2016-09-03 - Dick's Sporting Goods Plaza - Commerce City, CO

[anthrax]

I love seeing phish in colorado

Great seeing you Jeff. That show was tits!

Good to see you too!  And gbl on Friday!!

[MiamiPhish]

What if they opened with....
The 7/22/03 Gumbo*?!?  :-o

*Camden Chalkdust teases

[mbw]

Damn, that mike solo is cray.

[VDB]

Damn, that mike solo is cray.

Very surprising and very gorgeous (Gordgeous?).

[WhatstheUse?]

Damn, that mike solo is cray.

Very surprising and very gorgeous (Gordgeous?).

It's little things like this that make phish phish. You just never know...

[Gumbo72203]

Stuff like this makes me feel like they've been kind of lazy in their playing since they've come back, these last few years....  look how easy it is to shake things up and generate energy by sticking Slave, Disease, WTU, Ghost etc in the first set.  and JAMMING IN THE FIRST SET.

Imagine how different all the lackluster, run-of-the-mill 3-run nights at SPAC or wherever could have been, had the band simply opted to do something adventurous, by opening the first set with something like, oh.....   Fuego -> If I Could, or a Harry Hood opener....  or a 2001 opener....   anything!

You cannot be serious. You're angry because they played a great show?

Haha what?  No, what I'm saying is... it's no coincidence that they sparked brilliance by switching things up.  I mean, on some level I think they HAVE to feel it when they're flat and lifeless, due to a consistent first set rotation of Sample, Wedge, Moma Dance, Ocelot, Rift, Ice, Heavy Things, Wolfmans, Free, BOTT, etc.  They become trapped in a loop with no room to breathe, and no means to grow. 


And look how easy it was to light it up by changing it up, opening with Slave, jamming out No Mens in the 2 spot of a 1st set, etc. 

[cactusfan]

i love this Coil.

next time a fishman outro?

[Caravan2001]

i love this Coil.

next time a fishman outro?

Easily best Coil outro since 12/28/90

[cactusfan]

[Caravan2001]

Haha...I have to share that...

[VDB]

I finally re-listened to this show today whilst brewing beer. Here's an attempt at a proper review.

For this night our crew went Page side stands, a few rows from the back and maybe a little bit rear of the soundboard. Great view of the whole stadium from there, as it had been the night before for us in a similar relative spot but Mike side.

The Slave opener was a delightful surprise. Very nicely peaked; Trey is already sounding notably sharper than he was on night one.

Disease in the two hole would be a shocker except for the prior night's jammy opening combo, so at this point it feels like anything goes. The jam wasn't huge, but Trey introduced a nice ascending-riff at one point that worked well.

I love WTU and this was well played, but as someone else pointed out, that's a song you want to be hearing about an hour and a half later into the night.

By Maze, I myself was really beginning to pop off; quite an apt soundtrack as things turned more and more hectic. Darkness had set in, and the crowd before us deployed their glowsticks and whatnot like sparkling pieces of computer circuitry or crackling static. This Maze had a little more verve to it than most modern versions do -- they tend to disappoint me more often than not, but on this night Trey in particular applied to his closing effort more mustard than we've gotten used to.

Farmhouse is lovely and so is this version, but I spent a chunk of it in the men's room attending to a bladder matter. On the plus side, I did very much enjoy my roundtrip through the concourse.

I'm always happy when the band calls 555's number, but I do keep waiting for the day when it gets the slinky, Mike-y jam treatment that it so deserves. Trey's solo on the backend was thick, gooey and paired nicely with the Chairman's boardwork.

Wolfman's is a crew favorite of ours (my wife is named Liz, you see), and this one rocked hard on the tail end of a funky clav-and-pedal workout. Whereas night one had a very modern, angular and experimental feeling to it, the followup was coming together as a much more accessible but no less satisfying rock-and-roll affair.

As Divided Sky began, a low canopy of clouds still hung over the pitch, gray and just visible against the black of that big western spacescape. And damned if the clouds didn't literally part as the band played, and it may have been during this song that I saw -- scout's honor -- a shooting star. Also, I had this thought during The Pause that Trey's intention probably was for everyone to get dead silent for a good long moment, which is of course the opposite of what happens, and surely we've blown that opportunity forever. I can literally hear a guy on this FOB recording I'm listening to go "Keep clapping baby, keep clapping!" And I don't think he's being sarcastic.

Rock concert, you say? The Velvet Underground cover put a clear and decisive punctuation mark on the end of this set, the band seeming to consciously affirm their abilities as stadium-sized rockers after taking some much-needed, cobweb-clearing, progressive indulgences the night before. Trey ran through a collection of ear-pleasing notes and I tentatively awarded him my Set 1 MVP designation. It was very all right, and more than that.

Setbreak was an opportunity to visit the head, stock up on beers and revel in the weirdness of the concourse. Subjectively speaking though that may be.

I enjoy Fuego musically and for its singalong factor, but why it no jam no more? I feel like Phish will intentionally jam out new songs (see also: Number Line) for a while to get them on the fanbase's good side, and then things will slide back to lesser heights.

One could also accuse this night's Sand of being underjammed (I can definitely accuse it of having a botched opening but wgaf), but what we got was quality, first-type Sand. Truth be told, however, so much was I enjoying the ominous and repetitive vocal refrain that I was a little bummed when the jam began. Damn, Sand is a good song.

My wife took her seat for Blaze On, both in deference to her own mounting fatigue and in protest of what she considers too vile a combination of bad lyrics and dad rock for her to abide. (She, good jaded vet that I've apparently raised her to be, has a fairly low tolerance for new Phish, which she tends to find unforgiveably cheesy. Meanwhile I find myself the one who can't hold a grudge against the likes of Blaze On and No Men for as long as I thought I would. Who's the purer fan among us? Interesting.)

Blaze On went for a nice little ride, with a patient, throbbing jam illustrative of the futuristic style we've heard at points this summer. I may prefer its jam over Simple's. The latter was both spacey and percussive, keeping a fairly light touch and a bright mood.

Twist is one of those songs that you might want to hate on for it being overplayed, or for its simplicity, but acknowledging that Trey often tees this one up when he's feeling jammy, I can't usually argue with the call. Clock watchers will scoff at the mere nine minutes that this one came in at, but its time with us was well spent, being straightforward but spirited and getting fairly rowdy during its final moments.

Cue Theme, and at this point we should note that if Theme is your slow-down song of the set, it's a pretty hot set. And I took the opportunity to mull over my thesis that both the Theme and the theme of this night had a very classic, Phishy feeling to it -- bright and colorful and, again, standing by now as a counterpoint to the intellectualism of Friday. I wasn't picking favorites between the shows, mind you. Just observing differences.

Well, now that we've all caught our breath, why not ratchet up the Phish-party vibe a couple notches with a well-placed 2001. The band was playful in this one, teasing here and there returns to the composed bits but yanking them back like a cat toy on a pole. Here was another time when it was nice to have the fullness of the stadium laid out in front of me for my viewing pleasure.

As Sprach was winding down, I leaned over to my wife and said, "Gimme a Hood." After the woodblock and the roars of approval quieted down, she told me she'd been thinking the same thing. Lovely in all the right places, this featured Page prominently in the jam before Trey stepped up for the big finish. A great call to close, and it fit the mood to a tee.

Now what to say about this Coil? Fish and Trey departed first after a nice little group mini-jam, and I briefly thought we were going to be treated to a Page-Mike duet to close. Well, no knock on Leo, but what ensued was even better. Page stepped off stage and my friends and I just looked at each other with slack jaws. Cactus is a brilliant and beautiful musician, and he took a well-deserved bow at the conclusion of a divine and utterly unexpected show of ability. We doffed our hats and shouted "bravo!" and another one was in the books.

Maybe it was the LED panels talking, but this show had an altogether colorful, fun feeling to it. Ol' glory, to borrow a phrase from a WTU post elsewhere. And maybe I'm making too much of my interpretation of Friday's style, but the study in contrasts that this band presents is really quite something. Both great shows, both in their own unique ways. Back in the Commerce City night, we laughed our way across the soccer fields and I couldn't wait to discover what the next night would sound like.