, attached to 1997-11-23

Review by nopotatoes

nopotatoes Nice strong 1st set. The other comments about BEK are valid...some of the tastiest lead licks you'll ever hear Trey dig in on. The band clearly enjoyed playing the song, especially since it was played the night before at Hampton. Would love to see Moma dissolve back to BEK someday. The peaks are really phenomenal in this version. Stash of Death is a pretty accurate description of the evil that came along and then morphed into NICU. Even as NICU is starting up, Trey has the main lick going and the rest of the band is allowing the evil from Stash linger and slowly fade out instead of having a harsh stumble between songs...a true segue without any awkwardness.

I was amazed by the 2nd set throwdown at this show. Being about 5 people deep from the front of the stage and watching Trey stare at the ceiling while shredding this Gin will always be one of the highlights of my Phish experiences. Don't know how he didn't kill his Wah pedal from the workout he gave that thing. This will always be my favorite 2nd set that I've ever seen. As a guitarist, I've never seen anything else like it. The DWD was fantastic and the build into the DWD reprise jam coming out of Low Rider was especially tasty. They didn't rush any of it and the natural pacing was really nice with the added treat of the additional speed at the end.

I would love to see this show released as a soundboard someday. There's got to be so much more nuance in the layers of sound being created than the AUDs can reveal. Fish's drumming was breakneck speed and had to be to keep pace with Trey's shredding. Mike set up a solid bedrock and Page had such nice piano washes all the way around this show, especially the jams. If there's a show that should be a top contender for LP release, this is my vote.

I remember an article from Rolling Stone on the top 100 guitarists in 2003 and a segment where Trey talked about listening to Hendrix's Machine Gun every night before the shows on this tour. If you listen to this Gin and DWD, then the Machine Gun influence can definitely be heard all over it. In hindsight this show is almost Trey's homage to Hendrix. Amazing.


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