@Scott said:

Great review of a great show, I really appreciate the insidery musician touches like "As the intensity grew, Mike made a bold decision to push towards Lydian mode, which Trey immediately locked in on, allowing the high energy to take on a more elusive, mysterious, longing quality." The explanations for why the Theme was both a favorite and a standout version, why the Cities jam had more to offer than Runaway Jim, etc., this was really one of the most musically insightful and best-written reviews I can recall reading in 30+ years of Rosemary's Digest->.NET.

I will disagree with one sentence, however. "On paper, set two might not be much to write home about..." I can't agree, this whole show is pretty bonkers on paper if you ask me. Cities, Gin, Jim, Sigma, DwD & LSG are between 14:47 and 23:23, and with the possible exception of the DwD I haven't relistened to yet, are all going to end up on the jam chart in a hurry, plus near universal favorites like Theme and Ghost turning up to good effect. From the couch, that venue looked somewhat like the newish one in Bangor, enough so that as soon as Sigma Oasis started up, I wondered if we'd get a DwD to follow, and sure enough we did, although in this case the Sigma & LSG that bracket were the stars. In my mind, Sigma Oasis has established itself as a set anchor song. They did name an album after it, after all!

Overall it feels like the momentum of summer tour has been maintained with the creative, exploratory jamming in each of the first 3 quarters. 4/5 stars minimum, probably 5/5 b/c that might be the 2nd best 1st set of the year.

Thanks so much for the really kind words! I love getting to nerd out on the music theory in the jams.

I love friendly debate/differing opinion as well. My meaning for “not a great set on paper” was referring to a lot of newer songs in set two (set one song list was killer!), that aren’t my favorite and I’ve heard many fan gripes as well. Playing was fantastic throughout all those and it felt that almost every jam brought something interesting to the table.

I’ve said a lot to friends but in the last few years it feels like every show is consistently in the good/great category and even “lesser” ones I’ve seen are much higher quality overall than 10-15 years ago IMO. Such fun in AL, enjoy the rest of tour!