt like what the Gorge would be singing to us if it could.

And then they just braided those 3 songs into the river of the rest of the set, combining them with mastery into several other great choices that kept the energy high and the dance moves funky, all while making it seem as if it couldn't be more natural for those three songs to bob on up into the flow whenever the river told them to. It's as if Phish was not only acknowledging the mighty power and chaos of the Columbia, but also reminding us of how insignificant we all are in the face of millions of years of geologic history by asking "What's the Use of Still Waiting When We're All in No Men's Land Anyways?" Strong Magic. A Type 3 set that will always bring me back to that time and that place in a very special way.

And then the encore, which one could view as containing shout outs to WA's legal weed in Makisupa and Seahawks in Wilson...if one was so inclined. And then a final face melt with GTBT. Straight Gorged. All-Time.

Ahhhh....
It's so much nicer to sit down and write this thing actually having been there!

A brief note: I write a lot of reviews on here and anyone who's read them knows I can be a pretty critical Phish fan. Gearing up for this run, I was like, "Fuck it. It's on ME if I expect them to walk out and play 12/11/97 or 11/2/96 or 12/9/95 or 10/23/94 or whatever. I just want to be in the moment and enjoy these shows and my time here in this beautiful place. Cool? Cool."

And then they opened up with Tweezer, thereby blowing the back of my skull off and setting the tone for what ended up being one of my favorite nights of Phish music ever.

From a purely nonobjective standpoint, I'm not sure anything in the first set has a tremendous amount of relistening value, except for the Walls, which is where Trey really showed us for the first time what he had in store.

The second set, however, is an entirely different animal. As it happened, I listened to 11/2/96 driving up and thought to myself, "Well, Crosseyed would be cool, but there's no way they'll play it." They got right down into the grease on this one, slick and well worked over by Mike until they magically dropped into WTU. As has been said, this doesn't match the heights of some previous versions, but that doesn't mean it wasn't great.

At the end of the set, I can't imagine having to be the guy who sits there and counts out all the teases and quotes and which counts for what, because it would have been real chore. Suffice it to say that they teased every song played previously in the set in the next song. It was a total mind fuck in the best way. There were several times where I got so turned around I forgot what song they were in only to have them slam the door back into something else, this particularly true of NMINML and Chalkdust.

The musical highlight of the evening in my mind was definitely the Stash, which they absolutely destroyed. I want to say Trey really shined, but the truth is it was an entire band effort, which is the hallmark of great Phish shows.

There were no 20 minute monsters in this set, but the whole thing felt like a solid, well placed cohesive idea, which is also the hallmark of a great Phish show. I left saying this was one of my favorite sets of Phish ever. That's a bold statement but I'm totally willing to stand by it. I generally think I have the pulse of what's going on at any given time in a tour (I've listened to every show), but for the people out there saying this was *maybe* the best set of the tour so far, I have no idea what you were listening to. This was far and away the best set of music they played this tour and stands up to anything from last summer and, honestly, most of the shows I've seen.

Tweezer opener? Yes, please! Ass Handed was fun, though I was kind of the "butt" of the joke in thinking it was just vocals, and then the music came in. It reminds me of Ha Ha Ha. Well-played first set, but the real action for me came in the second. It's very obvious that the band was having a great time; for me, if I had been there it might've ranked higher for me--in this foolishness of ranking that we indulge in, at any rate--but while the quotes and teases are phun and provide a Phishy aspect to the show that hadn't quite cohered until last night, the segues are more appealing to the purely musical part of me, and the one into Stash is IMO barely even a -> rather than a >, while the one into Chalkdust is somewhat smoother but still not reaching the glories of the all-time Phish segues. I've said before that a truly great show cannot lack great segues; here, this show barely misses the mark of being truly great for me by lacking a big jam. Phish's Type II this Summer has been kind of samey to my ears, whereas I'd hoped they'd take the sheer peaking heat of the Watkin's Gin (ok, MagnaGin) and incorporate it into a broader repertoire of jamming tunes, opening up stylistically stolid jamming patterns into a more multicoloured palette that yet incorporates searing peaks. For that reason, 2015 seems eminent above 2016 so far, and I find more relistening value in a show like 7/27/14 or even 10/30/10 for anticky, segueing tease- or jam-fests, although those shows also lack the single revelatory cut, to borrow a term from esteemed reviewer and .Netter @waxbanks. Don't get me wrong. This is a great show. I just think we've yet to see an honest-to-goodness 5-star show from Phish this year, all things reconsidered. I look back--with smiles, of course--on 7/31/15, 8/1/15, 8/12/15, 8/22/15, several other segments from shows last year, and think yes, I'm willing to follow Phish down pretty much any rabbit hole they want to explore, but I'm having more and more difficulty as we approach the Dick's Run with no Fall Tour announced yet sublimating the salivation that arises when I think of how much I long for huge jams or even sets full of them. This is unconfirmed IMO, but someone in the Forum said the new studio album's done now, and I sincerely hope that that will free Phish to explore more, be it within the realms of the newer songs, album cuts or not, or just at all, in any song. This meandering missive is only really meant to satisfy my own need to codify my memory of the show, and shouldn't influence anyone else's enjoyment of it. As is often brought up to newer phans--and something we'd all do well to remember--Phish took years to hone themselves into the majesty of the mid-to-late 90s. In good conscience I have to rate this show a 4/5 for the reasons stated above as well as an intuitive hunch that Phish is burning nervous energy to some extent right now for reasons unbeknownst to me unless related to the rigours of recording an album, and that they will eventually channel the momentum from this summer into some truly inspired shows in the near future that will make this show seem in hindsight a stepping stone to greatness not yet uncovered.

There I am, first time at the Gorge, first time seeing Phish after a year or so of being a fan and Tweezer opens the show. I'm thinking it really does not get much better and it will be a hell of a show. I remember an artful Tweezer peak just as the sun disappeared behind the backround of mountain peaks which provoked an inspired roar from the crowd. I had brought a friend who had never seen a jam band before, so this was a BIG first for him. He looks over mid wolfman’s jam, wide-eyed with a huge smile, and says “I GET IT DUDE, I GET IT.” I don’t think I will ever forget that moment, it was too perfect getting to share an event of this magnitude with him. Second set was total bliss, at times I think the guys even confused themselves with the variety of songs they were teasing throughout.

The first night we watched from the lawn, to experience the sight of the gorge and the lights. Looking down at the pit was a hell of a trip, the crowd in constant flux being painted by Kuroda’s lights. Highlight for me was Ghost with “whats the use” teases and the Ass Handed debut which had us all laughing to the point of suffocation. Page brought some serious heat to that 2001 as well.

All in all for a first Phish show it couldn’t have gone better. The consensus seemed to be that this was a top 10 show for a lot of folks and that I was total screwed by both the on-coming obsession and that my bar will be set extremely high for future shows. I feel I was more than spoiled that entire weekend with bust outs, a debut, great jamming, a huge glow stick war, classic Phishy antics and humor, a vacuum solo the following day and a band that was more than happy to be in that place playing for those people. Can’t wait for our return to the Gorge for another great weekend!!

This show was a blast. This was another one where I was on my own in the crowd not knowing anyone around me. I have never danced WITH someone at a Phish show. I get down pretty wildly and I sweat. At this show, a lady started dancing WITH me and it was if we had choreographed the moves. I hope to meet her on the floor again.

Tweezer opening gave me what I needed right away and from there on I couldn't have been happier. I recall there was so much love around me, so much warm energy, hot damn! I danced with absolute abandon and had a helluva time with a fantastic partner!

I could never be a critic, I could only love this band.

This was the first time at the Gorge for me and four really close friends. Flew into Seattle early the day before and had a blast hanging out in Seattle and anticipating the nights to come. We were fortunate to get there before trafic was too bad, but the whole operation was a cluster none the less. Walking up that hill and seeing the view and stage was worth the trip alone. With all of these factors it is tough to rate a show like this. I will say that second set really helped things though.

The opening bars of Tweezer kicks off the show with a shot of adrenaline, but if you were like me, after a few moments of getting down, the disappointment started setting in. Really? Tweezer? Already? The ominous sense of premature ejaculation comes to fruition as Trey proves horribly unprepared to rock Tweezer proper. After a prolonged, languishing solo, Trey lets Tweezer be and moves on. The boys manage to keep the energy relatively high, though, with their next selections of Sample in a Jar and Old Home Place, but the third-in-a-row uninspired pick of Wolfman’s Brother sinks the energy down to nil. Trey languishes about again, and the set loses momentum.

The rest of the set is a bit of a wash. An enthusiastic Party Time livens things up but is quickly quelled by the one-two punch of The Line and Tide Turns (I secretly like Tide Turns, but after The Line? Come on.) The guys sort of get in the swing of the things after that, though, and Rift and Walls of the Cave are well-executed and enjoyable, and they close out the set.

The second set opens just as the first night of the Gorge Run in 2013 did, with Crosseyed and Painless. Here was our first taste of what we were in store for, as the guys return to the “Still Waiting” refrain five times during the C&P jam. As it happened, I thought it was a bit of a joke, as we went through peak after peak, waiting for them to either peak out or transition to Type II. But, it seems now, the repetition pointed to something even grander.

C&P is the only song of the night to go Type II in the traditional way, but, even so, it’s probably the least deserving song of the second set to go on the jam charts. The jam meanders a bit, not unpleasantly, but not ever really gaining traction either.

What’s the Use? emerges from the travels, and if there were any criticism one could say about the flow of this set, it could be that WTU? came in a little prematurely. I’m not sure if we were quite ready yet. But, after a few moments of swaying around in the mesmerizing beauty of this number, you sort of forget where you came from anyways, so it’s all good.

A super fiery, unrelenting NMINML comes next, with our first teases of C&P included. It stays Type I, but it’s a hell of a Type I. They don’t need to go anywhere. But, eventually, they do choose to go somewhere and Trey pulls off a pretty exceptional segue to Stash. Stash is not an easy song to segue into. I’m impressed, and you should be too! I’m not going to go through each every tease, you can see that above, but I will mention that Trey’s inclusion of the WTU? melody in the Stash jam is particularly choice for its characteristic dissonance and tension.

Ghost is a heavy contender for jam of the night, although sadly doesn’t have a place on the charts yet. It keeps the energy high, has shoehorned teases galore, and gives us what I think is one of the most successful rotation jams of the tour. If you’re like me, you got sick of the boys skipping out on their primary instruments to go mess around on someone else’s. But, this time, it really worked. Trey hit the Marimba Lumina and everyone else got on Fish’s drum kit, and what resulted was propulsive, awesome, and one hell of a dance party—a legitimate Type II jam, not just a bunch of amateur diddling about. Fishman’s singing seals the deal. He channels some serious James Brown. The energy is palpable.

And it doesn’t let up: a rocking transition to Chalkdust Torture and an exciting, original rendition of the classic tune. From the ambient dust of CDT, rises sustained organ notes, signaling a Meatstick delivery underway. The slow funk of Meatstick feels especially slow and disassembled this time around (they do something similar to BOAF night 2). Meatstick provides some mellow catharsis after such a high-octane sequence, but we weren’t just swaying in the slow burn. This Meatstick manages a celebratory lightness with both substance and fun. We get both a breather and a groove. Highly recommended.

To let us know that we hadn’t yet totally funked out nor peaked out, Fishman drops the 2001 beat. It’s on. Nice funk, nice extended C&P and NMINML quotes, about as stretched out a version of 2001 you’re going to get in this era. After that, there’s a victory romp through Cavern, a solid closer to a relentless set.

This is one of the few front to back cohesive sets of the tour, and it’s the epitome of cohesive, a complete organism unto itself. Nothing can be removed. If you’re going to listen to anything from this set, listen to the whole thing. No shuffling allowed (but hopefully you don’t have to be told that).

The encore continues to please. Makisupa Policeman is busted out. Trey and Mike both fail to deliver on their improv sections—Trey balks on his “pot” rhyme and Mike gives a rather unenthusiastic solo—but it’s Makisupa nonetheless, and people are happy. Wilson and GTBT finish things out, capping off the high-energy of the last two hours. A good night at the Gorge.

Phishjoy nailed it with her comments on Live Nation, but there's more to this story...

For anyone traveling east from Seattle (probably most of the crowd), the first lineup was about 5 miles west of the Columbia River, where I-90 merged into a single lane because the bridge over the Columbia was being painted. The resulting backup took well over an hour to clear. Then, just past the bridge (where you exit for the Gorge)--bam, the road was baked up (okay, backed up) for another 2-3 miles going into the Gorge. The two-lane backup barely moved, so all the good Phish Phans started the party, chanting "Still waiting...", and "Your trip will be quick"--you heard it everywhere. The chanting continued until well into the 1st set, maybe later.

Was the band tuned into this??? Was it just an accident that they opened the 2nd set with Crosseyed, WTU, NMINML, and then wove the message throughout the 2nd set? I don't think so. They were totally connecting with their Phans who endured this 2-4 hours wait and were just getting settled in. Thanks, guys--it was worth the wait and your acknowledgement is appreciated!!!

This show had old school feel and was was pretty hot, particularly by the standards of this tour.

First set was fun, with the obvious exception of the TAB-ish portion (Line & Tide). String music lovers will dig the Old Home Place.

Second set was excellent. The WTU? is a rather enjoyable quiet and thoughtful Phish moment. The song selection and set construction made made for a nice flow.

The tight and inspired playing largely made up for the absence of exploratory jamming.

No one will like what I have to say, but I'll say it anyhow, because someone has to.

This is not, musically speaking, anywhere close to the best show of the tour (as the ratings would suggest). That's not to say it wasn't a fun show, and that's also not to say the music was bad. But here are the facts: there was almost no type 2 jamming, which is a big part of what makes a phish show really great. C&P and ghost had some moments, but all in all things stayed inside of the compositional box. Teases abound, but that doesn't really add substance. The band felt loose but the music was tight, if that makes sense.

Chalkdust to me was the clear highlight, because trey's solo was so interesting. It really touched on that early '93 style of dissonant tension and melodic release. Probably the most interesting solo he's played all tour. But I think this song is the only one worth relistening to. Maybe 2001 if you haven't heard a good one lately. The tweezer was strong, but I won't be listening to it a third time.

Overall this was probably a fun show for sure, but the current 4.45 rating puts it at the second best show of the tour, and I think that's doing a disservice to a lot of the really good music (Wrigley, mann1, spac1, mansfield) that has been played already this tour. Also, with the quality of the type 1 playing the next night, it's hard to justify the high rating.