Having attended every NYE run show from 93-03 [so I won't claim to have 'called' some tune or another, also no weird possessives like, "got *my* heady Frankenstein, dood"], the first set of this show is my pick for the best (non-Big Cypress) set of any they ever played on any 12/31.

The Mike's jam is nothing short of sublime with some of the finest, grooviest 'spontaneous composition' in the catalog. It makes me dance and cry, simultaneously. Yup, a large man throwing mad funk moves while bawling like a newborn. Oh, and then there's the Ghost - it has to fall only 5-6 spots below by the same measure.

Bonus in set II is the Tweezer>Cities... If the segue into Cities were dating/shtupping/goin'-steady-with that deservedly well-known segue into Mike's from 7/22/97, then they'd be voted Homecoming King & Queen. Whereas the the latter made us say "Holy Shit!" on that rainy Raleigh night, the former's swanky, greasy slide into Cities in NYC that night evoked more of a "awww, sheeee-iiiiittttt, man..." Y'know what I mean?

Yeah, it gets somewhat more pedestrian after that, but I reckon that by the end of Set I, we should've had to pony-up the ticket price all over again.

Anyhoo, you might hear it differently, I s'pose...but just thinkin' about the heat from that night is fogging up the windows in my house right now.

-Chad