Well, after 7 shows this summer, I am happy to report that Phish can still play. I saw 1 great show (1st night Deer Creek), 1 awful show (1st night Alpine) and 5 very good shows (other Alpine and Deer Creek shows and Camdens.) Having never done more than 4 shows in 1 tour before, I have to say thatthe details have sort of faded into each other, so instead of doing each show, here are some picked-up pieces:
-Scents and Subtle Sounds and Walls of the Cave are kick-ass new tunes. Loved the 28 minute SASS in Camden and the long WOTC in Deer Creek.
-Secret Smile is cute. So is Dog Faced Boy. The difference is, they realized long ago that there is no need to play Dog Faced Boy more than once a decade.
-They got booed off the stage for playing Secret Smile encore at 1st night of Camden. While I agree that it is a horrible encore, I must say that the crowd deserved nothing better. It was dead silent at the end of the show! Nobody cheered for them to come back out, and nobody cheered when they did come back out. People these days! After 800 straight shows with an encore, I don\'t know if they could slap an audience in the face enough to not come back out, but I wouldn\'t have blamed them if they didn\'t. At the same time, to play an encore that you know is bad is to insult the audience, and insulting the audience (who has just insulted you) is only going to lead to bad things. This is a very odd situation, Phish not selling out and getting booed off stage....
-A least 1 good jam every night, usually several, but nobody cheers at the parts where the crowd is supposed to do something.
-After doing the first 6 shows on the lawn, I totally forgot the power of the light rig. Glad I snuck into the pavillion for my last show. Man, do the lights suck on the lawn!
-Alpine is so weird how you can\'t see the band or even the light rig when you\'re on the lawn. It\'s like it\'s sloped the wrong way.
-This tour is impossible to follow. Look at the drives and the times to do them. I think they\'re trying to keep people off of tour because the crowds are too big. I remember having to park at a McDonald\'s 3 miles from the venue last time at The Meadows. Two things about keeping the crowds down:
1. It\'s working.
2. Good.
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**** IT! Haha! I\'m Phished out. Glad I had such a good excuse to skip It.