, attached to 1998-07-15

Review by Campster

Campster Plenty of reviews of this one, but it's a disc(s) that I wore out quite a bit.

Wolfman's Brother opens the show and this is an excellent version. It's not 100% funkified, but has a really cool jam that ends with some great full band peaking. Great start.

Water in the Sky is not noteworthy - but seldom is. It fits ok here.

Moma Dance brings back the heat and is a nice solid '98 version. I enjoy it as well as the placement.

Guyute includes the weird dog racing/pig racing story, which is a nice slice of life for us banter lovers. It's a good call here and plenty of fun. Band seemed thrilled to have a lot of "newish" material to play.

Horn -> Jam is one of my favorite pieces of Phish music ever. The composed horn solo is gorgeous, but the improvisation that follows is melt in your mouth delicious. It's very delicate and coy. It starts off simply enough with some droning loops and nudges along slowly to an incredible reflective space. Trey's melody is assertive and superb without really taking over the jam. It's beautiful democratic music.

Chalkdust Torture brings the energy level back up after the spacey jam.

Brian and Robert and Beauty of My Dreams are both enjoyable.

CTB is nice and funky, without standing out too much.

Roggae is placid and solid.

Birds of Feather always felt notable to me. It's a very good version. It's not anything overly exploratory like some of the monsters from '99, but it's got an interesting jam for sure and I enjoy it quite a bit.

Loving Cup closes set I instead of set II in equally admirable fashion.

Wow - they packed a lot into that set! Overall mighty fine music, particularly Wolfman's Brother, Horn->Jam, and BOAF. Everything else is also pretty good listening to my ears as well.

Set II is excellent.

They open with LXL, which is a cool choice for the set II opening slot. This version contains a nice patient jam, which is plenty of fun on it's own. They eventually move beyond the typical and work out a nifty -> Simple. Very good opener.

Simple is nice and has a good jam as well. I find the combo to have been very good and also quite unique (have they paired these two together any other times?). Simple also finds a bit of ending space and makes it's way to Tweezer.

Tweezer is nice and spacey and they make sure to give this plenty of breathing room. It finds it's way pretty quickly into the funky realm and has an impeccable turn ->California Love, which must have been a very cool moment. The jam itself translates nicely to tape and is certainly fun and satisfying. Not to be resolved by a bit of quoting, this Tweezer works back into a nice jam that peaks well and contains some more great playing before finding an excellent -> Free.

Free is a surefire winner here, as this version gets a good funky workout and the jam is plenty unique and plenty fun. I highly endorse this version of Free.

Meat is up next and is a great call here. Nice version.

Harry Hood is excellent. There are a lot of good versions from this era. This versions stands alongside those. It has a good pretty patient jam. Trey plays really well. He also leads the band to a soaring peak that has some excellent flurries of notes. I'm a big fan, and it closes out a great set in style.

Encore is Wilson>Tweeprise, which is a nice combo indeed and Wilson has a little extra jamming on top as well. Fun fun fun.

Overall classic. 5/5. Highlights are numerous, but the second set to me has not a single missable moment.


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