I’m happy to be the first one to review this show, so I’ll give it the full treatment… This is a hometown show for the boys and doesn’t seem to be part of a tour per se, but more playing out on the weekends after recording Lawn Boy and supporting those songs in the live format. An average show for 1990, as far as playing and set list content, the years have not been kind to the recording of this show, which is listed as a soundboard, but obviously has many generations of degradation included, and the unexplained tape cuts and speed issues from this era of Phish. The recording is very bass heavy and not in a good way… Not that Mike is loud, more like somebody boosted the lows while doing a tape transfer and/or copy. Enough about that lets get to the music!

The recording is about a quartertone sharp, so it’s a bit chipmunky if you know what I mean?

First set starts with a new addition for ’90 with the barbershop Carolina. A good way for Paul to get the vocal mix set and Trey dedicates it to Lon and Eric? Gin gets the full band opener spot and this one is pretty good. I like that you can hear the call outs on tape for the next song. Maybe the first Ya Mar of the year gets that call and it’s well played, as is Oh Kee Pa, Bag, and My Sweet One. Bouncing has some feedback in it as the monitors get settled in and has a rough ending, but it’s still very new at this point. Wilson is kind of a bust out with no known versions for the past 21 shows, and the “heavy metal” style isn’t too much different than the regular versions we know and love, but fun to hear. Reba is good, very well played, but the whistling is cut from the recording. The first known Funky Bitch in over a month was rocking as the rest of this set turns to Mike with an average Mike’s > Hydro > Week closer. Reasonably well played, but no wow factor for me, just average for this time period. Good first set overall.

The second set recording is a half step slow, so it really drags everything down while listening.

Communication Breakdown is another new song added for this year and I’m glad it didn’t stick around as Page struggles to do his best Robert Plant style vocals. Caravan, also a new pick up, was pretty good and adds a nice jazz flavor to the show. YEM was solid and includes a lengthy vocal jam that could even rival the YEM’s of today. The new Coil was well played, but not great and still doesn’t have the extended Page ending solo yet. Antelope gets the call next. It’s good, but gets off time in the middle jam. Then Fishman gets to bust out one of his songs with Terrapin. As far as we know it hasn’t been played in over six months. The vacuum solo gets cut on the recording and this one seems to fall on deaf ears with little to no crowd response. And HYHU is still a few months away as Fish's theme song. Divided Sky closes this set out and was pretty well played, but not great. I’m not sure if Trey is out of tune or if the recording is that bad? Anyways, not a bad set, keeping in mind that the recording is tough to listen to at times.

La Grange gets the encore spot tonight. This one has a botched beginning, but then the jam gets nice and dynamic for a while, and then it kind of falls apart into disjointed territory. It rocks, but it wasn’t very well played overall.

I’m going three stars for this one.

The recording for this show is pretty poor. The overall mix is pretty boomy.

The show starts out pretty standard for what they’ve been up to so far this month. Burlington gets it’s first glimpse of the newly debuted Bouncin’. Wilson is up next after a brief hiatus. This one is a little more hardcore than previous versions. Good stuff! However, I wish the quality was better. It’s possible the pitch was fast for Set 2 of the Tree Cafe because Bag and Reba were played at their regular tempo tonight. Nice version of Reba with a tape flip post jam. Weekapaug delivered a hot little jam to close out the first set.

Set 2 starts off with two newly debuted covers, Communication Breakdown and Caravan. Both well played but it appears the pitch is slower than the first set. Nice YEM. The vocal jam is entertaining. Towards the end they transition into what I would describe as jungle sounds. It’s pretty clear the pitch is slower when they start up Coil. Decent Antelope. Lots of tape warble during the Marco section. This continues a bit during Terrapin. Nice playful version of Sky to close out the set. Unfortunately, the levels are all over the place. Interesting take on La Grange tonight. This version starts off with a nice mellow blues jam that drops back into La Grange proper. Excellent version!