after a good solid first night, i was rooting for them to really slam it home. this show certainly had some big highlights, and on top of all that, phish mail order hooked me up with 3rd row seats on this one. most excellent.

set 1:
wilson: this got the saturday night crowd gassed up. pretty straight forward version

nicu: this worked out really well coming out of wilson. nice sharp version of an old classic.

wolfman's brother: the boys were really soaring on this one. trey piled on torward the end too. i think i liked this one better than the two i saw this summer, alpine and burgettestown.

ocelot: a good flowing set continues. this is one of my favorite new songs, and it was well-played again.

torn and frayed: good halloween bring back. i'm not a big stones fan, but this one was cool to see from the 3rd row. trey seemed to be having fun playing it.

strange design: this another one i really enjoyed. it was like page was in my living room singing to me. it's amazing how songs that might bore you a bit, are so much cooler when you are way up close. good design.

ginseng sullivan: nice snappy bluegrass tune. didn't see this one coming. good to hear it making its rounds.

alburquerque: certainly didn't see this neil young gem coming. pretty straight forward, good version

split open and melt: this or rock and roll might take the cake for this 2 night run in cincy. very cool jam on this melt. it was a very good collabortive effort too. gordon and fishman were doing some really cool stuff with trey and page working all around them. like the best melts do, i didn't think they would bring this one back home and, walah!, they bring it all back home. bravo!

dirt: nice cool down after a hot melt

limb: i like this song in the first set; i feel it too frequently sits in prime second set spots. this one was pretty straight forward but it got everybody up and ready for....

run like an antelope: this was a darn good set closign antelope. it may not have gonoe too far out, but it was a nice crisp, high energy antelope. trey was sounding pretty hot on this one.

set 2:

rock and roll: i have always liked this in the set opening slot. good version, page came in strong on his high note, and then they jammed! the jam on this rock and roll really echoed the vibe of the melt jam in the first set. trey really took charge on this jam. after a jam similar to the melt jam, they moved into some funky realms before dropping into...

ghost: this was a nice little opening pairing. trey did flub a few spots in ghost, but the jam was very nice. they seemed to have really gotten back into this song after they played, what i thought, were some uninteresting versions this summer. they got a nice dark funk jam brewing in this one before petering out into...

if i could: decent cool down song, but i didn't really want to cool down. another quasi rare song, i suppose

bdnl: still dont really like this song. it's a little cheesey. i guess they played it well but still didn't do much for me

caspian: really dislike this song and am amazed at the number of phish fans that seem to really enjoy it... yucky

suzy greenberg: they brought a little bit of fire back in this set. page was sounding sharp before they cut into...

2001: i miss the days when you had to "earn" your 2001. it would only come out of the scurviest depths of a nasty spacey jam. now they just pop them up any old place. funk out the back section of that suzy and work torward that 2001... either way, pretty good version, page, once again, was hot. fishman and gordon held it down nicely.

coil: this was a little odd coming out of 2001, but i liked it. always a good set closer

enc:
monkey: straight forward.

axilla: good encore. trey said he was playing it for someone holding a sign. well, there were a couple of signs down there. one, obviously, was axilla. now there was another that was double sided. one side said mexican cousin, the other said peaches en regalia. it seems insane to me that the same person would be rooting for both mexican cousin, WHY!, and peaches en regalia. when trey said he was playing a sign, i was stoked. we had a one in three shot at catching peaches en regalia... oh well, they took my middle choice. good axilla and the boys seemed to have fun lighting it up.

overall:
I liked the first set of this night better than the first of the previous, and i liked the 2nd set of the friday show better than this one. nothing really did much for me after ghost, except for maybe 2001, which i still didn't really care for how they fit it in. all in all though, it was a good show and a good weekend of music, especially when you tack on the medeski martin and wood show i saw in Indy on thursday.

highlights:
set 1: wolfman's brother, antelope, soa melt (must hear), and torn and frayed if you're into the stones thing

set 2: rock and roll>ghost>if i could