The 4th of July at Jones Beach.... ahhhh nostalgia but all joking aside, this was my favorite first set that I saw this whole tour, mainly in part because of the opening sequence being extremely old school with Alumni Blues>LTJP>Alumni, Head Held High bustout (god I hope they bust that one out again a la Skin It Back) into TMWSIY>Avenu Malcanu>TMWSIY. TMWSIY is one of my all-time favorite Phish songs, I compare it to YEM as one of the quintessential Phish songs. Not too mention that this rendition of this extremely old school Phish song was nailed. After such an amazing start to the show, a run through KDF proved to be standard which in turn, turned into a standard Bittersweet Motel. Guess that one was sort of a bust out, not played since 09. Not gonna lie though, since this 1st leg was my first real tour and having caught the monster Burgettstown show, this Bittersweet Motel gained novelty points for its halfway between eerie and Pittsburgh line. First dose of funk for this show comes in the form of a standardly-awesome Moma Dance. Gumbo got a lot of play on this first leg of 2012, but all versions were performed damn near flawlessly. This is one of them. Gumbo was followed by a rare mid-set David Bowie, which was truly a raging Bowie. From what I remember, they tore this Bowie a new asshole! Trey particularly was on during this awesome-average version of Bowie. Bowie went into Alaska. They played Alaska at the Riverbend bustout heavy show too, but I had to run and fill up a water bottle and take a quick whiz at the Riverbend show. So this was my first time actually watching them play this, gotta say that even though I had a head full of some amazing fluff, I was put on board the Alaska train with this reading. Trey particulary was on fire. Susskind Hotel, yes! I was really hoping I'd see this one during the tour. I can officially say that I have been at every single performance of this song. Good quirky Mike tune that always reminds me I'd much rather see MGB than TAB any day of the week. Very climatic version of Susskind lead into the end of the set pretty much. Fishman antics with HYHU (complete with vaccuum) into a Purple Rain Bustout!?!? HAHA wow, picked the right night to drop some L and surrender to the flow. Pure madness, and it was this time I learned of the tucking joke. Followed by the Fishman part of the first set, we get a lovely reading of our great nations national anthem. Gotta love the America reference on the 4th of July, expected, but yet still absolutely amazing how in touch these guys are with everything around us. Amazing first set, one for the 2012 books IMHO.

I wanted to write my review of the first set only, but what I will say about the second set is that yeah, towards the end they kind of petered out with several ballads, but with a short but nonetheless triumphant Hood, and haunting Slave complete with a full moon coming out during the slow build up and peak. Now that was awesome sauce and a highlight of the whole tour, along with the TMWSIY>Avenu>TMWSIY in the first set. At the time it was going on, my tour buddy Eric said that this was the most interesting Tweezer jam that we'd seen on this tour yet, but it was unfortunately abandoned for Twist, which had been a monster on this tour (c.f. Riverbend 2012 and even Bader Field Piper>Twist) But the twist, like Tweezer, just didn't lift off very much. Over all, the botched Taste doesn't help this shows ranking at all. But on this night, this didn't bother me. Also loved the attempt to re-up the energy with a Rock and Roll that had potential to go type-2, but Trey went for the straight-ahead rock type 1 jam, nothing wrong with that though.

This was the first show that me and my massive tour crew of 6 (10 from AC to Alpine, only 6 of us went to NY after Alpine) got to all see a show together since the AC shows where it was all GA, and we all had heads full of fluff. We were at the very top, dead center, front row. Great sound and seats. So this show is one of my favorites not just because of the music, but also because of set and setting. I love this show, I love all of you, and I'm so excited to be at the first 2 nights of MSG this year. Anyway, sorry for getting off track, but this show I guess gets the appropriate rating music wise, but all around show wise this was easily a 5-star show for me, which I rated it. I hope they play the 4th of July there again this year, or maybe back to the good ol' Watkins Glen

Side note: the next show (7/6 SPAC) I LOL'D when they brought back the Friar Tuck. God this band is having so much fun right now, I can't wait to see whats in store for us at the Garden!