The true story of this show was the Wolfman's, the Tweezer and the epic second set.

Birds of a Feather starting things off high-energy, but it was just a warm-up for the real meat of the show - Ghost > Theme -> Cities with some nice The Birds "they attack" screams in between. This was the sequence of the show and, in this writers opinion, this one sequence of three songs trumped all of Fall '14 except the Las Vegas run. The jamming throughout all three songs was particularly dancy and it was relentless - providing about 40 minutes of consistently upbeat jamming, punctuated by a short but powerful Chalkdust before giving way to exclamation point of the set: the return of Martian Monster - which is now officially and gloriously thrown into the list of great set closers. Happily, it appears the Disney album voice overs are actually programmed into one of Page's keyboards, so it looks like the Halloween songs - at least a few of them - are here to stay.

The New Years gag was good fun but probably sits low amongst the all-time gags list and in hindsight, there was nothing that could top the special moment they created for last year's 30th anniversary stunt. They didn't try to top that, but instead just gave us something simple to smile about. After debuting an acapella Dem Bones - a delightfully fun song that we've all known from the age of two but never knew the name of the song or its origin - the band engaged in playful banter as Fishman's vacuum sucked in Fishman's lips. The band tried in vain, even calling out stage hands to help, to no avail - before Fishman went backstage. At that point, referencing the all-time great movie Spaceballs (and the Mega Maid), Mike suggested that the vacuum be switched from "suck to blow" - which lead to the rest of the band chanting it. The blow resulted in a Fishman being blown up, resulting in a giant inflatable Fishman balloon arising from behind the drum set and floating over the crowd - dropping for the countdown and releasing donut shaped balloons. The description probably took longer to type than the stunt itself took. As a bonus, you could see up blowup Fishman's dress (spoiler: blowup was not anatomically correct).

After Auld Lang Syne - The Dogs was given the supreme Phish honor of starting 2015, joining a storied list of fan favorites including Chalkdust, Jim, Tweeprise, and Fuego amongst others. It was short and powerful and a delight to those of us who prayed the songs were here to stay.

Tweezer followed with perhaps its best outing of the year (not sure which year it should count as, but definitely the best outing of 2014). The jam is extraordinary, and again - continued the dance party theme of the night. It was a jam that forced your body to move. Simple and Limb by Limb rounded out another solid sequence before things began to slow down. Around Bug, Trey's voice seemed to tire and grow weaker and the rest of the show kind of wound down from there. By the time we reached Golgi - his voice was all but shot - but he made it through before Tweezer Reprise took us home - a happy ending to a solid show that had moments of spectacular in it.

The first set was rather unremarkable - but the Wolfman's - an unsung hero of the 3.0 first set - managed yet again to steal the set. This magnificent version is yet another must hear for the 3.0 heavyweight.