Well well well, my 5th show of the summer, and the first one where I didn't have to drive at least 6.5 hours to get to, this time it only took 40 minutes!!!! Anyway, if any of you have never been to the UIC let me say first off that the venue is literally located directly to the left of downtown, so while we were chillin on the lot (which raged) you were able to look to your right and literally look at downtown with all the skyscrapers.. very cool. Anyway, enough rambling now on to the show.

SET ONE:

dinner and a movie: very interesting opening choice, liked how they decided to opt for something different than the usual. very tight playing and high energy opener.

ha ha ha: well i mean, this was my first as was dinner, so i was pretty stoked for both, but this was a cool little tune that was over as fast as it started..

chalkdust: now, as far as the chalkdusts ive seen, this is BY FAR the best one, sooo much tension and release it had the crowd going nuts! above average 3.0 chalkdust

mexican cousin: ahhh we figured they were gonna get goofier after ha ha ha, and this one did the trick for me at least, average.

walls of the cave: now time for some lovely compositional music, and walls gave us exactly that. they nailed this take, not much of a jam but this was still a very nicely played version. it was a great choice with the relatively small intimate crowd and all...

runaway jim: standard

foam: who doesnt love foam?

i didnt know: vacuum solo was hilarious, haha seriously and then trey grabs a few otis redding t-shirts off his amp thats behind him and hands one to page who then threw it to mike, who then acted like he was gonna throw it into the crowd, but then threw it to fishman.

ocelot: ehhh im gettin kinda sick of seeing this one, ive seen it 3 times this summer and 5 times out of 9 shows..

ginseng sullivan: this was exactly what i needed after another ocelot, some good ol phishy bluegrass, this was an awesome choice for the slot.

wedge: i love me some wedge

limb by limb: good pick to help keep bringing the energy back up, nice version with a fairly decent jam.

let it loose: now this was pretty sweet, totally a highlight of the set.

overall, i was kinda hoping for an antelope after let it loose, so honestly after this set my buddy and i both were thinking the second set was gonna totally rage and by far were our expectations exceeded.

SET TWO:

down with disease: well i called it at setbreak, but i dont think anybody in the venue knew how big of a monster we were in for!! absolutely nasty down with disease, it clocked in at just under 22 minutes and covered multiple themes. there were multiple times during this jam where i just shook my head and said really?? this disease is must hear. AWESOME start to the set. some space at the end led straight into ->

twist: this was a very nice twist, good choice and very high energy. this actually went into ->

bdtnl: standard

theme from the bottom: i love billy breathes, and this is by far my favorite song off that album. "keep whats important, and know whose your friend".... awesome cool down pick

golden age: another one i said we'd probably get tonight, while it was nowhere near as good as the one i caught at SBIX, this one did not disappoint, very nice golden age.

aditl: the crowd ate this one up, seemed like everyone wanted to hear it with how loud the reaction was.

yem: I FINALLY GOT MY FIRST YEM AFTER 9 SHOWS!!!!!!!!! needless to say how amazed i was that it took this long to get one, but it was everything i thought it would be. it was beautiful, it was long, and it was funky!! haha awesome yem and i was just so happy to finally get one.

overall, much much better than set one, very nice jamming too.

ENCORE:

heavy things: standard, but was nice to hear something else in the encore spot than the usual. still chasing my good times bad times though!! ahh maybe next time

slave: yet another lovely slave, average. nice playing from trey particularly.

rocky top: we saw trey go over to mike and say something alone the lines of "hey man, lets do one more alright? alright hell yeah now lets do rocky top" and boy were we glad they decided to play another one, average rocky top but they simply just dont play this song as much as it ought to be.

HIGHLIGHTS:

set one: wotc, i didn't know, ginseng sullivan, let it loose

set two: dwd (must hear) -> twist, golden age, yem and i just have to put in rocky top, that was just awesome.

Overall this was a very fun show, alot of songs that arent frequently played so it was a nice batch of tunes i haven't heard this summer and actually i few i haven't heard yet. it was a very high energy show. i'd say download it totally, especially for that down with disease jam!!!

rating on a 5 star scale : 3.75. not quite a 4 with a few song choices. but still a great/ above average show!