this show is a real winner. for those of you that have never been to this venue, it is pretty solid. it is very similar to deer creek, once you get inside. the parking/traffic situation is always quite a bitch. i guess there is ample parking, it just sucks getting to it. the sound is pretty good in there too. anyway, this is their first time playing polaris, and they made a nice first impression there.

my friend and yamar get the crowd grooving. great summery opening sequence. roggae and rift work early in the set, but the cities that follows is a real doozy. this might be the highlight of the show. the band is very much in sync here and they just move together as a unit through this funk laden jam. water in the sky feels a little out of place here, but the stash that follows really wails. where as the cities was a great phish jam, this stash is a really good trey jam. of course, the rest of the band are not slouches here, but trey really hammers this one home.

the curtain>free opening combo is loaded with energy. if i could seems a little odd here, but it works nicely into tmwsiy. avenu is really rocking, and instead of dropping back into the tmwsiy, they plop right into twist around. this is a nice explorative version that finally forges into a hard rocking izabella. the julius>cavern closing sequence is novel but well executed. i really like the punch>slave encore. i'd have to do my homework, but i'm not sure when/if punch had been encored before. plus a nice bonus slave taboot.

as mentioned before, this show marked a nice debut for phish at this venue. if you like this cities, which you will, check out the ghost jam from the same venue the next year. they are both in the same vein, and they are both very good collective efforts with amazing interplay. phish also went on to close the summer 2000 tour here with a pretty damn good 2 night stand. i guess my point here is, why not come back to columbus? i guess, at least, they came back to the blossum center, but the polaris people miss you too.... 4 shows here, all of them killer.

highlights

set 1:
yamar, cities, stash

set 2:
the curtain>free, avenu>twist>izabella