A couple of people started a debate over these 3 little words in the 9/8/6 show review thread, but I have an extended take so I thought I\'d stoke up a new thread...
My take on saying "best show ever": I don\'t mind people saying it because what they mean is that was their personal best show ever. I like hearing that. With over 1000 shows played obviously nobody can assert that some show was the best show ever for the band. But that\'s not what anybody\'s saying. They\'re just saying it was the best show that they personally have ever seen.
The "They-Just-Keep-Getting-Better-Every-Night" phenomenon is very common amongst Breakfast fans between shows 10 and 50. I talk to people going through it all the time. I personally went through a second phase of this around shows 160-200 starting at the beginning of \'04 with the emergences of D5/Doughboy/Inner Glimpse/No Regret and continuing all the way through \'05 with Good Things/Psygn/Fresh Cut/Eppy III. When you\'re in that zone where every show somehow tops the last one then you\'re bound to say "best show ever" a lot. It\'s a personal thing and I like hearing people say it.
Up through \'01 there were some people who had seen 50-90% of all Breakfast shows and 100% of all non-doozie Breakfast shows. During this time it was possible to have a best-show-ever with nearly universal concensus. I think that 10/30/99 (Fonghoulish Freakout I at Puppet House), 11/19/99 (First huge Butterfield show), 8/12/00 (The six hour Woodstock set), 5/5/01 (Baker Quad, last show on UMass campus), and 8/27/01 (Camp Creek) are the only shows that for a time could claim the title of "Best Show Ever." After \'01 when national tours started and northeast shows got more spread out there was just no way to track this anymore.
For my personal best show ever, I\'m gonna take a page out of Tom Brady\'s book. He\'s won 3 NFL championships, but when asked which championship was his favorite he replied, "The next one." So for me the best Breakfast show is always my next one.
But when The Breakfast plays a show that trumps anything you\'ve ever seen before and you\'re experiencing that super post-show afterglow when you hit the keyboard, by all means bust out a "Best Show Ever". I\'ll be happy to read it.