As always, Rob, you crafted another masterpiece of a review. When you reprimand the band it just sounds better. Loved the writer’s dirty little secret, hopefully an up and coming aspiring reviewers will take that note to heart. It really does help to try to anticipate a little and at the very least try to develop your theme ahead of the performance.

I have yet to listen l, and still will, but from the view of the show discussion thread last night (again, such a solid crew in there recently) it was clear the anticipation was subdued, even if the set up on stage felt like a potential Phish sleight of hand.

The elephant (or veiled amp) in the room sort of told it all as if there was a timer counting down the seconds to the sit in. And then, it begs the question, can a sit in carry a show. By your estimation it did not. I tend to agree here.

I am puzzled that they wouldn’t have learned from the previous night and jumped out in front of things to either a) put the sit in during Set 1 with a return for the encore) or 2) [lolz] kept it set 2 but jumped right into the bluegrass to get things rolling and then used the downhilll momentum to tear into WB and others.

Of course, we always think we know better, and hindsight is 20-20 but they literally had hindsight.

MG