The Curtain With opener was beautiful as always. AC/DC was nice. I'd like to see them take this for a ride sometime. Tube jam was short but very sweet. FEFY was nice. A bit sloppy but i don't really worry about that stuff much. It's definitely about feeling with Phish. Ocelot Ocelot where have you gone. Won't you come out to play. This show from Chalkdust Torture on was outstanding. The CDT jam accelerated into an intense darkness. Great version here! The lights by Kuroda have been amazing in Mexico. He really uses all the surrounding settings as a great backdrop for the lighting effects. Crosseyed set 2 opener was nice. Same with Blaze On. Meatstick was so smooth, organic, funky. This song has really had some killer versions lately. Last night's, MSG, MGM Halloween plus Magnaball are all highly recommended. Winterqueen is always welcome for me. Love it here in the second set. Mercury is such a beautiful song. It's definitely one of my favorite Phish songs written in all of 3.0. It was dark and psychedelic, just how it should be. Followed by another 3.0 favorite, Light. More psychedelic jamming. This second set was very nice! Great song selection and flow. Velvet Sea was a nice closer. Drowned is a great song but man sometimes its painful to hear Mike's voice on it. It's a tough song vocally, and I've heard him sing it well. Just not last night. I still love you Mike! Roger Daltrey had an incomparable voice pretty much. Then of course, what Mexico show wouldn't be complete without Rocky Top!?! It was fun and a good ending. 4 out of 5 with the strong CDT and second set.

Arrived on the first bus from our resort again and found ourselves at the front of the line with most of the same people from night one minus the poster gang. They let us in from the alternating lines in groups of 30 instead of 100 as they did the first night.

Set I - The Curtain With was a lovely way to open the show - my last one was the Acoustic 8 set, but Bag felt a little flat and eliminated hopes of a Gamehendge set, and Breath and Burning, while nice to hear, lacked energy. Poor heart, usually good for injecting some life, didn't quite get things moving. Moon, the Line and Waking Up Dead continued what was shaping up to be a very mellow show. Fine by me, as I did rage a bit hard on the 13th. Man it's hard to refuse drinks being served to you whilst dancing on the beach. Tube got me raging again...only to mellow out again with FEFY - I'm a bit of a sucker for the slow songs and really love Fast Enough. My wife loves Ocelot so was very happy and we were treated to a jamming Chalkdust to close the set. I'm 45 now so, 'can't I live while I'm young', doesn't have the same impact on me as when I was a 19 year old undergrad at UNC in Greeley, CO. But it was a heater and you should listen to it.

Set II - The last time I heard Crosseyed was 10-31-96 and it was a great way to get everyone moving again. Blaze On was funky and fun and then we got a nice dirty Meatstick with a great jam. Surprisingly, Winterqueen kept up with the previous jam and led into an equally nice Mercury. We wandered off at the start of Light to dance under the light of the palm trees then down to the shore for Velvet Sea. Twas lovely really.

The Drowned Rocky Top encore was interesting. We are huge Who fans so love this and have epic memories from 10/31/95 but Mike just can't sing like Daltrey. Whatever! Daltrey can't play bass like Mike. Oh let me get back to the see...or Rocky Top of course.

Average setlist with above average playing and outstanding atmosphere - The Crosseyed and Painless themed second set is definitely worth your time...you won't regret it. It's cool, I'm still waiting too.

This show is slightly over-shadowed by the next night. The Curtain With is extremely well executed. The entire first set is worth listening to again. What really made an impression on me was the second set.
Crosseyed is outstanding, but the flow takes form during the Blaze On jam. There is a certain fluid, unconscious playing for the majority of the second set. Every song they touched, turned to gold. I refuse to complain about the Velvet Sea closer, it was part of the canvas they painted that night.
Drowned sent me over the edge....

I really enjoyed the song selection in the first set of this show. It so happened that it was bookended by great jams: The Curtain With and Chalkdust Torture. That's what I'll focus on, since most of the rest of the first set was pretty much by The Book. The Curtain With is a treat any time I hear it, and this version was typical of the song yet nicely executed with perhaps a nod to the surroundings--though I haven't heard what the weather's been like--if, as one would suspect, January in Mexico on the beach is kinda breezy and relaxed. Chalkdust was compared in the setlist/discussion thread to the legendary 7/10/99 version; I wouldn't rank it that high, but it surprised me with its laser-guided melodies and professionally thematic jam.

The second set, for me, is notable for the Mercury > Light. Crosseyed didn't do much, except get teased/quoted a lot, which I'm pretty much meh about. A rarely concise Blaze On led into Meatstick > Winterqueen, with Meatstick getting extended a bit--and including the now-ubiquitous Japanese lyrics--before a stately Winterqueen which left me a bit puzzled why they would want to extend that song, though my fear that the set was gonna feature a bunch of 8-10 min. numbers was answered with aplomb by the aforementioned Mercury > Light! I'm not really familiar enough with Mercury yet to be able to analyze it from the standpoint of separating composition from jam expertly (thanks Ezrin) but I enjoyed it, and the Light that follows, though monochromatic from a key signature standpoint, was accomplished and threw me a bone on the jamhound side of things. Note: I'd like Drowned taken for a ride again, hopefully soon. It and Rock and Roll deserve better than encore status, IMO.

An average-great show was enjoyed by many, hated by none. If I'd been there I'd've been thrilled, but when it comes to Phish there's average-thrilled and there's thrilled, if you know what I mean. The structure and setlist kind of reminds me of last year's Lockn' shows. I would've been proud to show this to a non-phan as a non-Phish-only festival show. I hope tonight is truly revelatory, as I know in my bone-marrow Phish is capable of any time they feel like it.

The nets unbreakable, don't worry about falling.

Watched from home. What a beautiful location for a show. First set was good highlighted by tube (not 98 guality, but that's ok), FEFY and an extended fan fav chalkdust.

Crosseyed opener paved the way for teases the rest of the night. Mercury is excellent and worthy of a headphone listen. This song takes you on a journey with its melodic changes. Light goes deep into the jam and back. Thought I heard no quarter but they went right into the velvet sea. I love this song (didn't back in '99) and this was a good fit to end set 2. Drowned encore followed by Rocky Top to end it with a final lick of C&P from Trey.

Very good show overall. I couched it and thought that the set list was average on paper but they boys brought it up another level with their playing. The meatstick.... mercury..... winterqueen provided some killer jams/solos. Nice encores as well. Always fun when they show the people in the surf. Thank you for the webcasts!!!

Listening to this whole show many many times since I listened to it live 4 and 1/2 months ago brings back good memories. With that said, it's somewhat disappointing to me that this show is rated as low as it is. I honestly listen to this show more than the 1/15/17 show (which I also thought was spectacular). I think it's because of the setlist imho.

The Curtain With opener was really solid, and who doesn't like a Bag to follow to get the show on the road? Breath is Breath, and Poor Heart is Poor Heart. I love Page singing Halfway to the Moon, and The Line was ok. There were some good moments in Waking up Dead. But then things get started. A solid Tube and then Fast Enough. It isn't nearly fast enough for you? Hmmm. That seemed to be the theme of the show...second night of a three night set. It's as if they were telling the crowd that this isn't fast enough for you, because you're here to rage, but we're going to play a chill show...and that's what they did. Ocelots are fast and they played a good one, but not as fast as a leopard, which is what the Phans wanted. Then a must hear CDT to close the set. This was the peak of the show.

Second set was pure musicianship. (Except Trey's flub in Winterqueen.) Excellent Crosseyed opener, then an excellent run of songs from here to the close. I just wish they would have > or -> the songs together. Blaze on blazed, Meatstick. Meatstick went crazy with exploration and some spacey jamming, then Winterqueen was just sublime. Mercury was an excellent version with some great percussion by Fish and great guitar color from Trey. Light got super intense and jammed and then a closing Wading. I know this gets a lot of criticism, but it fit with the laid back theme of the show. It's not fast enough for most Phans, and, trust me, after the show I was like..."eh, that was ok." But listen again. There's a theme here and some great music that is all tied together. Like Phish was just telling us "relax, you're in Mexico...ocelot speed is ok for one night." Then of course they go full leopard speed and melt faces the next night. But they set us up for that!

The encore was the encore.

If you listened before or were there, relisten and rerate accordingly.

P.S. When is Mexico 2018 getting announced?

January 14th, 2017 began when m’lady and I roused ourselves from our plush king-sized comfort at the splendid Barcelo resort in Mexico’s Riviera Maya and found ourselves some breakfast and some coffees and some more coffees. It was show day and I opted not to spend it in line waiting to buy a poster (what is wrong with people – you only have to do it because you all do it) – heck, I had probably slept past my window of opportunity anyhow – and instead tried to cram in as much relaxation time as possible.

I ended up rocking a game of poolside BINGO while sipping on daiquiris with a few friends and for my efforts I won a dolphin experience. I had been inspired when the winner of the first game won a half-hour massage in the spa so I got a card and BINGOed pretty hard. I was pretty disillusioned with my prize though and I spent a chunk of the afternoon debating whether or not to even use it. Fortunately, before I could waste too much time pondering things it was time to go to the show.

Which at Barcelo Maya means grabbing a final drink from the bar and simply walking barefoot (if you choose, as I did) along the beach for a spell where staff welcomes you at the gate with trays full of margaritas and tequila shots.

Inside the venue the powdery sand sifted between my toes as I scampered gleefully along the beach in search of friends, the ocean lapping to my left and the stage looming straight ahead. Friends were easily located, drinks were delivered with hearty and steadfast consistency by the attentive staff and in no time at all Phish took the stage for night two of their three-night Mexico run.

Nevermind that the first set included a semi-rare favourite of mine (Poor Heart) and closed with a blistering Chalkdust Torture, the surroundings were just so outrageously fantastic that I was virtually guaranteed an epic concert experience regardless of the actual music being performed. Alternating between grooving under a canopy of crochet-coozied palm trees pulsating with light, communing with pockets of ecstatically happy friends among the easily navigateable crowd, and standing waist-deep in the psychedelically-lit ocean surrounded by throngs of dreadlocked hippies frolicking in the surf – and all of it accompanied by an endless stream of food and drinks – well, the fact that the band opened the second set with Crosseyed & Painless and went on to weave the song into every single jam of the rest of the set was really just a bonus.

But a pretty wicked-awesome bonus, really.

And then after the encore it was again just a matter of grabbing a final drink or three and casually tumbling along the beach in search of the closest and highest-quality afterparty, of which there were legion. The evening would inevitably include a visit to Strikers, the all-night sports bar/bowling alley/snack emporium in the resort’s main atrium, a spot that was always teeming with good people looking for good times.

People like us tend to gather at places like Strikers.

And of course the day ended where it began – back in that plush king-sized comfort – a single day and a thousand pleasures later.

http://www.toddmanout.com

I didn't attend these shows, so I'm going strictly based upon the soundboards... but I really don't understand the ratings for the 13th and 14th shows. This one is rated lower than the previous night, and I get that aside from the 1st set bookends, it's a pretty (don't want to offend anyone here) low jam factor first half. But the bookends are really good! And the bulk of the second set (through Light) is a really solid effort.

To my way of thinking, this one is far and away the stronger effort.