After a surprisingly strong tour opener, Phish rolled into Las
Vegas for a two night stand that would further solidify the strength of the
Winter tour. While the 2/16 show is well known to me (no spoilers beyond that),
I have to say I was surprised how good the previous two shows were. Man, has
Phish ever played a bad show in Vegas?
Set One
Good but throwaway Llama opener that is immediately
forgotten as Wolfman’s Brother starts up. This version has excellent full band
interplay with a jam that is by turns funky and rocking and towards the end, abstract.
One thing I keep noticing in 2.0 so far is how much more I hear the other
members step up to lead or contribute new riffs/ideas during jams, but also how
much Trey has been sitting back and choosing the right times to ‘take over’, so
to speak. This Wolfman’s really gets abstract and interesting towards the end,
with the 2.0 Trey guitar groan/drone sounds and all, and we get a > segue
into Reba (which for some unknown reason I wrote down as Bathtub Gin when I was
taking notes). There’s some lyric flubs from Trey but Page steps up and helps
recover, as well as some sloppy playing from Trey during the complex composed
parts, but what else is new? There’s a strange, hard to explain, almost
restless feeling to Trey’s playing during this Reba that makes it worth a
listen but not worth being a top tier version by any means. No whistling, man,
I forget how rare that is…Next up is a bustout of Life On Mars?, which if I
remember right was inspired by NASA announcing back in 2003 that they had found
water on Mars for the first time or something. Anyway, it’s an OK cover, not
much else to say.
46 Days follows, has a loose jammy intro (even more than the
studio version) but ends up being a fairly standard Trey guitar rock showcase.
It’s Ice is a sort-of-rarity that I find myself liking more as I get older and
hear more Phish, for whatever reason. It’s too bad that this one feels so
succinct and off, somehow; the ambient part is rushed, for instance. Setlists
say there’s a > into Frankie Says but I don’t hear any. This song is another
sort-of-rarity, and always welcome. Another non-segue into Run Like An
Antelope, for what it’s worth. Like the It’s Ice, this one also feels off and
rushed. Couple flubs from Trey; oddly low energy peak and slow build throughout.
Keyword was spliff instead of spike.
Set Two/Encore
Waves to open a set is always welcome! Great jam along the
lines of the studio version; towards the end they do this extended vocal outro,
with ambient/spacey backing getting more intense until a > segue drop into
Bug. We’re back to the initial vocals, like with Twist. This ballad has really
grown on me over the years, though ironically I think I prefer the ’00 and
studio version without the extra set of lyrics (I feel like Phish started out
not really caring about lyrics and they’ve overcorrected and have too many lyrics
in each song now!). Another > segue into GHOST! First of 2.0, wooo! The
intro sounds jammy and uncertain, as if the band expected Trey to do the usual
delay loops and instead he was doing the initial ’97 style where it kind of
just starts. Trey really hangs back at the start of the jam and lets Page and
Mike tear it up. Once he tags in, we get a high energy rocking jam that goes
for awhile before we settle into a weird outro segment, with organ washes and
repetitive grinding playing. This is a really good Ghost jam but I don’t quite
get from it what others seem to, labelling it the best ever. To me it’s a B+
instead of an A version.
There’s a sort of -> segue into Free. I gotta be honest,
between Free and Character Zero I’m kind of over both of these songs being
played so often in 2.0 so far. Less Billy Breathes, more Round Room, guys! Now,
all of that said, this version of Free is FUCKING KILLER! No, it’s not some 20
minute type II masterclass, but it’s a fucking rager of a funk/rock jam that
Mike steals the show during. You can either hear him turn himself up or the mix
turns him up because he’s playing soooo good. I wish it had kept going but they
bring it to a close and a > segue into Harry Hood. I’m officially going to
label this Weird Hood, because it is weird as hell. The intro is loosey goosey,
not in a “Trey forgot how to play it” way, but in a “let’s stretch out these
composed parts of this song and have fun” kind of way. The ending jam segment has
what setlists call a “silent jam” (hard to explain but you’ll know when you get
there) and even gets genuinely type II for a few minutes before we head for the
usual feel good ending. Speaking of feel good endings, this show lacks one.
Hey, wait! Let me explain. I really like Sample In A Jar, but if they’re going
to play it in the encore, they have to play something else too. These one song
encores are a bummer if they don’t give it socks like they did 1/4/03 with
Friday. Now THAT’S how you sell a one song encore.
Overall
Some of these shows I’ve waffled on the score because it
feels like depending on my mood I could go either way. This show is one that I
knew the final score of before I even sat down to write this. Oh, I briefly
considered giving it a 3, largely because I think the first set lets the full
show down. Not that it’s a bad set by any means—that Wolfman’s is really
enjoyable, and the rarities are nice if not particularly well played—but it
lacks anything truly seismic. Set two really shines, though. I may not like the
Ghost as much as others but this set flows really well and contains some
extremely fun and raging moments, including Mike tearing down the building on
Free and the Weird Hood. Had the first set been stronger, or the show opener
and encore been better, we might have been looking at a 5. But in the end this
is a textbook 4 out of 5 show if there ever was one.
[Highlights]
Set One: Wolfman’s Brother, few rarities/bustouts including
Life On Mars?
Set Two/Encore: GHOST -> FREE, WEIRD HOOD
