This is the most easygoing Phish funk imaginable - nothing but straight-up 'funky bluesy' fun to kick off a weekend of great music in Limestone. My FMSBD recording starts off with a 22-minute jam that's in the running for 'most engaging jam of 1998': no intense intergalactic psychedelia, no lockstep polyrhythms, just pure dance-party goofiness wrapped around a soaring melodic anthem. After Chicken Shack, Trey calls for another funk jam, but Fishman drops a skittering second-line-on-uppers beat and it's off to the races. The two freeform jams total 35 minutes of the guileless hangout music that Phish rarely get into in front of an audience, and the rest of the soundcheck bops along in similar summer style. A delightful, open-hearted soundcheck, characteristic of the looselimbed 1998 touring year.

I was very fortunate to be sitting in front of the soundboard for all of this soundcheck. I had never seen Dog Log played live and that was very cool to me for sure-especially cool considering that less than 24 hours from then that massive venue would be filled with 80,000+ phans and at that time there were less than 80 total people inside. I remember that my friend Jay Archibald had a cockatiel (very ornate bird) and while we were listening to Ginseng Sullivan the bird was sitting on Jay's shoulder when I turned around. It was strangely startling. The entire weekend inside the Temple of Fire was complete bliss and started out like this for me. I just cued up the Dog Log as I am typing. Such a great night and memory. SKI ya!