Rants

“Dressy Phish,” as I heard this kid so animatedly describe it, was interesting to say the least. The crowd consisted mostly of the DMB/Phish type fan, akin to the crowd that probably attended ACL a few summers back. I would be out of line if I didn’t mention the quality of women that made an appearance but that’s what you come to expect in the south. Saw a couple spunions here and there and a few older symphony enthusiasts but overall a good, attentive crowd. If you were there, I hope you noticed the couple in the front row page side getting down in their seats all night. I wanted some of whatever they were having. There definitely seemed to be a No Wooks Allowed policy in place because I didn’t see my usual amount of people I was scared of (you know the type that you see laying in the lot, strung out pre show)

Red walked out close to 8 PM and opened with a raucous First Tube. Immediately you noticed a difference in Trey’s tone. He didn’t have his usual pedal set-up and with the distorted sound, he sounded a lot more like 93 Trey than the clear tone of today. I for one would LOVE for that tone to make a comeback. Water in the Sky was nice on the acoustic, but I feel he should have picked up his electric for Divided Sky. I could have sworn the beginning of Guyute was My Friend but I guess I was mistaken. The Stash to close the set was the highlight for me outside of the opener. Folks even clapped along at their customary moments, which elicited an ear to ear some from big Red. He was eating up all the attention.

Set 2 opened with a 30 minute TTE. It’s no wonder this song was cut from the Phish rotation as the first 15 minutes are a snooze fest in a concert setting, but even last night, on a stage it was built for, the song didn’t pop. During the If I Could, this guy 5 seats down from me stood up on his chair and proposed to his girlfriend. Lucky for him, she said yes. Although, even if she didn’t want to, she probably would have elected to save him the embarrassment and let him know when they got home that this wasn’t going to work. All joking aside, it was a nice moment. Someone up front let Trey in on what was going on, and he congratulated them. During the YEM, Trey threw in a Here Comes the Bride tease just to sweeten the deal. The crowd hit its rowdiest point of the night during the peak of YEM, people standing up yelling boy, man, god, shit, but even at its rowdiest the crowd remained attentive.

Encore of Golden Slumber was a nice surprise. That plus the second encore of Inlaw Josie Wales, rounded out our night in style. Overall it was a different yet engaging experience. Definitely not something you need to see more than once and in the end you will just be jonesin for summer tour. Bethel Woods, we’re comin to your town to help you party down.