Alaska is a perfectly pleasant song, best suited as a warm up (for band and fans). It has "first set" written in its DNA, and works perfectly well in the midst of a first set. It has no business in the heart of the second set, when the warmup should be complete and the band should be peaking, hitting the highlight of the show and, in the best case scenario, being innovative and interesting. If you get Alaska smack dab in the heart of the second set, not even as a cool-down from an intense jam but a the main course itself, you didn't get your money's worth. It is low-grade material at the time of the show that calls for the top shelf stuff.

BTW, a "had to be there show" is a show that someone is overrating because they had a really great time at it, and doesn't understand that personal enjoyment of a show is not incompatible with reasoned perspective that puts that show in the context of literally a thousand-plus other shows, and concludes that the show in question is, say, average or below average. The recognition that a show is not as good as others that week or that tour or that year does not need to threaten your memories of the great time you had. Your personal experience is not cheapened or assaulted by the historical reality of that particular show being weak in comparison to great shows. In order to recognize a show's relative merits, it is not necessary for you to somehow reject or revise your personal experience of a great time--so just relax. If someone offers a critical assessment of a show that concludes it is below average, and you were there and had a great time and don't understand how anyone could view it as anything but the greatest thing that's ever happened, the chances are quite likely that you, in fact, are the one who "doesn't get it," not the critic. And that's perfectly fine--there's room for a wide range of experiences. It's just interesting that the ones who get the most inflamed about "haters" are actually the only ones going around telling other people what to think and rejecting others' experience of a show. Think about it.