(Originally published on the legacy Phish.net site many years ago, after being posted on rec.music.phish 1/3/92.)

Yes, the New Year's Eve show was intense. The first set, maybe set and 1/2 was only mediocre, but things definitely picked up after that. The new lighting and sound systems were absolutely used to the max, and the new Minkin painting is stunning - depending on the lighting Topher uses on it, it can resemble a startling array of different images and colors. Incredible.

Did anyone think that the light show might have been just a TAD overdone? I loved all of it, but at the end of the show when the fog started billowing out again and all the lights went on and the siren lights started spinning, it seemed like something approaching and Iron Maiden concert (I'm assuming, never having been to one). Just an observation; I certainly liked ALL of it.

Well, the boys have hit there first major coup in "the big time." This was the largest venue they've ever played, I believe, and the sold out show was a roaring success. I particuarly liked Trey's Aul Lange Syne over Buried Alive 2 minutes before midnight (and how about those confetti cannons!). Excellent. Simply excellent.

The only way it could have been topped (besides them having played something a bit more obscure and surprising than just McGrupp, which, for those who do not know, is NOT a new gamehendge song - it is the ORIGINAL gameghendge song, the one from which all others sprang. Don't ask me why they didn't include it in the Thesis) is if they had let me bring the PhishNet shirts into the New Aud and hand them out. But, as many of you discovered, no such luck. So as a result, I am going to start sending them out ASAP (tomorrow and Saturday, whatever time I can snatch), and they will be to you as soon as is humanly possible (given the limitations of the US Snail Mail service).