this was a damn good show sandwiched between two astounding runs. red rocks was great, but i think the gorge, quality per show anyway, was a little better. then there is this nifty shoreline show.

the first set is pretty standard. a quick halley's comet makes a welcome appearance early. the divided sky is a frequent but welcome first set tune. they play this one well, again. the faulty plan is played very strong after a nice loosey goose yamar. bowie works as a nice first set bonus tune after what i would have thought to be a set closing suzy.

i really don't like number line. it seems kind of cheesey, but it does lead into the year's best down with disease. this one is deep. in my opinion, it is the only one of the year that really starts to break new ground. sure, this song has been so thoroughly explored by phish that it is hard to break new ground, but every version up to this one did not stray too far from the disease theme. the alpine valley one started too, but then it drifted into a spacey/bug jam. anyway, this one is filled with expert playing by all four members. fishman plays with great skill and discipline on this one. a pretty standard limb by limb works well out of disease. oh sweet nuthin' would normally be a marquee score in this slot, but they botched this one pretty badly. they made up for it with a nice cities. this one doesnt go as far as it used to, but you could say that about every song phish has been playing for more than 10 years. this one still leaves a little room of dark funky exploration before diving into my favorite maze of the year. 2009 was chock full of red hot mazes, see ashville, alpine valley, syracus, etc, but this one, in my opinion, takes the cake. page was completely on top of this one, while trey brought his own brand of weirdness into the mix. fishman and gordon are in sync and work well as the engine on this one. after having played a pretty killer set thus far, with the exception of the botched VU song, they decided to kick down a mighty nice mike's groove. they build mike's up appropriately before delving into simple. the tweedle this one out before storming into a gordon'tastic weekapaugh. great way to close shoreline. that venue seems to always get a pretty damn good mike's song...as for me, i haven't caught one since the mediocre alpine '04 version. well, i'm sure i'll catch one at deer creek or telluride this summer.... see you there!!

highlights:

set 1:
halley's comet>chalk dust, faulty plan

set 2:

down with disease, maze, mike's>simple>weekapaugh