The first four Phish shows of tour have certainly been interesting. Yet, I feel torn about the improvisation we have seen thus far. On the one hand, the band - in both type 1 and type 2 - excursions is demonstrating incredible patience and openness. Each jam often starts extremely quiet (see Divided and BOTT last night) with dynamic interplay between the members. Furthermore, the band seems - more than ever - to take the jams to my favorite place - blissful, melodic and beautiful textures. Jams that almost never go to this 'place' - Antelope, Bowie, even the DWD - can't help but fall back into some gorgeous, slow melodic texture. So why do I feel so torn? In many ways, the explosion of type II jamming and experimental excursions is exactly what I always wanted more of in 3.0 Phish. Well, to be blunt, a lot of these jams are kind of....well...restless and meandering. There seems to be an utter resistance (perhaps calculated) to letting any 'themes' develop. It seems every 8 bars, Trey is noodling a different melodic line, or playing a different set of choppy chords -- all of which sound amazing on their own, but, imo, need to be given more space to develop organically. No 'idea' is pursued beyond 20 seconds or so. To me, this is most evident in the 7/6 Split and 7/7 DWD. The jams just never seem to 'get' anywhere (and in fact the Split nearly fell apart on at least 3 separate occasions). Perhaps it's because that is what type II jamming is: a risk - sometimes you reach 'that place' but sometimes it falls apart. And, I think there's a tendency (mr miner) to laud ANY type ii jam just because it is type ii. But, we certainly we need to be critical - some type ii jams are better than others. But, I wonder if Phish is more consciously avoiding 'themes'. I think in the Phish book Mike said that 93-95 jamming lead them to become weary of just hooking up on a melodic theme - it became easy. I think at Dicks, what they did, amazingly coherent type ii jams, was perhaps EASIER than what they are doing the last couple shows. These jams are almost like a stream of consciousness - scattered, choppy and uneven. While I appreciate the philosophy behind that idea, as a listener it is frustrating to follow the jams and think - whoa that is cool - only to have it dropped for the next idea/theme. I'm sure this is all setting the stage for something more coherent - and I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of tour.