This is a terrific overall show smack in the middle of a particularly strong tour. Indeed it's hard to go wrong with July 99. By this point the band had already dropped some monster jams, (7/10 Chalkdust, the hot Ghost->Slave combo on 7/4, a fierce Mike's on 7/9, to name a few), were working Siket Disc material into their sets, and having fun getting people to do the Meatstick leading up to Oswego. After a fun show the night before that kicked off with the electric debut of Boston's Foreplay/Longtime (a nod to both Boston area and the return to Great Woods), they pulled off an even stronger offering on this night with plenty of highlights.

You almost get two openers with the NICU, and then the Curtain which in those days typically meant that a good time was ahead. Then the Halley's is out-of-the-gate spectacular. Concise focused exploratory jamming that goes a lot of places in just under 15 minutes. The kind of ambient, textured but dancey grooves the band was laying down these days was the perfect canvas for Trey at the time. He was full of fresh ideas, hitting all the notes. A great segue into Roses are Free (the first since Nov '98) that dissolved into an out of left field N20 bustout is prime first set material. The Reba might be the best of the year, too. So laid back. And atypical at moments, especially in the early goings around 8:45. Again, Trey with the notes, with Page doing his best Brent Mydland impression underneath.

Set two doesn't reach as many high points, with the laid back vibe maybe getting pushed a bit too far at times, though the 20 minutes Wolfman's is certainly worth checking out if you're feeling patient.

Definitely hear the Halley's and Reba!

There are some rough patches in the first set here. Reba's composed sections are fine, and the jam starts OK, but it becomes rushed and unfocused and then clunks to an awkward and unpleasant end (D+). My Sweet One is waaaay cracked out and out of control, just messy. The SOAMelt, though, has some balls, and is more representative of the rest of the show. Short but decent versions of Weekapaug, Hood, Possum, and Jim. Highlights IMO would be the Hood and the Jim, but they're nothing mind blowing. Overall, I'd say it's straight up average-great Phish. 3 stars.

This show gets off to a ripping start with Mike absolutely tearing it up in Llama. You have short but very nice jams in Coil and Jim, and you have the highlight of the show in an excellent YEM, led once again by hardcore thumpage from Cactus. Set I is capped off by a really good OKP > Suzy with Low Rider jam, and a Bowie into with abundant Low Rider teasing. The Bowie jam, though, is merely OK, and set II is kind of a letdown. Not that set II is badly played, but with a Buried Alive > Fluffhead > Mike's Groove to open, and the great Mike work in set I, I thought the second set would be much hotter. Weekapaug is OK, but clocks in under 6 minutes, the Esther is sloppy, and the Possum is just decent. On the strength of that first set, though, I'm still going with 4 stars here.

The jams in the first set, namely Reba, Mike's and Weekapaug, are dissonant and not very enjoyable, IMHO. Most of the rest of set I is pretty average, I think, although the Hydrogen is a bit spotty. The second set picks up it's game a little bit, on the strength of a pretty good Magilla, a YEM that rips pretty good for a while, and a Whipping Post encore which takes an interesting detour to start the second jam. The Stash, however, is really messy. I was thinking two stars after the Stash, but the YEM and Whipping Post I think do enough to nudge this back to three stars, if just barely.

Before taking six weeks off, the boys turn in another average one set show for the Laguna Seca Daze festival. Maybe they had a little too much fun the night before as there were missed sections here and there, but not too bad. The recording was another good one, like last night’s, maybe the same taper? Anyway…

Fishman gets the opener spot tonight with Lengthwise. This gives you the album feel of listening to Rift going into a rocking Maze. Mike was a little off and it seemed like they weren’t warmed up yet. Guelah also suffered a bit with sloppy playing and just was not as tight as it could’ve been. Poor Heart was good, maybe now they are warmed up? Nope, Trey fell off in the middle of Foam and I can’t think of a harder song to try to get back into after you fall off. Not the best Foam by any means. No Horse for the first time before a pretty good Silent, and this one has gotten consistently better over the course of this year. Nice transition going into Antelope, which was patient and pretty good overall. YaMar is getting better, as it has been recently introduced back into the set list. This one was fast and fun, though they almost blew the ending with Mike’s foreign guy rant. IDK brings Fish out with the washboard solo; funny stuff as usual. Melt also had some trouble spots from Trey and was just ok to my ears. Contact was nice to hear and pretty well played. Llama rocked as usual, no real problems here. Golgi was good, but nothing to special, just average.

Possum gets the encore spot tonight and was well played, but again, nothing too special.

I’m not sure what others are hearing, but again this is not four star playing by any means. There were way too many missed notes and sections for that to be true. Sorry folks, just my opinion. I’m going with three stars, because it wasn’t that bad.

I was second row, DFC, for the first set of this show (thanks PTBM!). Reba opener was fun.

Check out A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing > Piper - a show highlight for sure; maybe one of the best moments of 2004 phish???

After the previous two nights this show wasn't much. Never really got into it during the show, seemed like a lot of going through the motions. For the most part everything is well played. Highlights in the first set were a nice bathtub gin, despite not being long. Lifted off nicely. Was happy to see Mound, and the outro to Fee was a bit extended and very pleasant.

The second set just never really took off anywhere. Nothing going on in Carini. Tweezer is my favorite part of this set, just a solid rock jam. Non of the songs went anywhere after this. YEM was building up nicely but seemed peak short.

Oh well, this weekend run was a blast and the previous 2 shows were great. This venue sucks, and unfortunately the show never really took off.

Fantastic "3.0" show. First set is all around solid, nothing crazy but good song choices and quality playing. Wolfman's even broke the "3.0" mold a bit, which was nice. The Alumni Blues segment was fantastic. What a rocking way to close the set.

Sand and Light are pretty standard, nothing crazy. But the Waves is where the great stuff begins. First of all, some of the licks that Trey is laying down in the song before the jam begins shows us that he still can play like he used to. The actual jam was great, nice to see Trey work some of his pedals like he used to. Segues perfectly into Undermind (even though it sounded like Timber for a while). The jam out of Undermind is spacey and melodic. Steam was a welcome song out of the jam, a great newer song. The set ended with another blazing song, fire.

I'm not sure if it's just me but I didn't even notice that it was a short 2nd set, because they were playing so well and everyone was soaking it up. There was a comment made at the start of the encore, that made it seem like they were breaking curfew and going to continue to play (a la 12/30/97) but really the 2nd set is pretty short. Either way, the long encore was a great time, felt like a nice little mini set. Fantastic kick off to the UIC run, a fantastic show to be at, and one that is highly regarded by many.