This was a solid Phish show. Highlight was absolutely the monster first set chalkdust. incredible, must-listen phish, in my opinion. Rest of the set was very good; a fun energy, great song selection (sucker for NICU, the SOAMule was so fun), and some good jamming during wolfmans, steam and gin.

Second set was solid. Highlight was the light, which was just a ripping rager. never really quite went type 2, but it was a significant improvisation. the birds transition was obviously horrible, but also it was kinda weird placement. they didn't go deep with it, so it sort of messed with the flow of the set in my opinion. would love to see them take that one for a ride.

encore was standard julius and then surprise rocky top. trey mentioned that "these feel like hometown shows," and that makes a lot of sense. the crowd was incredible at both these shows, deafeningly loud at times. such a great environment. overall a quality phish show. don't miss the chalkdust.

I will pop in here to agree with JakeMaye and also add that (1) the Steam was very scary and dissonant and then dropped back into the 3rd verse sooooo smoothly and (2) this Mercury is maybe my favorite ever. Super dark funk in the jam section which served as a very enjoyable precursor to the bright Light! Very excited to see what the boys bring to Hampton.

I thought this was a super fun show, I dont really understand the rating (3.75 at the moment) but maybe it was a had to be there thing since there was no stream. 1st set was rockin. Warmed up to a crowd control (I am a magnet for that song opener) and right off the bat the band goes into a downtempo CDT. Really got the crowd going, this version is a must-listen, although, it may not stack up to other Chalkdust monsters that have come to the Northeast in the past few years. It is one of the better "finished" versions tho I will say, definitely had some interesting twists and turns in there with a great peak and band interplay. The wolfmans has a nice funky groove and a little extended peak, Mule NICU & gumbo are always welcome, steam was some nice sludgy funk with a good peak, and the gin was soaring as always. Really enjoyed set 1, it plays better than it reads (for those of you questioning whether tn was worth a listen, do yourself a favor & slap it on).

Set 2 was good, soul free was good not great. Still not completely sold on that one (although ill bite my lip if they go for another 24min exploration). Highlight set 2 was definitely the Mercury>Light sequence. Real nice funk going into a soaring Light. Trey & Fish were on fire. Trey tone wise was awesome and they chugged along while letting the bass and keys show when appropriate. High energy for the
Wilson & well executed slave.

A little downtempo Julius got the feet moving one last time and Trey saying "Feels like a hometown show" felt appropriate right before a nice rocky top to cap off the night. That was some quality make up sex. Welcome to fall tour

What a solid and fun show! The whole band sounded amazing through out the night besides a little flub in the opening of BOAF, which was played diff than usual I liked the diff take on it personally. But to start off the first big jam of the night was CDT. And they played it with gusto! A nice jam put on it that finished the song close to 17mins. Was it just me or did CK5 give a lot of extra love n light both nights? I thought so. Steam was another great song w excellent tone from Trey. Wolfmans was funky as always w Mike leading the jam. And to end the first set a beautiful version of Gin that went a little exploritory and was the perfect song to end the set. Set II Was Where some serious improv happened. Im a fan after seeing Set your soul free in person n they took this song to the next level. The whole band was in unison all night. The biggest jam of the night was def Mercury! They played the standard song portion perfect and started the jam at the end with some dark funk that took me back to 97 fall tour. Def a noteworthy jam among others. Light was next and it didn't disappoint with another solid performance . There were many more highlights from this show and I too am surprised at the rating. I'm guessing cuz half the people read the setlist and said not a lot of big songs here but if you were to listen to this show from start to finish you would change your mind imop. This show is a sleeper. They even played Rocky Top at the end of a second song encore to give it there stamp of approval as a great show.

Albany can be pretty boring.

I woke up early on October 17th, 2018, at about 6:30am or so. I laid in bed as long as I could before going down to the gym for a half-hour, showering, and eating the semi-meagre free breakfast on offer at the Holiday Inn Express.

By the time I had finished reading the USA Today and had twiddled my fingers half off it was still not even 11am. With a full eight hours to go before even thinking about going in to the Knickerbocker Arena for night two of Phish I flipped through the city’s entertainment guide in the hotel room with little hope and even less success.

Eventually I took a walk and discovered some history about the place. Albany (or at least the area I was in) used to be called New Netherland, which explained the sporadic Dutch-style architecture. Back at the hotel I hopped on the lobby internet and scoured the CBC for news on Canada’s historic legalization of marijuana, which had happened that very day. Back in the room I flaked out and found myself in a Pawn Stars loop courtesy of the History Channel and finally, finally it was time to strike out for dinner and head in to the concert.

The previous night Phish had put in a pretty unique tour-opener, crunching through a somewhat surprising set that was conspicuously short on guitar solos and extremely tall on astounding lights coming from the fingertips of Chris Kuroda; aka CK5. For this show, however, the band churned out a fairly standard Phish experience, their usual blend of well-played songs presented in a generally foreseeable placement; an early Chalkdust Torture, Bathtub Gin closing the first set, a semi-rare (lately, anyway) Birds of a Feather near the start of the second, and Wilson>Slave to the Traffic Light to close out the set.

In other words, it was awesome.

Oh, and right near the end of the concert I changed my life.

I don’t know how it is that I never thought of doing this before, but during Slave I reached up and took off my glasses, and my goodness, if I could even begin to describe to you what I saw…

Years ago I looked into getting eye surgery to correct my 20/800 vision. One of the factors that helped me decide to not go through with the surgery was how much I’ve always enjoyed looking at Christmas lights with my glasses off. My absurdly blurred vision does remarkable things to bursts of light, making all light sources look exponentially bigger, with pulsating veins and a crazy separation of colours.

And then, to take the mesmerizing palette of a Christmas tree and magnify it by CK5, well, my world changed. The best concert lighting technician in the world combined with my drastic near-sightedness created something that only a combination of the magic of Disney, the rendering of Pixar, and the inspiration of Albert Hoffman could possibly come close to replicating.

It was so damn beautiful. I put my glasses in my back pocket and enjoyed the rest of the concert in a state of visually-impaired bliss.

Did I say “impairment”? I should say “empowerment”. I kept raving to m’lady about how much I wished she could experience what I was experiencing.

I will be bringing my glasses-case to every concert I go to from now on, that’s for sure.

(I must add that crossing back into Canada the next day I was asked for the first time if I had any cannabis with me. I guess this will be the new normal.)

(I’d also like to add that after attending a hundred and ten Phish concerts, this is the first one – i believe – that I don’t have a ticket stub for. Grrr. Stupid print-at-home tickets.)

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