Happy New Year!

2014 was a big year for me as I got married and began a new chapter in my life. Last night in South Florida, Phish slammed the door shut on 2014 with one hell of a show.

I was running late to the show, but entered American Airlines Arena just after the band started “Sample in a Jar.” The set started off with some solid type 1 jamming in both “The Wedge” and “555.” It was definitely a sign of things to come.

“Wolfman’s Brother” is a song I would love to see open a second set. Phish appeared very comfortable on stage last night as they took “Wolfman’s” for a nice ride down Biscayne Blvd. with plenty of funk to go around. I thought the jam peaked a tad early, but like I said, the band was just skimming the surface of their jamming prowess for the night.

After a rusty take on “Train Song,” the band launched a very impressive set closing version of Undermind‘s “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing.” Here we saw the band take a very patient approach to the set closing song. I feel that sometimes Trey squeezes in one more song at the end of a set and it sometimes gets rushed to close. Not this time. The jam developed nicely before Trey brought the song full circle and the set to a close.

During set break, I tracked down my friend Jessica who was working at one of the Waterwheel tables and caught up with her. Jess was the very person I met through my blog and we have seen many shows together over the years.

The second set was simply magical.

“Birds of a Feather > Ghost > Theme From the Bottom > Cities > Chalk Dust Torture, Martian Monster”

I won’t go into much because the music did the talking and it deserves multiple re-listens. But in essence we got a “Ghost” with two jams, a “Theme” with a sick funk interlude that went type 2, a really good “Cities” and the band blasted the audience off into 2015 with the first “Martian Monster” since Halloween.

A few minutes before midnight, the band returned to the stage to perform the gospel tune “Dem Bones” a cappella. It was a really cool tune that I hope stays in the a cappella rotation. The prank was pretty lame.

After the traditional “Auld Lang Syne” at the stroke of midnight, the band launched into the second Thrilling, Chilling Sounds of the night, “The Dogs.” That was followed up by a nice three song segment of “Tweezer > Simple > Limb by Limb.” The final set ended with a rocking “Julius.” Slightly after 1 AM, The band returned for a two song encore with “Tweezer Reprise” bringing night one to an end.

Phish set the bar pretty high last night, but with all of the NYE hoopla out of the way, let’s see how far the band will blast us into outer space over the next three nights. I’m hoping that my trip won’t be that short.