This is a masterful Phish show.

This is a rare show where everything went right. Perfect song selection, perfect flow, and incredible extended jamming.

A very, very good first set with notable jams in Wave of Hope and Gin. The rest of the set is just perfect song selection. I am very happy about the return of Thread.

The second set is a 3 headed monster.

There was no breather song here. The entire thing was straight fire. It really is always exciting to catch a Tweezer live. The Tweezer is incredibly unique and sounds unlike any other Tweezer. This Tweezer is in the middle between a dark jam and a bliss jam. It sits right in the middle of those extremes and is very psychedelic and patient.

The Scents jam is also top notch. I was talking about wanting a Scents before the show. At this point I would've been happy with a 10 minute jam but they took it out for 17 minutes! Easily the longest and best Scents jam I've seen.

One of the most well rounded Phish shows I've seen.

I would give this show higher than 5 stars out of 5 if I could.

Well I guess I’ll give my first review ever for this show. Leading up to the show the lot was once again a good time, perfect weather and people it was a great weekend. Now onto the show…

Free-> good opener and gets things going. A standard affair.

A wave of hope-> they once again take this one for a ride. It’s a good jam and it kicks the night off for what’s to come.

Bathtub gin-> another solid jam back to back. Always love gin so at this point you’re getting no complaints from me.

Wilson-> great song choice and greatwoods is loud. I’m doing this review without a relisten but these four songs right out of the gate was a lot of fun and worth a listen for any fan.

The connection-> I like this song, I know people have differing opinions. Good bust out and well played.

Thread-> this is my favorite song off sigma oasis. It was nice to hear them play it again even though it was a little clunky at first.

Joy-> I like the placement of this and it was well played.

Runaway Jim-> standard affair but gets people going again.

Life saving fun-> this song is fun, it doesn’t reach the level of other versions. Nice way to end a fun set.

Set 2

The squirming coil-> well we don’t get this to open up sets quite often. It’s a standard quick affair but well played.

Tweezer-> the opening notes hit and everyone in great woods knows it’s on. The jam goes a lot of different places and goes about 22 minutes. My girlfriend asked me at one point during this what song we were in again, always get a kick out of that.

Scents and subtle sounds-> great call! This is a great version and is absolutely beautiful. This is a must listen from this show.

Twist-> the set Keeps rolling on nicely. It’s a solid version to keep the set going.

Crosseyed and painless-> wow I didn’t see this coming, but I’m sure glad it did. This version is sick, very relentless and inspiring jamming. This is another must hear from this show.

Slave to the traffic light-> great call to end an amazing set of music. This is a solid version.

Encore

Possum-> a standard rocking affair but keeps the energy from set 2 going.

Tweezer reprise-> it’s great and sends everyone home happy.

Greatwoods was an awesome start to summer I must say. Three really solid shows to kick off the summer. Night three was my favorite of the run followed closely by night one. This show was really good and I would highly reccomend a listen to any fan out there. If they keep playing like this we are in for a great summer, see you at Mohegan.

Highlights

Set 1-> a wave of hope, bathtub gin>wilson
Set 2-> the whole thing.

So the Sunday/Funday cliches have been revalidated for a few months…

During the hours leading up to the show, my touring buddy and I relistened to 7/28/23 MSG (the first night of 7 at the Garden), and I remembered thinking during that MSG show that slotting AWOH into song #2 was a good sign (even though it’s not my favorite song) “OK LETS JAM THEN.” The MSG appetizer show also featured a bunch of mid-length type 2 exploratory jams with a bit of darkness, foreshadowing for us a terrific finale to a fun weekend at Great Woods, in which the 2nd song AWOH didn’t quite reach the heights of its MSG counterpart, while it’s 2024 companion, Bathtub Gin, was for me a weekend highlight, with a lovely melodic peak and a also ~4+ minutes of a cool-down jam that AFAICT Trey insisted on elaborating. There’s an extended riff on Sand from 10:30 to nearly 11:00, more distinct and longer than most teases and should be footnoted accordingly.

You know what’s an even better sign that a long jam vehicle like AWOH teed up early? When there’s the anti-ripcord, when Trey’s the one extending a jam that was potentially petering by just trying something new and turning a corner. I thought I caught another anti-ripcord during the later stages of Tweezer as well.

Wilson, believe it or not, was the first Gamehenge song performed since NYE; obviously we can still have fun, and did. Rarity time? The Connenction was a personal debut, and as far as I’m concerned, Thread can keep following me around from Jam show to Shoreline to wherever, really one of the best of the newer songs, I don’t even try to to play the drum part b/c part of it is in 15… proggy delight! ALL ALONE. ALL ALONE. Was the bit that followed related to the as yet unplayed Epitaph? (I honestly have no idea, but I feel like that debut is waiting for Mondegreen.) While the Split Open probably brought the darkest storm of the weekend, Thread and a few other moments sprinkled into tonight returned to those ‘not all jams have to pretty all the time’ places that have been a welcome complement to the programmed yet sincere explosions of joy.

A joyous Runaway Jim and darker LSG were well placed solid versions and it felt like we might be in for another short setbreak… 23 minutes indeed. They want to play close to 3 hour shows at the expense of setbreak? You love to see it!

Coil is a lovely choice for “get yer ass back to your seats dammit” while not 100% clean on Trey’s part, the Tweezer that followed followed a funky start through some atmospheric build into a soaring part and eventually something that sounded like a cross between “Listen to the Music” by the Doobie Brothers and I’m not sure what. While the 20 minutes goes by quick, the different phases of the Tweezer jam will each sound reasonably familiar to any phan, with good flow and whole-band interplay.

So far, so great, and the SASS to follow is even greater, my favorite jam of the night/weekend for its creative range and totally-out-there strand of improvisation.

I believe this was the jam when I noticed Trey leaning over Page until Page switched from synth to piano and played co-lead instead of just vamping along with Trey not sure exactly when that was in the show, but you absolutely love to see it!!

Twist descended into type 1.5 time warpy but not too crazy space for a spell before things went berserk with Crosseyed and Painless. At this point I asked out loud whether we’d get First Tube or Slave to close out this classic, nearly 90 minute set in style, and the Slave chosen for the occasion rose to the moment. The crowd got it’s ya-ya’s out with the Possum-Reprise encore… a generally much quieter group than Saturday night’s sing along raucous-caucus, but that’s also because there was more active listening required on Sunday.

All in all a great, nearly classic show, with well balanced, well constructed setlists & a good variety to the improvisation style and overall sonic palette.

5/5 stars (4.53 to be exact*).

*My scale assumes that obvious all time great shows like NYE23 and Big Cypress are actually 5.00 and a “bad concert” by other bands would be 1.00-2.00, a cancelled show 0.00. Great Woods 24 N1 and N2 are both tough calls in that 3.8-4.2 range with N2 being one of those ‘why listen to a recording’ but exceedingly fun shows in person people like to argue about. This review based on mental notes taken while attending and an informal relisten while recuperating in Boston on Monday.

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!

Only made this Sunday night of the run…magical second set. The vibes were very high, throughout the lot and inside the gates…
Free—> Wilson felt like throwback post hiatus pre-Coventry era tight, gel coated, and giddy. Some flubs told me they were having fun and showing out for the heads…

Connection got the people moving…for the concessions. I stuck it out, it’s a good breather and a welcome bust out…

Thread and Joy are personal faves that weren’t clean but the emotion of the songs were perfect and the jams were crisp.

Jim had the place bouncing and back into to that 2000-03 vibe.
full moon Sunday shows in the NE should never be missed.

LSG was dope. Fish trolling with the lack of percusssion rinses made me think he might have a new toy he hasn’t taken out of the box yet…

Set break

Coil was awesome, great set opener, the chairman painted a scene.

Tweezer—-> Scents
This is why we do this. There is nothing better. Scents is a must listen.

Twist, Crosseyed
grabbing ahold of the energy and space off the tweezecents and flying into groove world. Gordo and Fishman really bounding around.

Slave
Fitting, enjoy the traffic on the way home.

Encore

Possum with some Spicy Mustard and a proper high kicking Red Headed king fu man- tweeprise ending to a spectacular Sunday.

Mondegreen- maybe so, maybe not…
Overandout
-PhattyBrown

Oh hey, it's my first Phish show. =)

This moment was a long time coming for me. I had been listening to Phish shows since the end of 2020, though I didn't become seriously interested in them until the spring of '22. I'll never forget my first tangle with the .Net forum, scouring the thread for the Earth Day show and trying to find out what they were gonna do for the third set. I bought tickets to one of that year's Mansfield shows but ended up not using them because I came down with COVID. The last thing my mom remembers is me asking if we should get insurance for them, which I guess I didn't see the logic in because it was so close to the show. Oops.

So this made that "Free" opener all the sweeter, as I was now free of the burden of... uh, not seeing Phish. This song kicks off a good first set with two back-to-back jam vehicles I actually don't care for much: Wope offers up a generic soaring jam, while Gin does the same thing as most of the post-COVID versions with a busy groove jam. But then comes Wilson, the first performance of a true-blue Gamehendge song since NYE, ending the oft-rumored idea that they had shelved those songs following the complete performance. It rocked in the room, let me tell you. After that, "The Connection" was an interesting moment as, despite being a legit bust-out, I saw a mass exodus to the bathrooms while it was going on. What the hell? I guess people latched onto the idea that it sounded like Diet Number Line, so they bolted. Not me though, and "Thread" afterward was another fun deep cut.

(In case you're wondering: Yes, I do use quotations for the proper names of songs. Sue me.)

Set 2 offered deeper jamming than the first, a non-stop sequence of six songs that were all fun to check off my personal list. Coil as a set opener? Why not! A Scents with a magisterial jam segment that crossfades into more mellow territory? Yup. And I'll never say no to X'eyed in a 4th quarter, this one being an outrageous energy boost in a show that wasn't exactly dragging. Kinda weird that a 21-minute "Tweezer" ends up being the weak link here, but whatever. The band made up for that at my next show.

Overall, this was a perfectly solid introduction to the showgoing experience. The tickets in Section 1(!) I pulled from the lottery were most resplendent; my only wish is that my sister also could've enjoyed them. We ran the gauntlet from the private lot through shakedown prior to the show, and she ended up bailing before entering the pavilion (but after getting food). When I got back to the car, I saw her watching The Bear on her iPhone. At least she was a good sport for driving me there. I have my driver's license now, so hopefully I should be able to do a multi-show run in the future without issue.