Set One Notes:
I’m going to be honest right off the bat. I’m pretty neutral on the My Soul opener. I mean, it’s got some good energy to it, Trey is definitely fired up, but there is no way that it was ever going to surpass the openers of the last two nights. It doesn’t need to compete though. Spoiler alert: this becomes a great first set. Theme From The Bottom emerges, and something about it being in the two-spot gives me definite “Sunday Show” low-key energy to me. This is such a soaring song, building from underwater into the clouds. This is great Type-I, the band fundamentally locked in around Trey, but with Trey being diverted into whatever path they lay. I begin to feel like the band sounds like they are pretty baked, in a performance enhancing way (depending on your tastes, of course…), but maybe I’m just heavily projecting. BEK comes out after that thing-of-beauty Theme, and let’s get the fuck down. The groove feels like a down-the-rabbit-hole party in a field of chilled out wiggling flowers. Trey has such command of his right-hand pick attack and its influence on the tone, and yes, this is the best BEK up to this point in the tour, without a question, and may very well stay in that position. Sparkle is the happiest terrifying song out there. When Twist pops out it feels nice, and I’m down for it. This is a song purpose-built to jam, a textbook representation of the sound that Phish was trying to achieve in 1997. Twist is designed to allow the band to get Out There, to that place that ’97 Phish goes, quickly and efficiently, in this, in a strong but compact package. It surely doesn’t feel compact though, getting way groovier and spacier than its ten-minute timestamp would suggest. Stash is a nice call after the space opened up by that Twist, a great place to arrive, usually promising a tense, gripping ride. The band sounds wide open in the first half of the jam, not too tangled-manic-crazy, but tense nonetheless. This jam starts to melt into intermingling strands of weirdness that begin to knot. The jam gets moody-muddy-heavy, Page high-steppin’ gingerly over the bubbling pits of murk below. Digital insectoids are on the prowl, hunting, surrounding. Trey’s guitar emerges from the weirdness as the only light, the intensity around him building. The band begins to levitate upwards out of the dark pit they have sunken into, emerging into NICU’s light. NICU begins to crawl its way outwards, Mike exhibiting his willingness to be patient in order to inspire maximum weirdness in this smooth ->. This is a great contrasting song choice after that Stash Deep Weirdness, the band reemerging as just your friendly old funky white-boy rock quartet. Next up is a great Fluffhead placement, I always love this song to end a set. I love the tight composition of Fluff’s Travels, weaving through intricate twists and turns. The band is in pretty tight control here, and I am always stoked to reach Clod, such a cool emergence. Life is just a bundle full of joy, of course, and we get a great bursting of energy into Arrival, with great Trey tone and intention. Of course, as I quickly learned, Fluffhead was not the set closer, with Zero surprising me as it started up. I’ll always take another song. This is one of the longer first sets of tour so far. Mike joins in with Trey’s fun, laying it on thick. Great set overall, top class.

Set Two Notes:
Bathtub Gin opens, Page in some kinda mood right out of the gate. Gin is giving me that low-key Sunday night vibe again as an opener call here. Over time, the “Gin”-bottom starts to drift away. At this point, I’m still having that theory that the band was smoking some dank herb that night between sets, with this jamming being a little hazy, patient, and slowly unfolding, as it feels it should… maybe I’m just projecting again. The jam soon evolves into tetrahydro-Hendrixian hose, with greasy clav dripping behind. This raging jam, one that just keeps growing and growing in waves of full-on energy, harkens back to 11/17’s DWD jam, that tripped-out high-octane upshifting style. The band rides these waves until the jam is totally out to sea, days away from land at this point. Fishman is pounding away like an absolute drum-cyborg. “The musical insight of a man, the precision and intensity of a machine. Ladies and gentlemen, the Fishman 2000.” The band begins to tune in extraterrestrial radio waves on the comedown, Mike’s bass grunting below Fish 2K’s light groove, floating between rich stereo Page and sharp Trey. Funk sirens start whizzing by, and the jam becomes light and bouncy. The jam does a great job of melting into a puddle on its way out, reconstituting into DWD. DWD is a great high-energy return to reality, and this one is full of hard-raging up-tempo jamming, but in that twisty-melty Fall ’97 way. “Mike is laying it down!” a friend says, as the band twists its way upward in high-speed wah-chuckin’. Trey leads into Low Rider, Mike says no to singing, and Fish 2K takes the vocal reins. The crowd sounds way into it. The band is having fun here, blowing off the head of steam that needed to burst after that DWD. The jam descends into low-slung funk, the cows coming home, so to speak, true galaxy-glazing funk at that, an enveloping groove to look outwards into. The Rocker Guitarman soon emerges, chunky-rock riffs getting set down onto the space groove, leading a charge back into the ending section of DWD. It’s a nice touch to finish the song, and I always like to see the loop closed after a long stint of jamming. Bold As Love brings the Hendrixian axis into focus, a nice Sunday night closer. I love the way that Bold As Love quits and then fires back up, closing with some soaring guitar work. “Man, that whole set was like one seamless jam!” a friend comments. Its true. I really dig that set, it’s so loose and jammy, and the band seems truly relaxed on stage, willing to let the music flow as it will, unwilling to give up on ideas until they hook-up and show their full potential. Julius is a great big-band exit. The band squeezes every drop out of this Type-I rendition, conjuring some nice zero-gravity moments as they approach the peak.

This is truly a great show. In the Hampton/Wintson-Salem weekend, Winston-Salem is, to me, the Lhotse to 11/22’s Everest. That’s 27,940 ft. (8516m). Relative magnitude is quite different than global magnitude.