As Dickens may have said"... "It was the best of shows, it was the worst of shows"

It was my first show since the 1999/2000 New Years event at Big Cypress in Florida and it was also show number 25 for me. Since 25 is somewhat of a milestone (25 is also my lucky number, and the day of my birthday), my expectations were high. The last four times I had seen the boys at Deer Creek (I will NEVER call it by its corporate name), they tore the roof off the place. And while the music has always seemed to have that little something extra at Deer Creek, the venue itself has always had a "walking-on-eggshells" vibe. Ever since the Grateful Dead gate-crashing incident in '95, security has always seems a little more uptight at Deer Creek. If the Comic Book Guy were here he might have called it Bizarro-World, because tonight would be something different"...

Musically speaking, I was disappointed. I have the entire summer tour on my iTunes, and I feel it was the worst show of the tour! Looking through the setlists, there is no other show that they played so many of the new songs (five this night). Now, if the new songs rocked"... I would have been geeked. Unfortunately"... in this guy's opinion"... the new songs are awful! They are weak, slow-paced, lack energy, etc"... and we got stuck with five of them. On top of that, they played AC/DC Bag, Water in the Sky, Tweezer (with the always-present Reprise), Twist, and Sleeping Monkey. These are all songs I could go another 10 years without hearing live. Not that they are bad songs, but I have either heard them at half of the shows I have been to or feel that they are slow, boring, etc"... While there were a few high points (Wedge, Suzy, Possum), the show just never seemed to "get going".

Now for the flip side of the coin. While Deer Creek has traditionally been a pretty strict venue, they let their guard down tonight. It began raining during the first set (probably around Water in the Sky, Split Open and Melt - œ appropriate), and then the storm approached. It was getting dark by this point and the lightning show was AMAZING! It is one of the coolest things I have ever seen at a show"... ANY SHOW! By the time the first set ended, the storm was right on top of us, and the lightning was pretty intense. After the boys left the stage, a guy came out and announced that they were going to let the people sitting on the hill actually leave the venue to sit in the safety of their cars in the parking lot. He said the storm should blow through by 11:00 and that the band would be out for their second set at 11:00 sharp. So we headed out. We went to the car, had a few beers, changed our wet clothes and relaxed! By about 10:30 it did in fact stop raining, so we headed back in. No one was even checking tickets. The boys did start right at 11:00 and played a full set, with an encore (a good 90-100 minutes of music past the venue's curfew). By the end of the encore, it had begun pouring again.

Overall, it was good to see Phish again! The setlist was weak, but I guess that happens (I am just disappointed that the weakest show of the tour was the only show of the tour that I was able to attend). On the bright side of things, Mother Nature was ON that night. I saw one of the most amazing lightning shows, and actually witnessed Deer Creek being civilized. They were concerned about the safety of the people on the lawn and allowed us to see a full two-set show (despite going until almost 1:00 AM).

Looking forward to Fall Tour!