well, after seeing a good number of shows this summer, i felt phish was playing pretty strong, but some sloppy moments had really started to slip into their shows. i thought the 2nd night of deer creek really put some of that sloppiness on display. after a pretty hot september tour, i was hoping they would pick it back up. unfortunately, in my travels, this cincy run really marked the beginning of smacked out trey/directionless jamming/sloppy play.

1st tube: this one started nice and tight. it got the crowd gassed. it did what first tube usually does.

wolfman's: this was a pretty tight '99 wolfman's. nothing out of this world, but it kept the momentum moving forward.

batr: standard. sat down and burned one.

gbott: they didn't do much with this one either. straight forward '99 version.

billy breathes: solid version. one of my favorite phish slow songs.

ac/dc bag: here we go! this got me back in at after a few blah selections. trey began to slop up the back section of this one before sending it into...

possuum: this was a pretty solid version. it did not go completely over the top like the really good possums do, but it was a satisfactory set closer, but wait...

slave: ah yes, bonus slave! unfortunately, this was marred by trey mistakes. he completely whiffed the first "peak." it was sad. at set break, i said something i did not think i would have ever said, " i wish they just wouldn't have played slave. that was sad."

2nd set:

sand: some griped that it sounded too much like first tube, but i thought it was a cool duel set opener pairing. the jam was pretty solid, but trey on the keys really irks me, as i have mentioned in other reviews that i have posted. play the guitar man.... you're much stronger there. trey also seemed to get a little lost. a buddy of mine with killer seats said he was quite certain that trey nodded off for a minute or two. like the soa melt the next night, page took the drivers seat on this one after a little while. decent dark jam, but they pretty much stayed in that sand frame work.

limb by limb: you could tell they were going to do something interesting here right off the bat. they steered away from the basic limb theme as quickly as possible. they explore some interesting spacey realms, but all in all, this jam kind of plodded along. plus, once again, trey put the guitar down and dicked around with that damn keyboard for a good chunk of this 20+ minute jam. they eventually brought this one back home before giving way to...

bug: i hate this song. i was hoping it would die a quick death, but unfortunately, like caspian, i guess people actually like this song... ahh the mysteries of life. eleven years later i'm still bitching about this song (see the momentum killing alpine 09 bug..yuck!)

piper: Piper did what piper does. it got a little sloppy in this one too, but not too bad.

harry hood: this was good. it left me quite optimistic for the next night

enc:
rock and roll: nice straight forward rock and roll. page hit his high note.

overall/highlights:

1st set:
on paper a bag>possum>slave set closing sequence looks great. the cincy 99 take on those 3 songs, not so impressive.

2nd set:

harry hood

If you would have told me pre show that i would be seeing a four song 2nd set, i would have been thrilled. in reality, nothing but hood really seemed to work the whole time. sloppy play prevailed.