Well, it started off pretty standard. Moma was a good one and Ocelot had a nice jam I thought. Good to great jam on Sand...but let's face it, this was more of a Munchkin Land jam than it was a Sand jam....which made it awesome really. R&R rocks out the end of set. Standard really....BUT was certainly not expecting this damn near perfect 2nd set!! Holy Moly!! One for the ages really. No slow down mid-set or nothin"!! Balls to the wall wicked to spaced out...and everything in between, improv for 60 minutes (wave>simple>fuego) after the straight up Evolve to warm up (20 min. each song approx.) then a completely insane CTD that raged and the ending was madness topped off with a Munchkin Cherry! Not interested in any whining from the old schoolers (I am one also) about the Evolve to open it...who cares? Seems to be the thing they like doing lately with a little warm up new tune before they dive in. Rivals the other best of, perfect 2nd sets from this year. Not kidding. Worth multiple listens.

My first Phish show one I’ll definitely never forget. So glad it happened to be for a great cause as-well. KDF and Moma were a good start but Ocelot was definitely where they started to get a little bit funky. First set felt mostly pretty regular with PYITE being a nice treat. Sand no doubt the highlight of the first set with all the Wizard of Oz teases a cool twist and tribute on the anniversary. Hard rocking Rock and Roll to end it pretty solid cover and first set. Second set was really where its at no slowing down at all admittedly even if Evolve was a little forgetful to open but Wave>Simple>Fuego>CDT was ferocious. I really enjoyed the Wizard of Oz teasing again in CDT. Encore was solid, Wading to cool us off and SANTOS to send us home from Munchkinland smiling. Thanks to Phish and everyone for and incredible first show and experience can’t wait for tonight.

The house began to pitch!

Watched from the couch, didnt want to do the SPAC drive after getting 7 full nights at MSG. God damn, why didnt I go? This 2nd set was really fun and also im a major wizard of oz head. the minute trey started playing munchkinland in sand i jumped from the couch. it was awesome. Once again this band put a smile on my face. Lets do it again tonight. This is a 5 star show that im sure alot of people thought was meh the first few songs but this thing was special. locked in.

Biggest Highlights: Sand, Simple

I haven’t reviewed a show in awhile cuz suck at this but, feel compelled after what I witnessed last night. Watched this from home and thought this show was really amazing. Right on par with the energy they had at MSG. ( I did all 7 @ msg ) The first set was good and a lot of fun but, for my money ( or donation as it were ) that second set was incredible improvisation and what I’m here for. I’m excited for tonight and will be spinning that waves>simple> Fuego many time in the future. Thank you PHiSH. Ding - Dong the witch is dead!!!

Mull > Punch in the first set was golden. The sand and 2nd Rock and Roll of the summer was so great.

2nd set is go fast, go big, or go home. Chalkdust is the greatest american rock song of all time.

Here before that spreaditround guy writes the driest, most uninspired, most "i seriously do not get it" review you have ever read.

SET 1:

Kill Devil Falls: Pretty much what you would expect but I do like this in the opening slot, plenty of energy.

The Moma Dance: This is a great version. No canned bliss jams. Just funky and grooving, very good stuff. Recommended.

Ocelot: Trey actually rips this, takes it up very high!

The Wedge: Perfect placement.

Mull: Great jam here, surprised me for sure. Would absolutely recommend this version! >

Punch You in the Eye: Good placement! Not perfect but that’s ok. Keeps the energy flowing big time.

Sand: This just SMOKES! With the We Welcome You to Munchkinland woven in and out of it and huge peaks throughout, this is – without a doubt – an all timer. Exceptional Sand!

Rock and Roll: Standardly smoked if you will and a great cap to a fantastic first set. Bravo Phish!

SET 2:

Evolve: Oof.

A Wave of Hope: This one is sort of workmanlike to me. No signature moments or themes that captured my attention. ->

Simple: Tale of two cities really for me. I like how it starts off. Down and dirty with. You get some brief reverse reverb from Trey, love that. Even some old school loops at one point. Then it sounds like they are going to go into Sanity. From there it gets to this very organic, hose/bliss type of place for a couple of minutes. But from there, they really extend that bliss stuff and to me it just doesn’t feel natural. Forced and canned. But the last couple of minutes RULE – very eerie and dark – spacey and sparce and a KILLER transition into >

Fuego: Wish they would have found themselves in something else but oh well. This one doesn’t do much. ->

Chalk Dust Torture: They do all sort of cool stuff with this one. Played in different keys and some cool, weird/atypical themes. Would highly recommend! Lots of risk taking for sure.

ENCORE:

Wading in the Velvet Sea: Like this in this spot actually! Knowing there is another night to come especially. But Trey just strums through what should be his solo and there is absolutely no peak like this song was made for and deserves. Very, very meh. Lifeless.

Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S. – No comment really.

Summary:

Definitely an entertaining set two. All of it does not hit, but plenty of good stuff all the same. I like the body of work. For maybe the first time in all the 3.0 reviews I have done, I am higher on this show than the 4.255/5 rating currently on Phish.net. I was thinking 4.3/5 for my own personal rating. The first set is basically perfect. The second set was jammed the hell out – CDT really did it for me and Simple definitely had stretches that grabbed me.

Replay Value: The Moma Dance, Mull, Sand, Simple, Chalkdust Torture

Tonight marked the 4.0 return to SPAC, and the band’s 24th show at this venue. As such a staple of their 3.0 summer tours, this SPAC run felt like an overdue homecoming. As someone who joined the fun in early 3.0, and a Vermonter, SPAC has always been my Phish home venue; I notched my 11th and 12th shows here this weekend. 11 of these have been on the lawn. There’s not much grass left and much of it is covered in rubber matting, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could see the entire light rig from my spot this weekend. At the Mann lawn, I couldn’t see the upper part of the rig. Given that they’ve upgraded the rig to be able to motor the trusses in smaller shed venues (they were stationary in 2022 in some venues), it was great to see the full show from the notoriously view-impaired SPAC lawn.

On Sound. I was a third of the way up the lawn, direct center, in line with a speaker stack. Trey sounded amazing. Mike did too, to my surprise; seems like they’re dialing in the Serek bass tone more and more. He was loud, clear, and had that special full-body resonance that I cannot get enough of. Fish’s mix seemed to be missing the cymbals a bit, which took away from a lot of the dynamic flourishes that help heat up a jam. Page was pretty hard to hear, which I heard from others around the venue too. This wasn’t the case at other venues this summer, so I don’t know what was up there. His synthesizers and lead vocals were clear, but everything else was just way too quiet. It sounded almost more like a power trio than our usual sonically democratic quartet. Yeah I could have moved around, but I would hate to end up with better sound only to be surrounded by a swarm of chads and wooks. Good lawn neighbors are worth a certain percentage of sound sometimes.

The first set was just plain fun. At first I wasn’t sure whether they were setting us up for a Saturday-night-special-type show, but as became abundantly clear in set 2, this was NOT the case. KDF was a nice water-themed opener, though a tad rusty. Trey was a bit late on the signature bendy riff after the first verse, and instead of coming in with him on drums Fishman just blasted away on the true tempo leaving Trey high and dry. Trey gave him the evil eye, which was funny to catch on the lawn screen. Moma got things going properly, and had some excellent and short interplay toward the end. A taste of things to come, and for sure an above-average rendition. Ocelot tipped the scales from Jam Land back toward the crowd pleaser side, but no harm done. Same with The Wedge.

In the pause following Wedge, the band hit Mull hard. Just a huge wall of sound out of nowhere. My girlfriend jumped in surprise. I enjoyed this one quite a bit (my first time seeing it live and only new live song of the weekend). I’m a sucker for grooves, and this Mike tune hit the spot. In my opinion, from Mull to the last note of SANTOS, this show fucking ripped. PYITE is one of my favorites and always fun to see live. This version was excellent, though unfortunately I was distracted first by a partied-out man careening down through the crowd (and me) and passing out a few feet away, then an altercation behind me involving some shouting by a drunk. Luckily the partied-out man was swarmed by caring neighbors and proffered Liquid Death, and the drunk moved along. Sadly by this point though Punch was almost over, but it was good.

Sand was excellent, by far the best rendition of the six I’ve seen live. They stretched the jam, and we were welcomed to Munchkin Land. In the moment I didn’t know what this was; it sounded composed, but also like something Trey might conjure in the deeps of a jam. After this one I was feeling solidly optimistic for an extended foray into Jam Land during this show. Rock and Roll was a well-chosen cap for this set, and a nice throwback to my first ever Phish show (6/19/10 right here at SPAC).

Evolve is a nice song, they kept it in the box. I’d argue that it was for the free youtube set opener stream, but the whole show was free tonight. I like the song. Shit gets real with A Wave of Hope. My first time seeing this live was Hartford 2022, where the band went DEEP and it felt like we were surfing the depths of a black hole, slowly coming apart in a black and red vortex. This rendition was an equally deliberate exploration, focused around pure chaos before coalescing into exquisite quiet bliss. The cool-green lights during this quiet later section really lent a nice touch.

I love the .net recap’s description of Trey barreling toward Simple like a toddler seeing a toy excavator across the room. Once settled, the lads were NOT DONE going huge and treated this to a similar treatment as AWOH. Again we get some intriguing chaos jamming, before later in the jam the full band merges on a simple downbeat theme. Then out of nowhere, Trey takes flight and it is soaring, anthemic, full band bliss. Get me a fresh diaper because this is IT, there is no intellectual fucking around, no ego, just unfiltered 200-proof Hose as the band chases down a triumphant theme that leaves me fully purified. This breaks down into a quiet, effects-laden interlude out of which Trey coaxes the Fuego theme like an evil spell. Just perfect transition stuff here. Fuego is an excellent continuation of the energy ride the band is taking us on.

Chalkdust closes and it is completely unhinged. What might have been a hard-rocking, fitting BAM! to close the set instead morphs into an insane game of cat and mouse. Trey leads the band into a second jam after the traditional final chorus, and it gets batshit. The band drives itself to the edge of sanity before resolving again, iterating several times over and whipping us all into a frenzy. CK5’s lights were almost too intense to look at; he was giving the lighting rig a full workout. A little Munchkin tease and we are done with what has been the best set I’ve ever seen live.

I was fully ready for Wading after this monster of a set and thought it was a really nice way to continue the plot. Beautiful interplay here. Then they close with SANTOS which was a perfect, low stakes, fun exclamation point on an incredible show. Mike played his Modulus for the encore tonight and tomorrow night too. Maybe testing the live tone comparison? Interestingly I thought it had less clarity than the Serek, but more depth. People will see this setlist and rate it accordingly without listening to a single note, but don’t be fooled. This is a 5 star show and if like me you live for the deep, exploratory jams, the 2nd set is Mandatory Listening.

I Love SPAC! I Love that this was a benefit show! The PYITE and entire second set were amazing, First Simple at SPAC I'm pretty sure, and it was a doozy! I like the Wizard of Oz thing but in real time it just sounded like Trey messing up a perfectly good Sand with music that sounded like Raffi. I like Sand fierce and furious not an impromptu children's lullaby with poor tone. But that's just me. The Simple really made up for everything. I love walking out of SPAC and seeing people getting lost in the woods. It's a one of a kind place!

A Page on theremin Over the Rainbow solo woulda brought too many tears, maybe. Next time! Maybe add a vacuum duet to it AS COMIC RELIEF after Page's theremin solo?
I believe this could be worked out, Page and Fish. Try it, c'mon. The theremin is an underused gem.
What I heard tonight in Mull, Rock n Roll, and Wave of Hope was solid stuff!
The Sand was nicely unique. Like the Bethel Star Spangled Fire.
Fishman looked ready for his close-up, hair...perfect.

Anytime I get to see phish in my backyard and sleep in my own bed is awesome. It is unfortunately due to tragedy of flooding that we get this benefit, so I did what I must, and bought my tickets!

It was steamy, incredibly humid. I was seated on the left side, page side rage side. Not that I did much sitting. The sound quality was a little disappointing where we were, the music being played however, was anything but.

It was really interesting to hear the band take musical chances, and go down tonal paths that they have not followed before. It's not too often I get to hear phish play something that leaves me questioning my own sanity. But the band from Vermont did that multiple times last night, from blissful jazzed out improv, to deep and evil incandescence, we got the complete range of everything that is possible from four people playing different instruments together.

The first three tracks were all stellar, very intense, very rocking. Very jammy.

The Punch you in the eye was a great bust out, 37 shows since they last played it, and clearly something they had rehearsed, because it came off nearly flawlessly.

The Sand was very a different journey, sonically, then I really have experienced with Phish before. And I need to listen to it again.

I can't really add anything to the second set other than perfection, phish perfection. With a chalk dust torture that absolutely blew the roof off the place to finish.

I'm still not sure how to describe the show, but I know I sure as hell cannot wait for tonight.