No, the truly concerning aspect of summer 2016 was the tentativeness and unwillingness to stretch out songs in the rest of the show. There seemed to be a palpable sense of discomfort and lack of confidence onstage for significant stretches of the summer.

Not everyone will agree with that assessment, of course. But even those who do may have been uncomfortable acknowledging it.

Nice recap Steve, especially this point. But I still think you're tiptoe-ing around the real issue which is that Trey is the big wildcard here. When Trey is confident and playing well, the rest of the stuff seems to take care of itself for the most part. But when he's unusually flubby and otherwise not playing well, when he's not settling in and he's switching guitars daily like he's uncomfortable in his own skin, the whole band dynamic suffers. It's during those times when you realize that Trey is still very much the de facto conductor up there, notwithstanding the much-discussed democratization of the band's jamming since 2011-12.

It's kinda like 80's Dead in this one small respect - it often all seems to depend on which version of Trerry shows up. Or maybe I'm just projecting.

PS: I took a fair amount of heat for calling SPAC3 a "bad show" in my recap. In some respects I was being hyperbolic for stylistic purposes, which is my prerogative as the author. But in the cold light of day, and relative to the last 10 sets of the summer, I stand by that assessment 100%. When you compare it to a show like DICKS3, it's really entirely different level of Phish, altogether.