, attached to 2023-08-05

Review by jflasko320

jflasko320 I usually rattle off my initial impressions on reviews, but this time I gave it a day and another listen and this is what I got.

Set One:
Loving Cup opens up a beautiful night of music, a near flawless cover with ferocious energy played rarely in the opening slot welcomes everyone back to the final night of the longest MSG run since the Baker's dozen. The crowd responded with as much excitement as the band did, anticipation for the rest of the night dripping from the furthest corner of the massive arena. Fishman almost immediatley kicks off maze and trey jumps right into the atari style effects before kicking into full gear. This version is one of the tightest and most energetic, tease laden, glorious, first set Maze excursions you'll find this side of post breakup phish let alone post pandemic phish. Trey listening intently to the fire Page brings to his solo and responds in very creative and subtle fashion, until unleashing into a barrage of notes mushing a contract of melody and dissonance together as only Trey page Anastasio is capable of. a rather subdued yet beautiful Maze is followed by a very welcomed Martian Monster with enough cool Page effects to make your head spin. The beautiful early 2000's page sounds make way for brilliant passing of the baton to Trey who runs with the rest of the jam like his entire life depends on it. Mike speaks up and follows this with matching synth melodies, and the three band members interlock into this intense synthesized peak all driven by Fishman's steady groove. Winding down quickly to greet the oldest Phish standard thus far, Divided Sky. An absolutely sublime rendition of a timeless tune & the best I've seen of it used and played in quite some time. The band closes things off and Trey signals the opening lines of Caspian, earlier in the show than I and many others have seen in a long time. Now I could gush about how much Magnaball means to me and how brilliant this jam was but Id rather encourage you to just listen to the full band interplay on this one. Some of the most incredible live music i'll ever hear and it will not be forgotten anytime soon. They soar through the song at colossal speed and go straight for the gas on this jam, starting off in type 1 prog perfection and as soon as try touches those Atari effects the entire band flies into Type 2 mode experimenting and landing every single giant swing. Kuroda created such a gorgeous tapestry with this jam that those red and blue flashing stobes will not only live in my memory rent free forever but may actually cause seizures for anyone with epilepsy. Out of the psychedelic ooze comes an enjoyably danceable NCIU complete with time changes and some sloppy but fun playing. Steam follows in a rather standard role in the set but features a hell of a kick between verses that keeps the energy up and moving through the room. Drift while your sleeping provides a fitting sing a long set closer that by the end you couldn't help but feel something. Trey passionately carries us all through to the following set, sure to melt faces and leave us exhausted but wanting more.

Set Two:

Set your soul free kicks things off in pretty tight fashion, a relatively basic though throughly well played version gets us all ready for the inevitable Tweezer; and holy hell what a Tweezer that was. There's something incredible and unique about this jam, between the absolutely perfect composed sections & inspired playing of the free sections there's something for anyone in this Tweezerfest of a set. Roughly 30 minutes of multi-sectional and experimental yet incredibly melodic progressive rock. Fishman really steals the set for me, taking control of the full band and pushing the jam into weird and beautiful places all while putting his definitive mark on how far he can push his fellow bandmates to bring their absolute A game to a brilliant night of music. Someone in the front row hung a sign through the entire set reading 200th show which was acknowledged by Trey at the end of the end of set one, but Fishman and Trey acknowledge the other side of that sign reading (Manteca->) after a surprising and welcomed Guy Forget callout. Giving the fans everything they could want and more is what this band excels at and there's no better example of that than this second set. That being said... very sloppy scents intro and numberline sore thumbs, but even then... let's be honest, I'm always happy to hear scents intro even tho it's never really been played all that well. And that numberline jam is beautiful, sue me. There isnt a better song to end a set than Tweezer Reprise for my money and I'll put anything on the table in defense of that. The band leave, come back out and cap off the night with one hell of a mission statement in Harry Hood. Phish is here for good & they are always gonna push the envelope of what a live performance can be as far as it can good. I know I didn't go into full detail on this Twezzerfest set but I assure you It'll do you a better service to listen back and analyze for yourself than anything you could read on this site. Phish is 2023 is as good as ever and thats all you need to know. Just listen to this show and prove me wrong.


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