"it's safe to say there was a sense of collective unease" -- No, this is your bubble talking.

I respect this reviewer's high standards but I don't agree that s/he should be in a position to write the first draft of history. The scene in Denver was not feeling uneasy. That does not mean people were unaware of how Friday and Saturday compared to the best of 2015; I doubt many will put those shows in a top 10. Nothing to be uneasy about unless you have a iffy sense of phish history or a strange sense of entitlement. Colorado itself was too busy having fun to get grumpy about merely good shows.