Drove all the way from Halifax, Nova Scotia with one of my compadres. His first show.

Really fun first set. Nothing particularly special, but the atmosphere was great. Wilson > The Curtain With and Vultures > 46 Days were both nice runs - set ended on a definite energetic high note.

Second set was a mixed bag, but the highs were very high. Waves > Carini was in interesting and rewarding combo, unfortunately followed up by a real stinker of a Caspian. I was personally pissed about this, because a certain Japanese Caspian is one of my favourite live Phish songs of all time and this was the first Caspian I've ever heard live, so I had high hopes. Backwards Down the Number Line, normally kind of a lame song to me, was pretty great by comparison, but when Ghost hit… wow. Just wow. I thought, "This is going to be the highlight of the weekend!" I was wrong. Dirt was a nice little ditty. More a piss break than anything, but for those of us that didn't have to go it was a calming little rest stop before Trey did his usual steal-your-face with an above-average DWD. Not as good as the DWD I saw in Toronto on my birthday (7/22/13), but still a very solid rendition. Sally felt kind of like just a convenient landing spot for a band that maybe had overextended a bit on DWD, but it was well-executed if not particularly memorable. Cavern was very well done to me - "Whatever you do, take care of your shoes!"

For me though, the highlight of this show and the highlight of the weekend was the set-closing Antelope. I really don't understand how people haven't been giving this one the respect it deserves. No, it's not the funkiest Antelope, but it's something better; it's an ever-accelerating, dark, jazzy thing of beauty. I really can't recommend it more. What a set closer!

The encore was everything you've heard: practically it's own set at four songs, it begins with the lullaby that is Contact. I told my buddy, "Sorry bud, guess they're wasted after that second set, looks like we're getting a group hug for an encore, great first show though." How wrong I was! Suzy was ripped ferociously by all involved, Rocky Top was a fun little jamboree, and the night ended with a rocking Zeppelin take that had us falsely looking forward to the upcoming Halloween show when we should have just been anticipating a reprise the next night, when they laid down a killer "No Quarter".

Cheers Phans, and to those of you who were there, thanks. New England was beautiful this fall, I'll follow the line going south anytime.