I was working and my fried Dan (Diga) called and said he heard a rumor about this show. His older brother was friends and Amy and gave her a call. I believe she said something along the lines of "I can't confirm or deny it, but they are recording in the area." I told my boss my mom needed me and went home then picked up Dan and drove from Nashua NH to Woodstock. We fond the bar and parked somewhere nearby and walked up to get a sense of the place. We could hear the soundcheck and sat on the curb just outside of the window along the driveway. We heard the zero and waste soundcheck and we're getting pretty stocked. Soundcheck ended and we just sat there for a bit. Then a Subaru drove past us and I think Brad was driving and Trey smiled at us from the back seat. We got in relatively early as the place opened to be sure we could get in. We watched the opening bad, which was kind of fun, but I don't remember much anymore, after nearly 30 years! I was so close for first set I could have grabbed Fish's goggles from his kit before the show started. Of course I did not. It was a great time, through and through. Yes, the rolling rock bottle on my friend was awesome (by second set, we found ourselves in the middle of the tiny room. It was awesome to see phish in a such a tiny place, especially considering that my first show was Greatwoods '93. This was my 44th show, I think. I was also fortunate enough to see them at the Lowell Auditorium in '95.

This was my third time seeing the band after catching them twice during Summer 2000 tour! I was 17 years old and living in Rapid City, SD-- we couldn't believe our favorite band was playing a mere 9-hour drive away! In the Midwest, that's basically neighbors! I remember a lot of hoodies and flannel in the lot-- the lot scene was a lot smaller than Alpine or Deer Creek, but it was still hopping. Our seats were all the way across the floor and halfway up the back stands, so this was a light-show only for us. Relistening to this one on it's 24th anniversary, I can't help but agree with a lot of the other reviews-- this show is solid, but there is not a lot of standout stuff in the first set. [i]Sloth[/i] is tight and energetic, [i]Divided Sky[/i] had a loooonnnnng pause while the band stopped to watch the glowstick war that I never see mentioned in the show notes (biggest glowstick war I personally have ever attended), and [i]Roggae[/i] really embellished the clash between mellow and loud sections. I remember [i]Roggae [/i]having almost a toy-like quality live, like a music box or a wind-up doll; listening to it again, a lot of that comes from Fishman's work on blocks and bells. Good stuff, but not much to write home about. Getting into the second set, the crowd is clearly ready for some shenanigans, and [i]Cities[/i] delivers with some Santana-inspired blues before dishing up a hearty helping of outer space. [i]Free[/i] stays grounded and a little spooky, with some nice work from Mike & Fish setting up a driving pace that keeps Trey really focused during the build. This was my first time hearing [i]Carini,[/i] and it definitely made an impression at the time. I remember everything from [i]Lawn Boy[/i] until [i]Cool it Down[/i] was very funny live, there was a lot of laughter in the crowd. Cool it Down has some fun exploration and a very tight but otherwise unremarkable David Bowie closes the set. The single-song encore of Fire was absolutely blistering live, and definitely left us all wanting more. This would be the last time I would see the band before the 2001 hiatus, and I still treasure the memory of this show. Of all the times I've seen Phish, this is the only show that has never had an SBD release or leak, so I am still out there chasing it every few years. Maybe some day!

This was an all time show for me. Maybe it was because the entire weekend was incredible but I couldn’t believe how hard I was continuing to dance and feel the energy through this entire Sunday funday. The music all weekend was incredible but this show really put the nail in the coffin. Peak Phish in my opinion! Extremely thankful to have been at these 3 shows. Thanks Phish!

Fantastic show that radiates joy bolstered by a fantastic AUD tape on the spreadsheet. Starting with BBFCFM sets the tone for a frisky evening. Delicate and beautiful Harry Hood in the middle of the second set starts off a great run with Wilson and a very cool Page-led It's Ice. Fluffhead it's a very clean and energetic version, Possum rages as usual. Cool show!

Great show with some odd song placements. Classic Mike’s Groove to open set 1, followed by Character Zero in the 3 hole. Closed out with I Didn’t Know, a gorgeous Reba, Izabella! Set 2 was about the teases. Apostrophe, Freeway Jam (Jeff Beck - 6:30 into Fuego), Johnny B. Goode. Slow Chalk Dust, Crosseyed/Forget, Fuego stand out. Full disclosure, I created this review mostly to get the Freeway Jam tease recognized…

Just wanted to say this is the show where I "got it." I remember my friend Andy turn to me probably about a half hour in and just simply say, "They haven't finished David Bowie." I would return the favor during a specific Runaway Jim about 45 minutes up Rte. 146 you may have heard about, a few years later. I had seen a handful of shows to this point, but somewhere in that Bowie I knew as long as this band plays, I'm going to try and seem them do so as much as I can. Enjoy your day.

Just wanted to add a funny after-the-fact anecdote about this show. This being my first show since the pandemic (the last being Fenway 2019), I was excited to say the least and well, I "went for it," as they say. I was way out there, or deep in there, depending on your perspective. The first half of the second set is the story of someone who lost their life out in the ocean that lapped the beach to our right: I Never Needed You Like this Before - when you are struggling in water, you've never needed anyone like that before. This person didn't get the help they needed, so they > Drowned - very sad. Once they passed, this person became a > Ghost - spooky. How do ghosts often make themselves known? Often, they emit > Scents and Subtle Sounds - scary. Then, Trey freaked himself out and pulled the ripcord. It's OK...I was pretty freaked out at that point, too. Enjoy your day.

When I slept until 8am on July 30th, 2023 I felt I was making progress on the ninety-minute time difference between Newfoundland and New York City. NYC may be “the city that never sleeps” but what would I know about it? I’d be lucky if I could keep my eyes open past midnight at least once on this weeklong Phish excursion. I tiptoed out of the room and went downstairs to the hotel’s free buffet for a small and rather lame breakfast washed down with much too much mediocre coffee. I killed the rest of the morning on the sidewalk outside the hotel just watching the big city in action, and there was plenty to see. Though Springhill Suites was on one of Manhattan’s smaller side streets (37th) rather than one of the bigger and busier avenues there was still plenty of bustle going on. The first thing I saw was small squad of beat policemen gathered in an alcove across the street from where I was leaning. They were patrolling through the multiple lanes of one-way traffic on my street that were continually being brought to a standstill by the traffic light at 5th and 37th. It looked to me like the cops were checking for stickers on windshields, but I couldn’t be sure. Regardless, every few minutes one of the cops would direct one of the cars to pull over, where another cop would be waiting to write the the poor driver a ticket. I watched them do this for a full hour, ducking inside only to refill my lousy coffee cup. After the cops had left an ambulance came down the street with its siren wailing and soon found itself stuck in traffic right in front of the hotel. It was odd to hear a screaming siren and see the emergency go universally unheeded by the other drivers who sat in their cars staring straight ahead and not giving an inch. The analogy to the countless homeless people populating the surrounding sidewalks was not lost on me. It’s astounding just how many desperate people there are roaming the streets with their hands open to the frantic Manhattan hive hoping someone will stoop down and save their day. But there doesn’t seem to be nearly enough people who are willing to give. Living in a city this large must diminish a person’s empathy. Even after just a few days of saying “I’m sorry brother” “I’m sorry, good luck” “Sorry my friend,” I was already able to stop feeling horrible for not helping people after just a minute or two, instead of letting it haunt me for the whole day. I’m sure after a few months I wouldn’t even notice them, like most of the people I saw walking by outside. Funny, while the police where engaging in their sting people were smoking big fat stinky joints on the street all around them with complete impunity. The city had recently legalized recreational marijuana and while there were only two stores in all of New York City that were legally allowed to sell the stuff it seemed like every second shop in Manhattan had signs in their windows offering 3-for-1 deals on pre-rolls. And not only that, the city had decided that smoking weed was legal anywhere that one could smoke tobacco, so people stood on the sidewalks smoking pot all the time. I should know, I hung out there a lot. Once m’lady got up and around we headed out to meet some friends for lunch and then went to a matinee showing of a Broadway show written by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim called Here Lies Love. But that’s another story. Getting to this story - which ostensibly regards the third night of Phish’s seven-show run at Madison Square Garden - we were seated behind the stage. I’ve been behind the stage at several Phish shows and while it isn’t my first choice it isn’t my last either. To be honest, there’s a lot to be said about sitting back there. Especially Kuroda’s light show. Sure, it’s way, way better to see it from a vantage-point somewhere near the light board (like we were on night one), but CK5 lights up the audience more than any other lighting director in the business, constantly shining colourful bursts of light onto the crowd giving the band - and those of us lucky enough to be sitting behind the stage - an arena full of ever-changing eye candy to gape at throughout the show. In fact, it seemed to me that Chris was lighting up the crowd with even more gusto than usual for this show, though it could obviously have just been my perspective. But it was a much more song-oriented concert than the previous two as well, with an awesome [i]My Friend, My Friend[/i] near the top of the first set and [i]Tube[/i]>[i]Golgi[/i] closing it. Somewhere in there they almost played [i]Llama[/i] twice in a row when Trey comically restarted the song as soon as they had finished it. At setbreak I marvelled from my backstage perch at all the wonderful rigging it takes to pull of a Phish show, especially Kuroda’s hanging lights that rise up and down at the flick of a switch. It was reminiscent of my experience at Here Lies Love that afternoon, where m’lady and I had to weave through a uniquely interactive open-concept backstage area with the obligatory hanging ropes, pulleys, and stage props in order to get to-and-from our seats. Plus I had a bird’s-eye view of Fishman’s drum kit! Though not quite Neil Peart-ish in stature it’s getting there, and with his Marimba Lumina and all the other gadgets and toys, well, for a geeky gear-oriented fan like myself it was pretty neat to be back there. The second set was again pretty songy and pretty rock and roll too, and it stayed that way right into the [i]Suzy Greenberg[/i] encore, which single-handedly squashed an encore alphabet theme conspiracy that had been floating around the geekier message boards. I had heard lots of chicka-chicka wah-wah pedal coming from Trey all night. So much that during the first set I randomly leaned into the stranger next to me and said into his ear, “I think I hear Jimi Hendrix coming!” After he looked at me like I was a cracked-out alien hobo I stood there silently feeling stupid for the next hour-and-a-half. When I was finally redeemed as Phish closed the concert with Hendrix’s [i]Izabella[/i] (which I had heard them play in the same room six years earlier) I turned to dude to receive my well-deserved high-five and he was…gone! I did, however, notice that our friend Terry was seated just behind us in the Madison Club section (where we would be sitting for our final night), and m’lady and I went up to say hello as soon as the show ended. I really like Terry and hadn’t seen him in a long time so I was shocked to hear myself say “no thanks” when he suggested we come back to his hotel for a nightcap or two. But I did. And here we were mere minutes from the clock ticking us into m’lady’s birthday. For shame! The city that never sleeps, huh? Well, this lame-ass sure does. https://toddmanout.com/

SET 1: Blaze On: interesting choice of opener for this run - def seems to signal to fans not to expect any crazy setlist shenanigans… very much a ‘we’re here to chill out and have fun after BD’ type opener. Pretty long jam for a 3.0 set opener. Gets into some pretty sparse territory around the middle portion, very nice and busy playing from Mike. Not too interesting otherwise. 555: standard. Breath and Burning: can’t imagine the crowd was too pleased with this opening sequence, lol. Once again sending a message that this is a chance for the band to let their hair down. Nicely peaked and one of the better versions out there. Theme From the Bottom: this one gets a better crowd reaction. Some nice reverse reverb briefly in the solo that gets some cheers. GREAT smooth segue into… -> Free: very strong version, some great theremin-ish synth work and guitar work peak. Tube: interesting jam! Fans of 2017 synth jamming will want to check this out, some super gnarly Page soloing in the early going – but ditches this for some guitar-led peaky jamming which is pretty unique for the song. Rough transition into the shuffle section. Roggae: not crazy about this song but this peaks HARD. Trey shredding like it’s 1998. Euphoric! More: standard. SET 2: No Men in No Man’s Land: another ‘let’s let our hair down and party’ choice to open set 2. Trey making good use of pedals in the early going of the jam which quickly transitions into a bliss peak - great screaming playing at the 9 minute mark. Seems like this is going to end right then and there, but Trey has other ideas and guides the band into a minor key section. Love Page’s Rhodes-esque playing in this section, very Miles Davis. Showing why he’s the MVP of 2017. The next 8 minutes of the jam is incredibly special. Trey takes the back seat to Page and Mike who lay down an atmosphere that really needs to be heard to believed – WOW. Eerie and spacey to the extreme! Fish even takes it into 12/8 for a section, extremely special playing that feels like a prelude to the Deer Creek Simple. Suddenly Trey is back on the guitar, comes out firing with Wedge teases everywhere. Fish picks up what he’s putting down – peak incoming, friends! Standard but strong bliss playing from there on out. Everything between the 10-20 min mark is out of this world and more than makes up for some standard fare on either side. Highly recommended. > Carini: pretty abrupt into this but the place is hyped at the placement. Funny ‘lumpy head’ quotes around the entrance into the jam. Things get going around the 6 minute mark. The start to the jam is all about Trey pushing his pedals to their absolute limits. I’m no stranger to criticising Trey’s tone from this era but it really works for this extremely doomy playing in the early going. Alien sounds everywhere. Once again Fishman giving Trey an escape route about 10 minutes in – but nope, this is BD era Trey, and he’s gonna take this as far as it’ll go. A groovy, happy jam emerges from there for a while until Trey gets possessed with the spirit of Hendrix at around 17:30 and SHREDS an effects-driven peak. Wow. Feels like it could go into Tweezer as this winds down, but then suddenly the band conjures a funky, Camel Walk-style passage out of literal thin air with Page killing it on organ and Mike stomping on the octave pedal. Immediately went back to relisten to the last 4 minutes on first pass – it’s that good. Trey unfortunately bails on this too soon for… > Ghost: almost disappointing to hear this come out of that space at the end of Carini but the song is great so it doesn’t matter too much. Pretty standard elongated blissy version that stays in second gear for a while until Trey powers things up around 14 mins in, total shredfest for a couple minutes there. Otherwise a solid Ghost that keeps the momentum going but nothing I’d particularly recommend – not that they have anything to prove at this point in the set. > Harry Hood: nice! Decent, meditative intro but feels like it takes the band a while to lock on this one – the ‘where do you go’ refrain is sloppy here. Jam is standard with one or two nice themes. > Cavern: super hype coming out of the effects at the end of Hood. A little shaky but loose and fun end to a crazy set. Encore: The Horse > Silent in the Morning: A little rough. Character Zero: REAL rough at the beginning. — OVERALL: wow, what a statement show post-BD. We successfully ran the gamut through our toughest songs, we’re free now, and we’re going to play the stuff we WANT to play and play it within an inch of our lives. It’s wall-to-wall energy and crazy peaks right up until the fourth quarter. Set 1 through to Ghost is one of the most impressive stretches of music you’ll hear at any 3.0 show, but particular shouts out to Roggae and NMINML for being total all-timer versions. Will also be coming back to Carini, Tube, Breath and Burning and Free. 4 stars. 

Read the Phucking Book. ????. Oh my glob. I just re listened to the Wilson Catapult smoke on the water icculus jam. [i]Wtf[/i] ???? I didn’t remember this being so phuking hard. Read the book. ????. Just read it ok. Stop watching that fucking television. Pick up the new Danielle Steele book. Chapter 3! Cat scratch fever. Chapter six! Smoke on the water ! So read it. Read the book! ???? ⭕️

I’m betting this was a very cool and intimate night of music if it’s the Fox Theater I’m thinking of, on the Hill @ CU Buffalo. Wish I could go back in time. Maybe, that’s why Phish is my superpower. Their musical talent and personal love for each other; is what makes me feel as if I’m time traveling. I miss you

On December 31st, 2010 I attended my first-ever Phish-hosted New Year’s Eve concert, which took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. M’lady and I had driven straight from my family’s Christmas celebrations in Moncton, New Brunswick to Worcester, Massachusetts (a town name/condiment that I just can not pronounce properly. It’s frustrating but at least people tend to get a kick out of hearing me try) for a night of Phish, then it was on to the Big Apple for a birthday show (of mine) featuring Prince, followed by another night of Phish, this concert, and still another Phish concert on the first of January. Oh, and then we went to a Broadway musical on January 2nd, after which we did our best to get out of town and almost succeeded. But getting back to this night in particular, m’lady and I emerged from the subway into a normally bustling city that was bursting with energy in all directions. A few blocks away the scattered remains of Dick Clark was soon to be hosting one of the most famous New Years celebrations in the world, coaxing the ball in Times Square down with a zillion eyes watching. Man, the shows you could go to on this night alone! Chuck Berry was playing over at BB King’s, Gov’t Mule was at the famous Beacon Theatre, the Drive-By Truckers were in town…not to mention Phish of course; there was simply tons going on everywhere you cared to look. NYC kicks it pretty hard as a regular feature but for NYE things tend to get cranked up a few notches. We had inadvertently been shut out of tickets for the all-important December 31st Phish show, TicketMaster having erroneously issuing me wheelchair access tickets and then taking them away when I told them I was in fact able-bodied. I assured them that I would likely find myself libated enough to require much assistance, but they wouldn’t budge no matter how many times I badgered their unbadgerable customer service, which left us scrambling for a pair of very hard-to-get tickets. And then lo, the evening before kindness had reared its karmic head. Friends we had stayed with at previous shows voluntarily traded their pair of 100 level tickets (and $160 cash) for two pairs of 400 level tickets in order to help us out. There were many hugs. It’s notable to note that Phish invariably pulls out all the stops on New Year’s Eve, always playing three sets instead of their standard two-set show and, most notoriously, they always always always come up with some sort of midnight gag to present to the crowd. These gags are usually elaborate (but not always), usually musical (but not always), and always (yes, always) a surprise. (Phish are remarkably good secret-keepers. Between their NYE stunts and their Hallowe’en ‘musical costumes’ these things never, ever leak to the phans, no matter how ‘inside’ your information; and our information can get pretty inside.) On this night Phish timed the new years countdown to fall within their novelty song [i]Meatstick[/i]. I call [i]Meatstick[/i] a novelty song not merely because the lyrics are silly (lots of Phish songs have silly lyrics), but because it is intrinsically linked to a silly dance called The Meatstick, which was created in an effort to achieve the world record for most people doing a dance way back at one of their festivals. The attempt failed as the Guinness officials deemed that The Meatstick didn’t actually qualify as a dance. But not only that, during an Asian tour the Phish fellas had learned how to sing the chorus of the song in Japanese, and they had been doing so for one of the choruses ever since. So I say “novelty”. Anyway, that latter point played directly into the gag at this show, which opened the third set. As the Phish boys finished up their Japanese version of the song’s chorus they were joined onstage by a quartet of tribal African dancers, who sang the chorus in their native tongue. Then out came a Mariachi band, singing and playing the chorus in Spanish. Then a group of Hasidic Jews, then a quartet of Swedish girls dressed in ski gear. I’m sure you get the idea. Canadian Mounties, Hawaiians in grass skirts, Swiss yodellers, Germans in lederhosen, belly dancers, whirling Dervishes…ultimately there were about fifty people on the stage, all leading the giddy crowd of 20,000 through Phish’s silly [i]Meatstick[/i] non-dance. Elaborate? Not really. Musical? Sure. Fun? Absolutely! And then they followed up with the countdown to midnight accompanied by [i]Auld Lang Syne[/i] (of course) right into [i]After Midnight[/i] by J. J. Cale (how cool is that?). And so it was that I discovered that Phish New Year’s Eve concerts are pretty darn fun. No wonder I went again a few years later (and again the year after that). https://toddmanout.com/

For what possible reason does this show have a 3.3 rating? Just the little bit of video oh John’s special mix tape makes it plain, they were firing on all cylinders and this show was popping with energy. Just bc there aren’t any big type 2 jams doesn’t disqualify a show from being epic. This is when phish made their bones. Nearly every night is a masterpiece.

Short, but sweet. You know you're in for a fun time when Mozambique opens. Awesome clav work all throughout the show. Loved the Springsteen sit-in, but that's the only [i]major[/i] highlight I can think of. Olivia rules! Other than that, this is just a nice, high-energy, day show. Sometimes we need a little day TAB to help our soul. It's a nice way to come down from this barn-burner of a summer. Love it. Love Trey. [s]Big red[/s] Big Grey!!

I think this might be one of the best sets they ever played. Wgtym is an amazing song already and the jam into chalk dust was wild. Next light is an awesome song and the jam out of light into caspian has to be the craziest most mindfuckery insanity they’ve ever played. (If someone can point me to a crazier segue please do). Of course Caspian is as beautiful as ever. Ya can never go wrong with cross eyed and painless. And lonely trip. I love it. It’s about us, how could you not love it? Made me cry those good old “church tears”. You know religious experience and all that. End the set with everything’s right. Well done. I just wanted to bring these thoughts out as I feel so adamant about this set. Love this band and love this set ⭕️❤️⭕️

Most underrated phish show of the modern era. If you listen to this show you will be very surprised. I think this is a top set of the summer. Fuego, Golden Age are the highlights, but everything is played fast and crisp. Maze is extremely well played. I highly recommend you to really listen to this show before judging it.

[b]Doses. Doses. Doses[/b]. I’ll take ten, I say to the dude. I figured I should eat six because I ate three the day prior. Woah. At 19 or 20 years old I didn’t know that there were differences in strength. Needless to say during the third set my mind had a mind of its own and for the life of me I searched the grass for my keys, which were in the tent. But I liked and looked while my mind couldn’t grasp anything that was real. So a friend of mine, thank you Mr Lerch, Lee me by the hand two these three “angels” dressed in all white. We played with glowing toys and I regained my composure until…. At this point Trey is announcing the ambient set. But his words were something to the effect of we are going to light the ring of fire around the top of the circular walled enclosure of the green. My irrational mind went into a misinterpretation of the candle light set. I remember thinking I’m not going to stay while everyone burns in the ring of fire. lol. So I missed the ambient jam while I wandered aimlessly toward the hissing. My friends knew just where to find me sitting in the grass next to the tank. Just recently at mondegreen I had a very similar trip where logic escapes me. Good times to say the least.

On July 7th, 2012 I woke up in a Hilton Garden Inn or a Holiday Inn or some such place in Saratoga Springs, following a night of Phish at the wonderful Saratoga Performing Arts Center and anticipating two more nights of the same (but different). And speaking (parenthetically) of “different”, I’d had a bit of an odd experience throughout the night when one of the people m’lady and I were sharing a room with accidentally crawled into the wrong bed after a bathroom break and snuggled up to me for a hug. But that’s a story I’ve shared elsewhere so here’s another: Following our pre-set plans for the weekend m’lady and I changed rooms (I insist this had nothing to do with the snafu I just alluded to). I’m pretty sure we were only able to book a room for the last two nights which is why we’d bunked down with Bernie and his girlfriend on night one. Anyways, m’lady and I checked into the new room and dropped our bags on the bed. I got to beering the fridge when a knock came at the door. “That must be Linda and Mike,” m’lady accurately predicted, opening the door and greeting her two long lost Phish friends who would be sharing the room with us for the remainder of the weekend. “Hi!” I blurted, bounding to the door and introducing myself. “Who wants a beer!” “I’ll have one,” answered Mike. I eagerly snatched two bottles out of the fridge. Turns out they weren’t twisties but that was no problem, I knew a little trick. I angled one beer upside down so the lip of its cap was leveraged under the lip of the beercap I was intending to open. Then I gave one bottle a quick jerk with the other and voilà! All hell broke loose. (I’d like to quickly interject that I have since learned that it is crucial that one hooks the side and not the edge of the leveraging beercap underneath the targeted beercap. In fact, this was pretty much the very moment that I figured out this very important detail but alas, all hell had to break loose for me to learn it.) Because I was leveraging one edge against another it was basically a 50-50 split on which cap would come off. It was like wishing on a wishbone, and I lost. To wit: when the cap of the leveraging bottle unexpectedly came off, the quick jerking motion I’d added gave just the right shake to the bottle to cause the carbonated contents inside to spray directly upwards and into my shocked face like I was staring down a water hose. The gushing beer careened off of my surprised face and into the surprised moustachioed face of Mike, who was standing right next to me, before continuing on to spray the ceiling and spatter the walls. Half-blind with foam-covered glasses I thrust the still unopened target beer towards Mike. “Perhaps you have a bottle opener?” I suggested, my face and hair drenched and dripping. I’m all about first impressions. Amazingly, m’lady and I have gone on to share hotel rooms with Mike and Linda several times since then. Getting to the Phish concert, once the show began deep in the forested Saratoga Springs State Park we were treated to another cover-laden night of groovy, dance-a-licious fun. They opened the show with their barbershop musical life-count tally [i]Grind[/i] before continuing with a set that consisted almost entirely of personal favourites of mine: [i]Possum[/i]>[i]Golgi[/i], [i]Moma Dance[/i], [i]Torn and Frayed[/i], [i]Rift[/i], [i]Cities[/i]>[i]Maze[/i], [i]Lawn Boy[/i], [i]Peaches[/i], [i]Bathtub Gin[/i], and[i] Good Times Bad Times[/i]. You can’t argue with that! And believe it or don’t, once the second set started the show got even better! [i]Down With Disease[/i] went into [i]Blister In the Sun[/i] and then went back into itself again before morphing into [i]Boogie On Reggae Woman[/i]. In fact, the whole second set was one big unending stream of music, as the band went into-into-into through [i]2001[/i], [i]Mike’s[/i], [i]Contact[/i], [i]Backwards Down the Number Line[/i], and another tear halfway through [i]Blister In the Sun[/i]. And tons more of course. And then – are you sitting down? – for the encore Phish played [i]Sabotage[/i] for the fifth (and as of this writing, final) time, dedicating the song to Adam Yauch who had passed away two months earlier. Not to cast mirth after sombre, but [i]Sabotage[/i] seemed like a perfect cap to my error-riddled day (pun intended, of course). [i]I can’t stand rockin’ when I’m in this place Because I feel disgrace because you’re all in my face[/i]… And I can’t even [i]begin[/i] to tell you about all the aftershow shenanigoats. https://toddmanout.com/

I walked out of this show completely wrecked by the music I heard. Somewhere between Emotional Rescue and SOAM, we achieved liftoff. Sure, I never saw more than a handful of shows per year dispersed amongst most years the band has toured from 1990 through present. Nevertheless almost 27 years later, this run continues to stand at or near the top of the heap for me. I remember walking out of the venue thinking: "I will never again see [b]this[/b] band play like [b]that[/b] ever again. And that is just fine." The next night was almost as great for me. Better than everything thereafter, certainly.

Listened to the show on LP and just came to comment on Appstrophe riff after C&P. One of the many things I love about this band is when something familiar emerges from a jam and I can’t place it right away. Then it hits me, but now they’re playing Guy Forget. Don’t listen to a show with expectations, but expect the unexpected!

This was my first show, and tbh, I only went because a girl I was seeing was into them. I was a deadhead, saw Jerry at 16, his last show. Didn't know one Phish song, and was not interested. Or at least that's what I thought. All I remember is that by the time Fluffhead was done I was planning how I could go on tour, which I did. Fall 98 was amazing. What I did not remember, was that Bag>Fluff was the opener. We went to the show, four of us, and immediately broke up to find tickets and other things. When we met back up, everyone was impressed that I scored four tickets and mushys, or L, I can't remember which, possibly both. They were "kids" and came up empty while I wandered into their scene and quickly navigated the channels. The tickets were from a journalist, and were traded for $20 worth of Mexican "grass". My memory is that Fluffhead was the end of second set, or the encore, and I was not sold until then, at which time I became a true believer and offered to sign over all my possessions to the band. Knowing that it was the first song of my first show makes it all the more impressive, at least in my head. That girl? Well we got married and have 6 kids who are all doctors. Ok, for real, I went over for booty calls more than once, and she would literally have other dudes(FWB) in her living room playing video games. She partied like a rock star, even saw her cat snort blow. I bet , now, she has a family and is super successful, and is happy. She was awesome, then, and super smart. But a trainwreck in a hurricane. But she was 100% right about Phish, and I owe her a thank you and a big hug if I ever see her again. I think her name was Kate or Katie.

On July 5th, 1994 I had a few drinks and strolled a handful of blocks between my house and the Ottawa Congress Centre to see a band I had been hearing a bit about called Phish. I had missed them before in Montreal when a friend that I had seen the Grateful Dead with all but insisted I come with her to see Phish at Metropolis. I remember bowing out with the excuse that I had been out several nights in the past week seeing local bands in Ottawa and could use a night off. Ouch. But a few days before Phish played their one and only show in Canada’s capital city another friend of mine played me a cut off of the band’s Junta album, a catchy rock number with the unlikely title [i]Golgi Apparatus[/i]. “Pretty good,” I said, not entirely convinced. He put on one more song that he thought would hook me, and he nailed it with [i]Contact[/i]. The bass-driven song was quirky, weird, and clever; I was in. The venue was sparsely attended to say the least, with perhaps 200 people in a room that could hold three thousand or more. I grabbed a couple of drinks from the bar and walked right up to the stage and stood audience-right in front of the drum kit. That was odd (thought I), having the drum kit set up on stage left instead of in the middle. No matter, I had the whole area to myself and if I remember correctly I even used the stage as a table to set my drinks upon. Soon the band came on and changed me. They opened with [i]Rift[/i] and then [i]Sample[/i] before [i]The Curtain[/i] went into the first [i]Letter to Jimmy Page[/i] in several years. The second set had the first [i]Cities[/i] played in half a decade but none of that meant anything to me - I had never heard any of this before. Frankly, I had never heard anything like this before. For me the show was a mind-bending display of musical and instrumental pyrotechnics that poured out of the four guys with a never-ending cavalcade of shock and surprise. Nothing went the way I thought it would, the music was utterly unpredictable with sharp turns and right angles all over the place; time signatures overlapped each other in ways I had never heard before…vocal harmonies that shouldn’t have worked landed perfectly on top of jagged melodies that were unforgettable. I was flabbergasted, sonically and otherwise. At the time I was just finishing up my music degree and I was in a band that I thought played some pretty crazy, off-kilter rock and roll so I was completely ready for this Phish concert whilst simultaneously not at all ready for it. The gorgeous instrumental beauty juxtaposed with the Dada-esque lyrics of [i]Stash[/i], the miraculously original melody of [i]Bathtub Gin[/i] (how had nobody found that one yet?), the absolutely jaw-dropping[i] YEM[/i] with an intro that pits Trey’s 11/8 guitar part over Mikes 5/8 bass line and Page’s 10/8 keyboard part while Fishman pounds 4/4 underneath plus the vocal outro jam and oh yeah, they were jumping up and down on trampolines? I mean c’mon now! I was thoroughly humbled and awed. Oh, and then the band plays Pink Floyd’s [i]Great Gig In The Sky [/i]with the drummer doing the solo by blowing into an old vacuum cleaner, then they performed two songs with no amplification whatsoever, just melodica/standup bass*/acoustic guitar with the crowd alternating between hushed applause and shush-ing each other, then they did a couple of barbershop quartet classics and ended the set with that very first song my friend had played for me a few days earlier, Golgi Apparatus. I was dancing like a fool laid out to dry. My t-shirt long wrenched from my body, I flailed away banshee-like with the entire Fishman-side floor area all to myself. Capping the show as they did with a [i]Good Times, Bad Times[/i] encore was perfect, proof that Phish could tear up a straight-ahead rock and roller without any gimmicks quite fine, thank-you very much. The show I had just seen had changed how I looked at rock music and to see them Zep out and nail it hard for my walkaway song felt like a kudos to the history of the genre…a reminder of what rock music used to sound like now that I had seen its future. To date I have seen the band 131 times. I’ve travelled all over North America and met friends from a thousand places while following Phish around, so yeah, this was a pretty big show for me. *Wait now…there couldn’t have been a doublebass could there? Mike must have been playing his electric bass. https://toddmanout.com/

Since we are on the heel of a 10 year anniversary of this particular night in the town they call sin city in Nevada, I feel like it’s a good time to write my review of this show. Now, I’m a 3.0 baby (Hampton 09 Sunday). But by 2014 I had seen my fair share of shows. There was always this silly debate on what, and how the band has been playing since coming back, especially when it comes to the jams (or lack there off?!). Bear with me, because it ties in very well with this show. I somehow managed to score 2 tickets to 10/31/14 during the on sale (only show I did of the run). I was 25 at the time, and living with my future ex-wife. I pretty much told her “this is where we’ll be on Halloween” she obliged. I managed to score a strip of WoW the night before we leave to the airport. We arrived on 10/31 probably around 1:30 or 2pm. Check in, get dressed in our costumes (pulp fiction), and go hit the strip. About 2 hours before show time (or ticket time) I’m like “oh yea, take this”. I rip the strip in 1/2 and off we went…. Now I barely remember how we found our seats, but we did. They were in the behind the stage, about 20 rows up Mike Side. At that point I couldn’t care less, the energy in that building was electric. Set I: The lights go down and they open up with Buried Alive (oh snap!!), now for me there are just a handful of songs that sets the tone that the show your about to witness is going to be Fire. Buried Alive is one of them (Soul Shakedown is another one that comes to mind). Ghost > “of course they play ghost, duh it’s halloweeeeen” is probably the only thought that crept in my gooey brain. Decent Ghost, nothing groundbreaking, but it was more of statement piece. SOAM kept in the “creepy Halloween” music genre quite nicely. Having witness the one in Chicago that summer, I thought it was good, but not quite as immersives Reba…. My favorite song of all time by any band. “Of course they’d play Reba, it’s a sure sign of a heady Halloween show like 10/31/94, or 10/31/96!! Well although that Reba didn’t touch either of those, it was still a Reba, and a Reba can only be appreciated and criticized in the scheme that no matter what, Reba jams are godly to see and experience. Def shorter jam version of what I caught in Chicago that summer, but it ripped, and I was on cloud 9. Rest of the set with 46 days, BBFCFM, Saw it again felt like the “spooky songs” to keep the Halloween vibes to a max. Set II: now Keep in mind I was completely disconnected on what was going to happen. Neither me or my future ex wife even got the Bill when we managed to get into the venue. I also don’t remember being able to look or read my phone for a good 12 hours that night. By the time the lights went down for set II, we both couldn’t communicate, and would just give each other a little head nod every 30 mins or so telepathically communicating “you good?” “Yea I’m good”. Remember how I had seats behind the stage? Oh yea, well the combo of being on a head full, not seeing anything in front of me but fractals, and those seats, I didn’t even realized that they were playing on top of haunted house. I didn’t see the graves, nor did I even knew there were dancers. All I knew was that Phish was inside this Box a few yards away from me. (Storage jam!?? Part 2?!?) and they were playing music I had never heard before. Before the big revealed of the elevated stage, I was so confused. I thought it sounded like they were playing “Wipeout”. “Are they doing Beach Boys this Halloween!?”. Lol, no they’re not. Once “The Dogs” started, and I was finally able to see them, I realize that they were using some types of samples and were just jamming. This whole set for Me was a big jam. Broken down in different parts by these specific samples the band was using, and it was electric! Pet cats, The Birds were ridiculous, I remember dancing like there was no tomorrow during those songs the arena was pulsating. Martian Monster was just insane. Having Trey tell You “your trippin your trippin your trippin” over this infectious groove sent me to the stratosphere. Over all, I loved every single notes. Again, for me it was just one big jam because 1. I had 0 idea what they were doing, and 2. All the songs weren’t “songs” in the same way Wingsuit was an album and performed the prior year. Just amazing, weird, funky music. Set III: We both managed to go hit the bathroom, and got us some waters at concession. Both of us were “still good”. I loved Set III so much. You could tell the band was so loose from having delivered that incredible set II. Sand, Tweezer are highlights for me. Guyute was also awesome to hear. Heavy things I thought Trey was saying “boooo boooo hahaha” like a cute little ghost to be like “gotcha mother fuckers, you didn’t expect that did you?”. Then the encore: I was by no mean a cohen fan, nor do I think I had even heard that song before in my life. But it was the most perfect and beautiful cover I have ever heard. Perfectly placed and played for this occasion. This cemented my feeling that Phish was quite in tune with its fanbase (is this what you wanted!?). Yes phish, this was everything I ever wanted out of my first Vegas and Halloween show. 10 years will now have passed here in less than a few months of me writing this review. And I wish I could still live in that Haunted house for one more night.

The rating of this show (currently hovering around 4.00) is bonkers. If 2024 Phish has taught us anything, it's to actually listen to the show instead of just rating it based on the setlist alone. In 2024 the song - any song - has become mere pretext to wildly exploratory and transformative jamming. This phenomenon has slowly been asserting itself since mid-2022, was reinforced all this summer, and got supercharged by the spectacular ambient set at Mondegreen. Need proof? How about Thursday night? Ether Edge (a song I have dismissed as Christian Rock-lite and might actively dislike) goes deep and thick in the first set and the second set explodes with 40+ minutes of Sigma Oasis>Pillow Jets. Setlist lurkers alone probably look at that and think "meh">"meh", but you'd be sadly mistaken. Saturday showcases more of the same. The first set is so hot it feels much more like the third set of Friday's masterpiece. Every song is loose yet confident and ready for liftoff. 46 Days brings the wah soaked funk right off the bat in the jam. Oblivion blossoms and devolves and blooms anew. Evil Phish and bliss peaking in one package. The Gin is 19 minutes of fire. Maze features an incredible extended Page Peak. And MEAP finally gets the attention it deserves - well sung, well played - demolishing the final chord progression that has been begging for hose ever since it was written. Trey loved it so much you can very clearly hear him shout "yeah!" at 8:29. The floor at Dick's (Mike's side just behind the stack - respect the boogie yall) straight exploded. You reviewers might not have loved it, but the second set opener of Cup is pretty stark evidence that the band thought they were doing just fine, thank you very much. What follows is another setlist reviewer blind spot - KDF>WGTYM. Or more like KDFalls Apart>WGTYMindf@&*k. At just under 26 minutes, the KDF jam is loose limbed, brave and spectacular. Multiple movements. Tempo changes. Fully formed passages built, deconstructed and scuttled for new ground. Then it all collapses into noise followed by a neat segue into WGTYM. Like many newer Trey compositions the song itself feels a bit too cute and on the nose, but it's just a jumping off point. They leave the song structure entirely and go industrial evil, nudging up to the effects laden jamming of Mexico 2024 and rising to a tidy peak before chording into C&P. Combined - 42 minutes of inspiration. And somehow if those exact same jams were in a DWD, Tweezer, Bowie or any other old school, tent pole jam vehicle, the .net would be raving about back to back all-timers. Often in these reviews the reviewer mentions what's "worth" listening to. Howsabout we try listening to the whole damn thing? I know my brain got wired before the advent of a la carte music via Spotify, etc., but if you are rating a show it deserves your full attention. Looking at the setlist alone in 2024 gives you very little information about the quality of show itself. Many of the highlights of this show, and of the entire Dick's run, just don't stand out on paper. Cities. Ether Edge. Sigma Oasis. Pillow Jets. Steam. Oblivion. KDF. WGTYM. MYFY. SYSF. Not exactly crusty vet setlist magic. But these are the foundational jams of 3 1/2 nights of incredibly nimble and explosive music. Hell, even the outtro jam of Monsters has some extra sauce on it. We have been extolled through the years to Read The Book. I'd like to add Listen To The Show to the mantra as well. Thank you to the Texas crew, Maui crew, Cali crew and security personnel getting the bleep down at the floor entrance just to the right of the stack Mike's side on all four nights. Apologies to the chompers and standers that we joyfully and gently ushered past our collectively swirling mass.

On June 18th, 2010 a crowd of us woke up and stretched ourselves awake from various beds, couches and inflatable mattresses at our friend’s house in the ‘burbs of Hartford, Connecticut. It was a beautiful day so we spent it lounging around their lovely backyard pool with drinks and guitars working up an appetite for the epic barbecue that was promised and delivered. Come showtime we cracked beers for the ride (open liquor laws in Hartford are so very civilized) and got to the venue. I believe our hosts once again showed off their in-your-face stealth style of smuggling liquor into the show, an admirable display that has one brother lob a two-liter bottle to the other brother once the latter has cleared security. It’s an over-the-shoulder football catch that invariably arouses cheers from the crowd lined up to get in that in turn create confused looks on the faces of security, so busy searching bags and purses that they miss the whole maneuver. It’s beautiful, victimless anarchy and just a joy to behold. M’lady and I were in the pavilion for the show – which didn’t really matter because it wasn’t raining – but it was nice to be fairly close and central. The show was great from the get-go with a particularly fun three-song second set punch in the form of [i]Tweezer[/i]/[i]Theme From The Bottom[/i]/[i]Harry Hood[/i], a musical triumvirate of personal favourites. Speaking of favourites, given the haphazard nature of a Phish non-setlist set it’s very tempting to turn to the person next to you and make a guess at to what the next song might be. Anytime I hear even the slightest musical tweak, a particular chord or snare hit, or just get the same gut feeling that helps me pick numbers when I play roulette I turn to m’lady and confidently tell her what song is coming next. Of course I’m usually wrong. It’s not like I’m some sort of gambling millionaire or anything. Because of this, and out of an abundance of sympathetic empathy to a habit that must get quite annoying I resist stating these guesses out loud whenever I can, which I’m sure isn’t often enough. Now, when you get to the encore of a show (like this one) where the band has played [i]Tweezer[/i] but they haven’t yet played the nearly-ubiquitous follow-up [i]Tweezer Reprise[/i] (like this show) there’s certainly no cache in turning to your lady and calling for a [i]Reprise[/i]. To do so would be the newbiest newb move ever; in this situation everybody knows the reprise is coming. And come it did, right after [i]Sleeping Monkey[/i]. However, on very rare occasions the band forgets to bookend [i]Tweezer[/i] with [i]Tweezer Reprise[/i], and as they were finishing up it occurred to me this had been the case the last time they played [i]Tweezer[/i], just a few shows before. And so just as the band was going into the riff that wraps up the song and bid us all goodnight I had a thought. It was an exciting thought and it came like a flash. It went like this: “Phish should play the reprise twice in a row to make up for skipping it at the Hershey show!” Of course the notion was silly and to my eternal lot-cred detriment I somehow resisted stating my prediction out loud. And then just a few seconds later, wouldn’t you know it, Trey said this: “You know what? We’re all having such a great time and we’ve only got a couple of minutes before they kick us off the stage, and we played, uh, [i]Tweezer [/i]at Hershey Park where we never did [i]Tweezer Reprise[/i] so we’re going to play it again! This is for Hershey Park!” Then Trey tore into the riff to restart the song and the crowd went bananas. Especially me. “I called it in my head!” I screamed with delight, jumping up and down. But really, could a claim be much feebler? “I knew they were gonna do that…” Harumph. My one chance to be a Phish genius, blown by a courtesy. Me and my little mouth. https://toddmanout.com/

This is just not the way this epic weekend was supposed to end. If the band KNEW they were on a time limit (which they should have considering they moved the show up 5 hours ahead of schedule) the setlist COULD have been an absolute heater. Sunday could have been something special. Instead, it’s singularly a super forgettable experience. No real jams, no rarities, no bust outs. Even the songs like Izabella and Ya Mar were played the previous weekend! Why not do something interesting for the 40,000 people in attendance? I guess I am just frustrated with this ending. Sorry for the negativity. Peace and love.

Loved this one. Band sounded engaged all night and never bored or going through the motions. Inventive sections tucked into so many songs throughout the night. Zero BS. KDF and Gin prob the two big highlights but I think this is a show that will reward repeated listening over time — the band was easily tapping into the thing all night.

What a summer. I had a lot of fun going to Bethel and Mondegreen, and saw some sick shows, made some great memories. As this tour draws to a close and we prepare to go a few months without new Phish, I think we deserved a show as good as this one. The first set is truly one of my favorite 1st sets in recent Phish memory, setlist and playing are fantastic. A+ stuff. I was prepared for some crazy stuff in this 2nd set. 2nd set did not get that A+ rating as well but it was still fantastic, love and light, uplifting Phish. And that has its time and place. after a long summer these are the vibes I am okay with. As far as this encore, Sabotage kicks ass and that was a nice gift with the tweeprise. Was this an all timer show to talk about forever? No. Was this first set incredible, must hear Phish? Yes. I just think Dicks overall got a sick 4 night run and this was a very strong tour (stop crying about repeats, look at the 90s!) And we hav a fuck ton to be happy about. We know this band exists and that goes a long way. See you guys at MSG to close it out. Must Hears: ENTIRE first set, Caspian -> SYSF -> Tweezer, Sabotage > Tweeprise

A classic heavy first set is always welcome! MFMF going out for another long walk, that was awesome. Tube and stash were short but punchy. Life Saving gun closes it out in style with a ripping jam. Second set is not my favorite but tweezer saves it, great jam, lots of fun interplay. SABOTAGE , they went hard with that. I’ll take some bust outs and a few heavy hitting jams for show #50. All in all really great dicks run with Friday taking the gold medal. No rain, is the curse broken? Let’s find out next year.

I'll preface by saying that even a bad Phish show is still a good Phish show. And I'll also preface with saying it wasn't bad, but not necessarily good either. This show was like a rollercoaster with a lot of highs and a lot of lows. Setlist choice and flow/momentum had a lot to do with it. Songs felt out of place in this particular rotation they used. Energy was either really up (Loving Cup > KDF) and then really down (SOAM, monsters). I hate when they do this shit. Play an absolute banger then kill the vibe by playing a slow ballot. It was evident too as I heard mumbles and groans around me and saw people in droves going to take a piss break (SOAM, Monsters). Speaking of SOAM, what was up with that 3 minute part where it sounded like absolute chaos in the jam towards the end? I saw it on the looks of everyone around me like: "Is it supposed to sound like this?", "This doesn't sound good." People stopped dancing and vibing too. It was very bad on the ears and vibes. The encore was meh. Bug is a nice ballot and First Tube is always good no matter what. I give the show like a 3.4-3.8 I'm being nit-picky maybe because my expectations were high. But they should be since they are coming off 2 absolute bangers of shows. And I'm only critical because I love this band so much. I think that I traveled far and expected a lot is what let me down. It was still fun, it was still Phish. But I wish they did better in the setlist selection and jammed more songs out in the 2nd set.