Let's be honest: this wasn't a very good show. The second set seemed to be cobbled together from leftovers, which -- as another reviewer noted -- made for a long and somewhat tedious program. It was heavy on ballads at inopportune times. It wasn't cohesive. Neither set was able to gain much momentum, but the second set really fell off a cliff and never came back. I'm sorry if that upsets you, but the band is not infallible and there's no need to trash one another for being honest about that.

And if I'm being honest and objective, I felt the show was about half-good. I thoroughly enjoyed The Curtain (without!) for the first time in a long, long time. I would also be insane to complain about the Chalk Dust Reprise. The bulk of the encore, really. As with ANY Phish show, there were flashes of brilliance. There were a couple moments (see: Walls, Midnight) that absolutely tore the roof off the place! But for every moment like that, there was also an obscure cover, a newer ballad, or a generally jamless song in the wrong spot.

And, look, I had a blast in Charleston. Tonight was my 70th show. It wasn't monumental or even particularly memorable. That's fine. Five good sets and one colossal bummer still averages out to a pretty good weekend. I love this town. I love this community. And, despite my criticism, I still absolutely love this band. If you had a good time tonight, great! I'm thrilled. If, like me, you didn't, know that a lot of people agree with you and Phish shouldn't be some sacred cow to us. It's ok to not like a show every now and then.

Look I don't honestly care about too much of the super insightful stuff or the critical analysis, but I will say this.

I had been calling for Chalk Dust Torture Reprise for YEARS. It's been one of my favorite songs to talk about and hope they play some day. I had resigned myself to the fact that they would never play it again and it would always be shelved as a meme.

When they started jamming it in the encore I just about exploded. How can this band continue to amaze night in and night out!

Literally 7,089 days, 540 shows, and 19.5 years since the last Chalk Dust Torture Reprise. That is ANCIENT in modern day Phish. I now know how people felt at Hampton 86 with the Box of Rain, or at Formerly The Warlocks 10/9/89 with Dark Star, or at 2/28/03 the Destiny Unbound.

This was my personal Destiny Unbound, this was my Dark Star. More like Chalk Star. Thank you Phish!

While the no repeat run is impressive for about 99.9% of bands touring today, it was an unflattering look for phish tonight.

Forcing themselves to play songs just for the sake of not repeating created a disjointed 28 song show.

Dropping petrichor late in the 2nd set was the epitome of unnecessary. For a Sunday “tour” closing show this fell extremely short and might be the worst show of the run.

Nothing was misplayed but nothing even sniffed the deep end of the pool and a barrage of 5-8min songs left this fan wanting so much more.

No real relisten able moments based solely on completing a gimmick that was already achieved at MSG in ‘17 was very disappointing.

As the show unfolded it became crystal clear that we were going to be forced into moments tonight that nobody really wanted in order for phish to complete their “mission”

It’s been a long time since this band let me down in this fashion.

The old adage...even the worst phish show is better then no phish show barely holds true here.

This run produced plenty of amazing moments but tonight just wasn’t one of them.

I'd just like to make a point in reference to the review by Itch_to_the_nag: sure the no repeats thing is an endeavor, but based on the fact this show is insanely dense with songs, I think it's silly to blame that feat for the lack of jams and poor song choice (timing). Considering all of the options they had, they could have strung things together better, or if they were feeling it, jammed out half of the songs in the second set. Sometimes IT just doesn't happen, and that was tonight. My interpretation was more the following... they were maybe exhausted and things weren't syncing up, and so Trey made a call to go out with a bang (in a way) and play a sheer quantity over quality show. Like hey, look at all of these songs we still have to play. Sure, it's gimmicky, didn't really make for a good show, and has already been done before, BUT I think conflating it to the reason the show didn't vibe is wrong.

Sick encore. Not so sick everything else.

I caught most of Saturday night despite trying to study for my last final of grad school, so I knew Sunday had big shoes to fill.

Best part of the show (for me) was getting an Alumni Blues suite, literally the day I finish a 3-year journey of a Finance MBA. God I love this band!

That said, I'll echo other reviewers by noting that the show lacked cohesion in my view. Highlights for me were clearly in the first set and the fun encore. Guelah is always great to hear, and Curtain sans With was had a decidedly old school vibe. Alumni through Walls was solid, with It's Ice having some particularly fun funk, and Trey sounded completely switched on during the finale.

Second set started strong, and I had another "get out of my f---ing head" moment when I head Energy, a rarity which they played on my 40th bday show in Atlanta in 2013 and that for some reason I had been hearing in my head the last few days. When Wingsuit dropped, my jaw hit the floor, but my wife reminded me that sometimes the band plays songs for their own reasons. Petrichor through the end was largely par for the course, which by Phish standard means it's still better than almost anything else happening on the planet Perspective is nice. I missed the irony of playing a song called Come Together on the anniversary of Lennon's assassination until just now; I doubt it was intentional.

I love P&M, and from there it seemed like they tried to raise the energy level for the tour closing encore, and actually succeeded. I love when this band gets silly and I got that from the encore for sure.

Overall, my main memory from this show will always be hearing the Alumni Blues! It's allright, 'cause I got a degree!!

I find it hard to complain about show where I cross multiple songs of my list that's capped off with f&$cking CDT Reprise!!!

If tonight didn't jam hard enough (or at all) for some of you, and no repeats is somehow played out, trust me I get it.

For me though, everything following After Midnight (hinting we should stick around until then for the goods) to Beneath the Sea of Stars was the Band giving us nutballs a jovial "fuck you's guys". Energy was ironically played in a very low energy 2nd set in another wink from the band. Trey only giving us the hilarious and coveted CDT Reprise after making us eat some cheese with our ballads and orchestral composition. How can you eat your jams if you don't have any pudding?!

This show should be appreciated for what it is as much as what it wasn't for some people. This grateful fan won't soon forget this odd ball tour closer any time soon.

Torture torture torture
Chalk Dust Torture!

I just have to chime in agreement with the sentiments expressed in most of these reviews. Sometimes phish doesn’t seem to be able to get out of their own way. Ripping highlights like alumni blues and after midnight were far outnumbered by outright head scratchers, both in terms of song selection and placement. The internet seems to lend itself to superlatives of both varieties, so I won’t go so far as to say this was the worst phish show I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly waaaaay up there.

Watched this from the couch, so I don't have the attendance bias. Thought first set was solid minus Crazy Sometimes, not a huge fan of that song. Sigma Oasis had a fun guitar line and I could see that getting the extended treatment in the future. Old school The Curtain was sweet, transition into Mound was smooth. Brian and Robert got me a bit teary, as this "one" is for "us". Frost also just simply gorgeous and a reminder that not everything needs to be a rager.

Set 2 had an opportunity to take off at several points and never got there. After Midnight>STFTP should have been a more high energy pairing instead of Stealing Time. Transition into Energy was hesitant and awkward, jam out of that into Soul Planet was cool and subsequently Soul Planet probably had the most improv of the night. IAWITW was super fun, but Petrichor suffered once again from placement and sucked the energy out of the set. A short Boogie On was funky and great and should have been extended. Not a fan of Rise/Come Together.

Encore was awesome. Playing was a bit rough but hard to complain about those tunes.

Fun Fall Tour. Can't wait for MSG!

Everyone one is shitting on this show but the first and the third set were fire. : )

Pebbles and Marbles was an amazing start to an awesome encore. One of my favorite tunes ever. Beneath a Sea of Stars isn’t typically a great encore choice but in this context it worked fine, adding some depth and texture before blasting into IZABELLA. Fuck yeah.

Chalkdust Reprise was a monumental cherry on top for me personally. As of writing this, the first song I’ve ever heard Phish play live was Chalkdust Torture (Bonnaroo 09); now the most recent encore I’ve ever seen is Chalkdust Reprise.

I’ve come full circle and I’ll now ride off into the sunset and see Oysterhead which was technically the first time I ever saw Trey play live. Gonna bust up all the full circle shit with summer tour 2020 but it’s cool for now. See you all @ Piedmont Park and Deer Creek.

In conclusion any show that contains Guelah, The Curtain, Alumni Blues, It’s Ice, After Midnight, Pebbles, Izabella, and a Chalkdust fucking Reprise closer can’t be as bad as the rating and some of these reviews make it look.

Be kind to each other out there.

I generally try to keep to the "if you've got nothing nice to say, then don't say anything". But this tour has been taxing my patience... big time.

I honestly don't give a crap what songs the boys decide to play. Fast, slow, dark, bliss, composed, woohs, whatever... but they need to jam... a lot. That's why I'm a Phish fan. That's what they do so well that virtually no one else does. But this tour, with its sing songy, lots of songs per set, micro-mini jam (to the point where it doesn't exist) nonsense is not what I'm looking for in a Phish show.

Sure, there have been some exceptions... but this show is a great example of Phish as a standard band playing a whole bunch of songs. Sure, some of them are "deep catalog tracks", but again... where's the beef?

I really hope that the NYE run takes us to the other extreme. A 5 song second set sounds just lovely about now!

This was a Sunday show I could’ve missed and been ok with. Had a good time as always but everyone knows the second set was a bit weak. I heard the they weren’t doing repeats but I dont know if this was just fans saying this or the band making a conscience decision for this short tour. I would have liked a tweezer in the second set but the encore was definitely fire. And it goes without saying Friday and Saturday were fire.

I understand the controversy surrounding this show. I personally liked it. The song selection made me laugh out loud several times. What some refer to as “leftovers” I perceive as “butcher’s cuts”. Many of the tempos were downright frantic (buried alive, my sweet one, mound...) and it felt like they (and we) were barely hanging on. Chalk Dust Reprise accentuated this fun theme of a band of crazed, musical windup toys spinning out of control. Downright hilarious.
Petrichor was as tight a version as I have ever heard. Just beautiful. Everyone should have seen this one coming since Charleston was the place where it debuted in 2016.
I’m not a huge fan of Soul Planet or Rise Up/Come Together, but these versions caught my attention. Extreme ok songs that were played very well.
The encore was a huge treat. Pebbles and Marbles gets me every time. Izabella was the highlight of the evening.

I understand the disappointment many have, but I enjoyed this one. The first set was great and while the second set didn't have much jamming or high energy moments (Soul Planet and Energy, along with Midnight/ Boogie were the highlights for me, along with a beautifully played Petrichor), the playing was great, and it was sort of amusing to see all the inaudible sighs as the band moved (mostly) from one slow, ballady 3.0 song to the next. A friend-of-a-friend standing nearby left early/mid second set after complaining of the song selection (He hates WOTC for some reason, too, so he was already pissed at setbreak.), but I was happy to be free of his...energy.

Then there's the encore: I would argue it may be the best of 3.0, and one of Phish's best ever without guests. Pebbles is always welcome, and Sea of Stars was a nice calm interlude before the two scorchers at the end: I never thought I'd ever see an Isabella, nor a Chalkdust Reprise, much less back-to-back. But I did, and it was good!

I'll always wonder how many other people left this show early: their loss.

View from the couch! As with any show I start off overly optimistic and work to sustain this optimism throughout the show. You never know when they will strike and so must keep your wits about you. This is doubly important from the couch where the distractions entering into the air space of your attention. How easily your dogs lying by the fire cuddled and cute can cause the innocent bystander to lose focus on the matter at hand.

That being said I felt engaged during the first set, taking advantage of the fact that I could, for once, see the expressions of all members faces and close up musicianship at work. Treys guitar work started off strong and his energy, as well as with Page and Fish, could be felt, if not outwardly seen. Mike, while always seemingly aloof, appeared much more distant.

There was a point in the first set, and this seem to continue, at points into the second, where it just looked like Trey was playing but little sound was being produced. It could have been the stream, I’m. It totally certain.

Anyway, mid second set, comfy as clam nestled deep in the sand, I found my attention slowly wander. I made it as far as Petrichor and then it happened. I fell asleep. I wouldn’t say the playing was entirely at fault, song choice being what it was...and it was a “school night” & the wife’s pregnant so I limit my intake quite drastically. Like many nights I might fall asleep watching television, when I wake I deny the fact to anyone looking to call me out on dosing off, myself included. Pebbles and marbles had just begun and my stream had not cut out, it couldn’t have been too long, right? When chalk dust reprise ended and the bows were taken I was anxiously awaiting the encore. Little did I know that was the encore. Raise the lights & cue the credits.

If I am looking at the show in its totality, removing any specific song bias, which I feel I do well at times, poorly at others (this show being the former), the flow was inconsistent, lacked cohesion and any semblance of connectivity in relation to cadence, (however frenetic it may be sometimes, the roller coaster start and stop and ebb and flow, sideways and slant ways often times have a underlying cadence) and lacked the attention grabbing that many shows have.

Song selection whether stymied by the band’s inability to connect, to themselves or the audience, along with a partially contrived expectation of not repeating a song, left this viewer longing for something. At least with BD there was a theme each night which laid a foundation for cohesion if only on that underlying thematic level.

I went to bed oddly satiated with Phish whereas I normally leave a show (in this case, leaving my living room for the bed room) with a powerful desire to see more, to catch the next show wherever and whenever that might be. I was caught off guard tonight by that feeling of complacency.

Thanks for listening, if you did, or disagreeing, if you did, or agreeing, if you did, or ignoring m, if you did, this humble narrator’s thoughts.

Side Bar: and you heard it hear first: I would be interested in webcasts having guest hosts, like sports commentators, who must be present or in attendance that are allowed a half time recap and then a show ending wrap up. Cutting between College Football and the webcast on Saturday at halftime I had this vision of the two merging. No play by play of course. Anyway thought I would share.

Say what you will, but about 5:23 into "I Always Wanted It This Way" is some of the finest jamming, with Trey leading the way and the others laying the foundation, but then it really develops into a collaborative effort and is the height of group improvisation.

This isn't a bad show, but the song selection especially later in the show will make many think it is.

It’s Ice.

It’s Ice, in the first set, needs to receive some attention. That may be the single song highlight of this fall tour, to me.

Lots of negative reviews for this show, and I agree with many opinions shared, but the last 30 minutes of the first set were pretty strong, and IT’S ICE.

Give it a listen!

I had a good time.
And it ended with me and everyone else having a great time during the Reprise!!
That's such a fun song to sing, right?!

But, what i've never asked here or on PT or anywhere besides talkin' with my friends and/or people I just met is this: in Guelah Papyrus the first two lines are,
"Aboard a craft bereft of oar
I rowed upstream to find Lenore"
Now, I love Tom Marshall. TM5 in my book. But how the fuck does ya row upstream bereft(meaning without) of an oar??

Answers, please and thanks. See y'all in a few weeks!!

A bit scattered with some flubs here and there, but overall a fun show. Features a ton of songs that are on my "too see" list so I envy some folks here. Almost bought tickets to this show too. If I'd have known Covid was gonna hit us like a ton of bricks I would have gone! Thank goodness for LivePhish, though. It's not the best show of the three, but that's subjective as is anything. Enjoy yourself, Phans.

Now that we have this 2019 Fall Run in the rearview mirror, I think Nassau must be at the top, certainly in the top 2. All in all, it was a lovely little tour and brings us all a new chapter in "the Phish from Vermont," as Trey giddily remarked to the crowd to end the Charleston weekend. Say what you will about that show, who in their right mind would see a "Chalkdust Reprise" coming? That Plasma bit to close it all out made me laugh on the way to work on a miserably raining Monday in New York, and who but this band could do that? I kept thinking about how nuts it was to be like "show's over," and the BOOM - a few measures of "Plasma." WTF, Phish???

For all the new Phish we got in the 2018-19 creative spurt (Kasvot, numerous tunes not on Big Boat, GOTF, Vida Blue, Mike's band) Nassau has some of my personal favs in "Everythings Right," "Ruby Waves" and "SANTOS." Top that with maybe the best bust-out of the tour (all 2019??) in a thoughtful ode to Lou Reed, along with some classic 80s Phish and you've got a winner. Coming out of the gate with Ghost-Rift bliss for nearly 20 minutes and inserting a smoking hot "Tube" in the first set also sends this show into the tops of the tour. Certainly a strong contender for best set of the tour IMO. Anyways, not much to say about the closer. Soul Planet. Yep, we're all riding on one! Can't wait for MSG and wish everybody the best in the holiday season!!

I think everyone in this dialogue and others are correct; sacrificing the quality and execution of an individual show in the name of a gag that runs over the course of a tour is unwise, and tired. This show clearly suffered at the expense of the gag, which they've already done better at BD. Agree.

I do want to give Big Red some due credit for Sigma Oasis, though. He has been putting out some pretty, shall we say, tiresomely optimistic music recently. I don't think there's a single good song on GotF, and the Soul Planet/Everything's Right/Set Your Soul Free stuff is boring and unworthy of his name. This new tune stomps though. and I'm glad to hear that he can still do it after all these years. Attaboy!

Went solo last night, only show I could make. Had to work today so dipped out after Energy and got an Uber with no wait, think I made a wise decision. First set was decent, Buried Alive, Mound and Alumni Blues > It's Ice were highlights. Playing After Midnight at like 10pm-ish was bizarre and kind of indicative of how disjointed the entire second set was (but the crowd liked it). Definitely not sad that I missed Petrichor, which I saw when it was played for the first time as the opener of the 10/14/16 Charleston show. Trey needs to keep that one in reserve for when he plays with philharmonics and solo shows.