I personally heard this as another strong 2017 show that started with an eclectic first set, though this first had more highlights than any of tour so far. Undermind sucked me in, Divided Sky lifted me up, and then Caspian chewed me up and spat me out in the best way possible. I love this tune but I was really wanting SOAM to end the set and then of course, in classic Phish fashion, they showed me both that my expectations don't matter and that they can blow my mind at any time.

Starting any set with PYITE is a great way to rouse the crowd and being that it has not once been taken for a walk (as far as .net reports), one may intuit that, because this started the second set, the boys are preparing to either weave a concise, coherent, and complementary set or just drop a monster jam. Tonight we get both. Only Phish's 2nd take of Mr. Completely yields a stellar jam that sounds (to my ears) like a functional, progressive conglomeration of the sounds from some of the most notable jams in the past 2 years. But then again, as some other .netter once quoted Elvis Costello in a review, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture", but I digress.

This second set has some serious flow but not allll the way from start to finish IMO. While I wish the Mercury jam wouldn't have cut off when it did, after the first set goodies and the Mr. Completely, I was plenty fine with another TAB song as a breather. I could have seen a Dirt instead of Contact to really get into the feels before hitting the Axilla > Steam > BDTNL closing train, but if their playing Contact mid-late second set is my main gripe, I enjoyed the shit out of the show. Loved to hear Steam and then BDTNL brought some high energy happy raging to close out a set that leaves us drooling for the BD. Encore was standard 2017 fare.

Well my good people, we are 5 shows into tour and we already have four 20+ minute jams to digest. These shows may be considered a warm up but seems like the boys are already playing loose, tight, and ready to get reeeaaalll comfortable at MSG.