Better than yesterday's show in my opinion.

First set has a nice Buried Alive opener into a rocking NICU still with the weird middle section. Stash and Paul are good. My Friend still needs work. Mike falls off during the intro. Reba has a big FU in the middle, but they quickly recover. Maze, Fee and Chalkdust are great. After his "facial accident" Trey says, Fish is introduced as Tommy Dorsey during IDK. Pardon me Doug part has a "Take it apart" jam. Good Golgi to end.

Second set starts off with a good Curtain, although kind of a sloppy ending going into Mike's. The groove is rocking into hydrogen and a really good Weekapaug with a few warts. Trey flubs the Tube lyrics coming out of the solo section. Llama also has some warts. Lawnboy is dedicated to Amy Skelton. Fish flubs the lyrics to Brain. Jim is a great closer tonight.

Good double encore. Fish is loosing his voice during Monkey. I always love a good Cavern.

(Published in the second edition of The Phish Companion...)

I had just seen Phish play four days in a row, with the Stanford free show the day before. The Stanford show was fun, but I decided to take it easy and save up energy for the Catalyst.
If you've never been to the Catalyst, the main performance room used to be a bowling alley, so it's long and narrow, with small, narrow balconies with tables on both the left and right sides (from front to back). The place holds 650 comfortably, and about 800 uncomfortably. Phish's show that night was totally sold out, so the place was really packed.
There were multiple pre-parties in Santa Cruz before the show, so we visited a few and then returned home to prepare for the show. We all took care of business before leaving the house, and then walked along the river to downtown (about a fifteen minute walk). By the time I handed the guy my ticket at the door of the Catalyst, I felt like my mind was being shot through a canon. I remember being stoked that they were playing both Miles Davis and later Steely Dan before the show.
We took the entire front section of the upstairs right area, which is about ten feet from the stage. The band had to walk past us each time to go from the backstage area to the stage. Slowly the place filled up, and somehow I got my cassette deck into the chain off of the one set of mics in the place, which was about fifteen feet from the stage, center. If you haven't heard the this show, I would recommend it as the best show I ever saw them play. My friend Nick, a jazz guitar player/instructor, was at the show. He was not a big fan of Phish, but said this: "Trey's playing was awe-inspiring during the first set." I have to agree.
At the time, I was really only familiar with the tunes from Picture of Nectar and Junta (as well as the few boots I had), so this was the first time I had heard a few of these tunes, such as "My Friend" and "Tube". The "Maze" was the highlight for me from the first set, but the entire set smokes from beginning to end.
Listening to the show again today, I feel that the musical peaks of the first set are "Stash" (one of my personal favorite versions), "My Friend", "Reba", "Maze", and "Chalk Dust". Each musician on stage played at 100% for the entire set. The band fed off the crazy Santa Cruz audience energy and in turn delivered the screaming audience one peak after another throughout the set. Second set is incredible as well.
The second set contains the craziest "Mike's" > "Weekapaug" I ever heard. It was a seriously intense experience, one you can almost feel by listening to the recording. Some say this show has the best version of "Weekapaug" ever; it is my personal favorite). The show, as was typical of this run, slows down after the "Weekapaug", but then picks up again with "Tube", "Mango" (always loved this tune), "Llama", etc.
I remember being so out of it, I almost left the venue without my tape deck. I got the deck, gathered the troops, and walked back home to listen to the tapes (we were still mentally flying at this point). When I got home and tried to listen to the tape, I realized I recorded the entire show too hot -  it was blown out in such a way that I couldn't really ever listen to it -  but I somehow managed to scored good tapes within a week.
This show still ranks as one of the most intense live concert experiences I have ever had. There's a great audience recording (from the same set of mics I was patched into, but from a DAT source) in circulation that is such good quality that it makes up for the lack of an widely available, good quality, soundboard source.

I think that the bootleg sound quality is giving me some trouble here. The Stash jam is really cool but the recording is such that I have to really lock in on Trey to follow his playing and its more of a chore than the pleasure it should be. Maze however sounds very good and is my clear set 1 highlight. This first set doesn't really sniff the last few nights highs but it isn't bad.

I'm a big fan of the Curtain so I'm always happy to hear it (with perhaps a notable exception). The transition to Mike's Song doesn't sound all that good on tape. It would be crazy not to acknowledge the jamming that happens in Mike's and 'paug but for whatever reason like the first set's Stash I'm just having trouble locking in on it. I've listened a few times and not really been grabbed which is weird for me. Horse>Silent works very well here. Nice to see a Tube here it's the only one for this tour so that's something. Mango goes for a sweet brief walk. An average Llama takes into the Fish goofiness portion of the evening. An excellent '92 Jim ends the set. Encores are fun as per usual.

So I don't know. This one doesn't do for me what the previous three nights do but there is still plenty to enjoy. Maybe I just need to listen again some other time.

I'm not really sure why this show's rating is so notably lower than that of the three previous nights and the one following. In all honesty, maybe all five shows of the run deserve something closer to a 4.3ish average. However, this is the only show to actually average in that territory--perhaps because of the tape quality.... Anyway, I think 4/19 certainly holds its own in the run.

Buried Alive>NICU (with its old vocal interlude, still) is a strong opener, quickly followed by a strong Stash that teeters on the edge of chaos for much of the jam. Trey teases the main Stash melody around 7:45 for a nice flare. Despite a rough flub in the Reba composed section, Trey guides a smooth recovery and takes things into an awesome jam full of ascending patterns laddering up to a grandiose peak. Trey's CDT solo is another great Set 1 highlight.

Set 2's Curtain opener certainly forebodes greatness. This Mike's Groove surpasses that of 4/16, in my opinion, with a more rooted and melodic jam section that borders on Immigrant Song's outro jam. Fishman is berserk. Weekapaug Groove takes it even further as the band moves from utter shredfest jamming to a more timid pattern-based full band groove, and then into a vocal jam to close out. Really excellent showcasing of the entire band here. A dark horse favorite from this era, Tube features an absolutely banging Page solo that I wish went on for a bit longer. The extended Mango Song outro is a spirited and uplifting rarity that marks the second set with a unique highlight. The following Llama may also outshine those from earlier in the week, as Trey's soloing is absolute bonkers (though 4/16 is also really strong...it was a good year for Llamas). Runaway Jim closer displays especially rich and triumphant jamming--Fishman kills it here.