waxbanks,

interesting take. Don't think this was supposed to turn into a debate about Show of Life, but I guess with the title of the thread, it was inevitable.

To take your "6 year on his deathbed" angle and borrow it....

It seems like a 6-yr.old who looks at the new meatloaf dinner his mom has prepared and refuses to eat it (because it doesn't look or taste exactly the same as before) would have much in common with old jaded vets and their Phish music.

Phish's music reflects their age. I'm almost 50, and I play it closer to the vest than I used to. I don't spontaneously free-climb rock walls anymore when I'm out hiking, but I look at them and remember when I had nothing to lose and no family to take care of.

Nowadays, there are less stretches of abandonment and wild unpredictability, but they have brief (or lately longer than brief) moments of absolute brilliance and mastery. These guys are tighter and more breathtaking then back in the old days, but those moments are fewer and there is more space between. Neither, however, do they fall off the table drunk anymore, and that counts for something, too.

When I say you old geezers are simply nostalgic, I'm not saying you don't have a point, just saying you are forgetting often what really went on.

The band will never be what they were in the 90's because then men playing the music aren't the same people as they were then. But they still now how to COOK.

Agree that there is no benefit to getting on a blog here just to say that "IT'S NOT THE 90'S ANYMORE" or some other shit. That's equivalent to standing at a bus stop and saying "IT'S COLD", or whatever. Takes no imagination or insight to do that, it doesn't contribute to anything useful, and it DOESN'T make you look smart.