Fri night kickoff show of this Camden weekend, thought we were going to get a Wipeout or at least a Drowned after getting drenched by windy rain that cleared the lawn not once but twice. Instead the weather references were (mostly) more subtle.

SYSF opener, crowd pops for the “feel a little rain” lyric, and then the band seems to immediately settle in for a nice short jam. Strawberry Letter 23 is a treat, more weather referenced as “blue flowers echo from a cherry cloud.”

MFMF keeps energy high, not perfectly played but Trey creates a searing, piercing, shrieking peak. Halfway to the Moon brought a few groans from my part of the lawn but I thought it was actually a nice version, nice interplay with Trey and Page. Old Home Place is a quick reminder that two of the guys on stage are Jersey boys. Train Song Trey seems to forget how to play, and Horn is a nice antidote albeit straight-forwardly played. Then we get the S1 highlight, Birds and Wolfman.

Birds starts out as The Birds, and I thought we were in for a mashup but instead it’s a wide open Type II space entered out of the Birds jam, relatively short lived but sonically deep. Trey returns to the Birds lyrics, lyrical returns being a recurring tendency these days. Then Wolfmans is funktastic, complete with a very nice peak. Weather gets another reference “like a cross between a hurricane.” This 22 min duo is worth a listen.

Wombat is fun but very short lived as Trey and Fish conspire to go directly into Timber, which has a short but fiery jam. Then it’s DWYS, which seems to have already settled into the first set closer slot. It really does seem like two songs with the reggae segment representing the dividing line. “We know that our days are few” “we dream and we struggle together” “but love will carry us through.” No you’re crying.

Very solid S1. Still moist from the hurricane.

S2 lights hit, and the guitar scratches sound like Mercury. Gotta watch the Mercury again tomorrow, supposed to be a hot one again. And the Mercury jam is a scorcher, another victory for this new jam vehicle, and another 20 min version. Big feel-good peaking sections. Hear at all costs.

No Mans emerges and is immediately taken to funky town, Mike crunching and bombing away. Taken into a huge white-light peak, this No Mans packs a real punch in only 11 min. The funk melts into WACTOOB, which is an extremely fun way to cool down.

About to Run is my GotF MVP thus far. Straight up shredder. This version is not long but is hot fire.

Light deep in an S2, yes please. Super fun Light jam, peaking with a WACTOOB reprise segment with Final Hurrah quotes. Light bleeds straight into Antelope which is its normal rocking self, a little extra mustard in the opening and pre-gearshift segments, and closes this 6-song S2 in fine style.

Excellent S2 with the Camden Mercury as your centerpiece and multiple other improvisational standout segments. Bra fucking vo.

Trey either gets a little teary trying to start Sleeping Monkey, or he swallowed one of the many bugs that were keeping us company on the lawn. He takes a sip of a beverage and he’s ok. Solid standard fun Monkey, and then a straight forward Quinn sends us out into the New Jersey night.

Great time tonight. S2 is a keeper. Can’t wait for night two.

Show delayed because the lawn faithful were getting flooded and told to find shelter.

SYSF kicks off S1 to a fine start before we enter the land of compositions, bust outs and the new age proving ground. Debuts from Strawberry letter (later teased) > Horn all weathered the pace of of this early set (being slower than the crowd may have preferred).

BOAF becoming MVP of summer tour. Wolfmans is quite tasty. Wombat and Timber both odd placements here but also fresh boogie ground. DWYS is a fun story and clearly getting pushed to expand the phanbase’s pallet. Fun set.. Paige (HTTM) and Mike (Train Song) need to learn their lyrics.

S2 Mercury jamming is out of this world (heh). It had patience here like Blossom BOAF and will hold up with many listens. The whole set was a slay machine (with great moments for About To Run and WACTOOB). Standout NMINML, Light and Antelope micro jamming too.

First Sleeping Monkey and Might Quinn on my 25th show taboot. Great night! 2 more great shows to come!!

I think this show is a little underrated. The jam in Mercury is IMO better than Fenway, but I was at Camden so definitely bias. It goes to some awesome places and the NMINML is raging beauty; pretty sure there's an "Overture" tease by Trey when it calms down at the end.

I've been waiting to hear WACTOOB live. Thank you Phish; lovin the happiness of this song.

About to Run is an awesome new rock rager and this one doesn't disappoint.

This Light Jam is so much fun; I thought it was longer. The boys seem to be putting in a lot of quality improvisation into short amount of time this tour. Great jamming, quotes, and teases.

Second raging Antelope in a week with MPP's doesn't disappoint either.

This whole run was what I needed. Again, thank you Phish and all the great people.

As another reviewer said, those of us on the lawn got completed flood. At first it wasn't so bad and a lot of people were sticking it out to hold onto their spots but soon our shoes were filled and any covering we were using was drenched through. We escaped to the PAV and there were literal streams running down the stairs. Rain was blowing under the whole amphitheater so much that they had to cover the instruments. Crazy stuff.

That being said, of course the energy was crazy high by the time the show started. The lawn dried off nicely and we had a dance party. SYSF was a great, powerful opener and the crowd went absolutely nuts during Strawberry letter. Halfway to the Moon turned out to be a decent version with a soaring solo but the BOAF, Wolfman's is really where the meat of this set lies. Definitely the most relisten value here.

S2 was amazing but had to be cut a little short due to the delay from the monsoon pre S1. Mercury was absolutely incredible and makes me regret ever saying I didn't like this song. It was pre 2018 and I really didn't think the song had taken hold yet. I've been proving wrong many times since. No Man's is an incredible jam at only 11 minutes. I was confused with the placement of WACTOOB even though this is one of my favorite Kasvot songs.Oh well, on to a ripping About to Run, one of my favorite GOTF songs. A powerful antelope closes us out and after a brief encore sing along, N1 is in the books. Overall, good opener for the weekend. High energy, the crowd was very engaged and some deep jams with BOAF, Wolfman's Mercury and NMINML even though from the times of 3 of these you might not think so. Love this mirco jamming term. Will be using it more.

Listened to every night of this tour. I think the Birds / Wolfman's is the strongest two tune combo of Summer '19. Both may be too much on the shorter side to be considered Type-II beasts, but the brevity is totally made up for with the sheer quality, competence and ......wait for it....PURPOSE. I think this should be one of our new adjectives here. 36 years in, you just have to admit that sometimes the longer jams tend to be aimless at times; I dare you to disagree. These are both overflowing with group direction and dialogue; superb.

The set list is great. Treys not exactly connected tonight though. I feel anxiety all over this show. Trey doesn’t have to be on heroin or Xanax or alcohol or lsd molly or even the weed everyone surrounding this scene worships as God but they were not playing w all cylinders. This was 3 out of 6 cylinders at best. Not sure why trey is nervous but not only lyrics suffer but he misses cues and is just not having fun. He did not give a fuck in 97 to 99 so we have meandering craziness and 4 song sets he burns out in 2004 to 06 w his solo band creating a hardcore train wreck Now he cares but I sense tension in the mellow parts tension during dissonant SOAM and David Bowie I want that anxiety but wrong notes lyrics and just not connected w the 3 other guys makes for a different difficulty an anxiety they try to brush off w lyrics like let’s just skip to drinking more .... drink a lot of wine. The 1st set on paper is my wet dream. Strawberry is a classic soul song but only played well during donuts msg the other 2 especially this version are train wrecks. Great song poor guitar playing just poor band not in sync sounded like garbage then I was barking horn into ya mar into mfmf but I missed it I don’t love near Philadelphia anymore but these are all bad versions. The ya mar from the other night was good good not great but good but this strawberry was terrible the train song butchered and mike tried to redeem the lyrical slip w better playing. How about u just play like that all the time as if it is ur last night on earth. They play like washed up has been UNTIL lyrical slips. Y do we have to fuck up lyrics to care how our passion sounds?? Maybe they are just too rich but I’m growing weary of my favorite bands ability to truly explore new territory. Maybe they just want The paycheck and to go back to their kids and wives. This is not inspired the 1st set is a great set on paper destroyed by a lack of passion. They clearly don’t believe the lines to Chalkdust torture anymore they are just a band going thru the motions. I don’t but it anymore. The liar in the song about to run is trey. Look in the mirror trey it’s way more than half of what u are saying w ur guitar that is lies. U lied about y the band was breaking up in 04. U never said u were addicted to opiates and alcohol and needed to gut ur family slash business ties to rebuild a proper band. Tell the truth and I are still lying The Phans suffer from the lies maybe u don’t but we do. I will say it to my grave Kasvot is uninspired garbage a joke or gag I call it a lie it is fake and even Scandinavia can make better music than we have come to outlive Darwin Darwin was a liar and so is Trey Anastasio