I'm writing this midafternoon on Halloween - meaning only these two of the weekend's eight(!!) sets have been played. People are dismissively calling these 'warmup' sets; if that's the case then festivalgoers need to be prepared to have their insides liquefied, because this is a *hot* show. There's a dramatic LxL-inflected Stash in the first set, along with (this is a weird thing to say) the best-ever performance of Time Turns Elastic, which finally got played in the same tight-loose fashion as tunes like Fluffhead and Hood. Swell take on Page's 'Beauty of a Broken Heart' to boot.

As for Set II, it's strong all the way through. Wolfman-lovers will want to pay particular attention to this thrilling version, which plays funny games with the song's chord progression, climaxes with some oxygen-deprivation psychedelia, and segues into the best Piper of 2009. Piper recalls the transcendent Light from this summer at the Gorge - high praise.

Disease dissipates just when it's achieving liftoff; typical '09 Disease in that regard. And this fine Bowie nonetheless does nothing to dispel the sense that the best Bowies mostly happened 15 years ago. But the set climaxes powerfully with Hood. We've had some interesting times with Harry Hood this year, and the Indio jam magically transforms into something new, reminiscent of the classic Jones Beach Hood from this summer yet possessed of its own unique energy. Following the song's recent trend, this Hood ends a little oddly, with a weirdly tentative approach to the closing chords in place of the trilling guitar heroics of old. But by that point you won't be complaining. The jam is just that good.

This will be a very, very good weekend.

The opener of Festival 8, Party Time, was a fitting song for the mentality of throwing a giant party and having a great time. This performance was the second time this Fishman-penned tune had been played. The psychedelic Chalkdust that followed was a great moment of improvisation with the fact that it was a departure from the typical bluesy Chalkdust jam. After the funk of Moma Dance and the island-flavor of NICU, Trey led the band through a great jam of Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan; one of the best performances of this song during the whole 09 tour. The highlight of set one, Stash, featured a beautiful, major-key jam that included an L.A. Woman tease. I Didn't Know featured Trey announcing that this would be the first time that Fish would blow and suck on the vacuum at the same time. After standard versions of Poor Heart, Cavern, and the Page-penned Beauty of a Broken Heart, Phish jammed out Ocelot for a while and played a gorgeous version of Time Turns Elastic to end the set.
To begin the second set, Phish played a decent Punch followed by an awesome Down With Disease that rivaled the DWD from seven months earlier at Hampton. A segue from Prince Caspian into an incredibly spacy and psychedelic Wolfman's (featuring a Light jam), led into the best Piper of 2009. The segue into Joy, a song that has grown on me a lot since the release of the album, was a brilliant moment of the second set. During the high-hat tinkling of David Bowie, Trey said that this was a hint of the Halloween album that would be played the next night. After a rocking Bowie jam, a beautiful Harry Hood flowed into a set-closing Golgi Apparatus. A standard Character Zero ended the wonderful first show of Festival 8.
Highlights: Party Time, Chalkdust Torture, Stealing Time, Stash, Ocelot, Down with Disease, Wolfman's, Piper, David Bowie

We headed out to Indio on Friday afternoon. Quickly set up camp and it was "Party Time"!!! First set was lot's of fun, nice and lengthy yet conservative. Loved Moma Dance as always and was surprised with the 1st set 1st night Stash... My first Ocelot (perhaps a guilty pleasure). Time Turns Elastic was the bathroom song of the century even though the second half of that song rally jams.
Second set PYITE opener was a great way to kick off one of the best overall set of the weekend. DWD got us really grooving as this would be Mikes set to let the bass bombs drop. Wolfman's got crazy, Piper was fast, Joy sucks, Bowie, Hood and Golgi rounded off a great night. The Character Zero encore was a fitting end to the first day of an epic festival.
After checking out some art installations and fire shows we headed back to camp feeling great with smiles for miles to find that some mother fucking piece of shit cock sucking son of a bitch douche bag cunt whore ass clown STOLE MY COOLER!!! Thanks...