Great stuff. Keep 'em coming.

I think a lot of the mystique around Japan 2000 derives from the fact that, even if Phish were on stage playing exactly the same way they would have played in a US tour, people in the audience would still perceive the music differently. Set and setting. Undoubtedly, for those in attendance, the shows had special cache regardless of the usual criteria for evaluating a show. For those of us listening at home, you can still hear the crowd and imagine yourself in attendance, so I think this applies to some extent to every fan's appreciation of this tour.

With that in mind, some things that normally make me dislike a show - e.g. odd set flow - don't bother me much when they appear on this tour (and other foreign tours). I give the band the benefit of the doubt that Trey was playing to the audience in front of him, not the dedicated US fan base of 2000, and certainly not the headphones listeners of 2019.