Listening to the Ruby Waves for historical purposes as we go on 5 years of it being played by the full band. It is noticeably slower and Trey is either a bit late or early on several of the vocal runs, it's obvious that it hadn't been worked out in full yet. The early TAB arrangement has brighter/bouncier keys during the early parts than its Phish equivalent. The jam is relatively straightforward and sounds like an average TAB jam from this era, but it shows that the promise was always there for it to be taken for a ride.

There isn't really too much else to say. I don't see too much else from the show that is worth seeking out just from the setlist, the Ruby Waves included. There's a 16 minute Money, Love and Change from slot 2 in frame 2 if that's your speed. This was right during the period (a couple weeks after) where Phish had already been announced as returning together in early 2009 and so perhaps Trey was essentially practicing for that. It's worth noting that a few of the early Phish 3.0 debuts and mainstays were being put out by Trey first as TAB during this stretch - such as Backwards Down The Number Line, Alaska, and Light. It's possible that Ruby Waves was a contender for one of those spots - not hard to see a universe where Ruby gets developed by Phish in 2009 and goes on the Light trajectory.

But overall I'm glad that we got Ruby in Phish when we did - it was easily one of the bright spots of late 3.0 and has continued to display its radiant power since the return in 4.0. Just a weird quirk that it was the only GOTF song to be previously played, and in doing so was over a decade prior. Wonder what caused its resurface...