This was our 3rd Friday the 13th show with Phish.

My wife and I flew out from England for these decadent destination shows and had one of the best Phish experiences we have ever had. We don't get to many shows these days, our last was Halloween 2016, classiest show I've ever seen, and before that Dick's 2012, took our 3 daughters to the 8/31 show. We are both long time fans, first show at the Roseland in 92 for me and my wife was Red Rocks 93. So we've been through the ups and downs with this band, have seen epic shows, and mediocre ones too. We have done our share of travelling to see the band and 25 years later, they still bring us so much joy.

So this was Friday the 13th part III for us. Our first was 10/13/1995 and then 6/13/1997. We have a bad habit of accidentally leaving things unlocked on Friday the 13th. For the Fort Worth show we left our car unlocked with all our tickets, cash, provisions, etc for the coming 10 days...nothing was touched. For the Dublin show we left the windows and room door open at our hotel. For this night we left the hotel safe wide open with our passports, iPad Air 2 and loads of other things. Thank the blue agave nothing went missing.

Anyway, more about the show and the scene. I have to say that CID did an amazing job with everything surrounding these shows. Checkin at the hotel, we stayed at Dreams Tulum, was smooth. Shuttle transfers back and forth were plentiful and had a great atmosphere. All the people we met from CID were polite, professional and cool. And many of them were having a great time at the shows.

We arrived at Barcelo on the first shuttle so were at the front of the line with the poster peeps. Waiters brought us cervezas and margaritas while waiting in line. Getting in was smooth - there were two lines. One from Barcelo and one from the other resorts that they alternately let 100 people from each line into the venue. This is the first time I've been to a show where RFID tags were in our wristbands and used to gain access. As we entered there were more waiters with drinks, and we were all lead at a slow camel walk pace up to the front. Well, we were about 5 rows back at that point. The atmosphere was buzzing with anticipation.

After we settled in our spot and met our neighbors, I wandered off to get some food. On my wander, I met Tom Marshall. I thanked him for writing all those great songs and bringing so many great hours of enjoyment to my life. He was genuinely thankful and is a very cool guy.

The setlist didn't blow me away but the overall playing on the night was great. Free was tight and I felt the feeling I forgot , both for myself and a jaded friend in New York. But the main highlights for me in Set I ran from Funky Bitch through Horn. I really enjoyed Wolfman's but felt my fat balloon of expectations deflate after a pretty standard setlist. But as I said before, the execution and energy levels were great and the scene on the beach was delightful. I decided to lower my expectations of hearing epic bustouts, a Mexico Harpua or anything super special and just enjoy whatever was ahead.

ASIHTOS was nice to hear, The Wedge is one of my wife's favorites and we got our first Fuego, and a jamming one at that. Caspian's never been a favorite but fit the context of the situation. Loved the Tequila Twist and great to hear Seven Below - I really love the Phishy feeling of this song. Golgi was pretty sloppy but thankfully followed by a smokin' Antelope.

The Contact encore was a treat and you could really feel the love all around. I really like Bug and don't understand the haters. Oh well, to each his own - bug, it doesn't matter.

The next day we met up with many of the same people, including Nik Orr, who said I was raging hard at this show and said "Hey, you got your Fuego."

Standard setlist, solid playing and outstanding atmosphere made for a great night. Whatever happens, there is always some fire at a Phish show and there was plenty at this one.

Never miss a Friday the 13th show! Maybe so, maybe not - give it a listen and decide for yourself.