, attached to 2013-10-25

Review by BeenYouToHaveAnySpikeMan

BeenYouToHaveAnySpikeMan Drove all the way from Halifax, Nova Scotia with one of my compadres. His first show.

Really fun first set. Nothing particularly special, but the atmosphere was great. Wilson > The Curtain With and Vultures > 46 Days were both nice runs - set ended on a definite energetic high note.

Second set was a mixed bag, but the highs were very high. Waves > Carini was in interesting and rewarding combo, unfortunately followed up by a real stinker of a Caspian. I was personally pissed about this, because a certain Japanese Caspian is one of my favourite live Phish songs of all time and this was the first Caspian I've ever heard live, so I had high hopes. Backwards Down the Number Line, normally kind of a lame song to me, was pretty great by comparison, but when Ghost hit… wow. Just wow. I thought, "This is going to be the highlight of the weekend!" I was wrong. Dirt was a nice little ditty. More a piss break than anything, but for those of us that didn't have to go it was a calming little rest stop before Trey did his usual steal-your-face with an above-average DWD. Not as good as the DWD I saw in Toronto on my birthday (7/22/13), but still a very solid rendition. Sally felt kind of like just a convenient landing spot for a band that maybe had overextended a bit on DWD, but it was well-executed if not particularly memorable. Cavern was very well done to me - "Whatever you do, take care of your shoes!"

For me though, the highlight of this show and the highlight of the weekend was the set-closing Antelope. I really don't understand how people haven't been giving this one the respect it deserves. No, it's not the funkiest Antelope, but it's something better; it's an ever-accelerating, dark, jazzy thing of beauty. I really can't recommend it more. What a set closer!

The encore was everything you've heard: practically it's own set at four songs, it begins with the lullaby that is Contact. I told my buddy, "Sorry bud, guess they're wasted after that second set, looks like we're getting a group hug for an encore, great first show though." How wrong I was! Suzy was ripped ferociously by all involved, Rocky Top was a fun little jamboree, and the night ended with a rocking Zeppelin take that had us falsely looking forward to the upcoming Halloween show when we should have just been anticipating a reprise the next night, when they laid down a killer "No Quarter".

Cheers Phans, and to those of you who were there, thanks. New England was beautiful this fall, I'll follow the line going south anytime.


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