@CameToPlay said:

Some people take the perfectly understandable stance - "Why do we need to rank stuff? Just enjoy the music, man!". I'm not one of those people.

I love reading these lists. I think the short, but to the point, narratives are a critical part of these. Especially when the author is such a good writer. A simple list is not nearly as much fun. I was lucky enough to attend 6 of the 10 and they were all great of course.

I'm not sure once you get to the top 10, that the order matters quite as much. My top 5 sets are all included in the final 10. But it is interesting to me that #s 10, 9 and 8 would all be in my top 5 - in some order - (along with 7/31/15 and 10/20/13). When you get to the elite of the elite (and all 10 sets qualify), I think I hold flawless sets with no soft spots (12/29/13, 7/31/15) in slightly higher esteem than those which have highlight segments that are so overwhelmingly spectacular that they render the "weaker" parts of the set completely irrelevant (8/22/15, 7/13/14).

As far as the list in its entirety, I have no real beef. I haven't even listened to all of them . I'd probably shove 7/14/13 II somewhere in there, though not too high, even with its meh 1st quarter.

OP - How much did the so-so Hood affect the absence of 1/2/16? I'd have to imagine if the Hood was even an A- version it would be in there?

Well done, sir.

Thank you for the kind words! I love writing out lists like these, obviously - and while @Choda was probably right that I'm "obsessed" with these sorts of things, it's because they help me work through my fandom with this band. I want my fandom to be fluid, ever-changing, and capable of evolution and reconfiguring, and these sorts of exercises are what I do to work in that capacity.

To a few of your points:

a) 7/14/13 II was one of my last cuts. It or 10/27/13 II would probably have taken 9/6/15 Encore's place if they'd never played that encore.

b) Put in 10/23/13's Hood and it's there. Put in, like, the 7/26/14 Hood and it's top 50; put in the 7/1/14 Hood and it's top 20-15. Like I said, the differences are minute.