I’ve been meaning to check out some of the many hopefully underrated gems of Fall ‘94. There’s no place better than the start of that tour. This was such an important evolutionary time for the band, where they were still playing with much of the technical precision from the preceding years but starting to really stretch out their jams. This show is pretty solid, especially given that it’s the tour opener.

I love My Friend, My Friend as a show opener and even more so as a tour opener! This version, like much of the set, is performed quite well without being particularly noteworthy. A decent Julius follows. And then we get to Glide. Oh, how I miss that tune. A nice treat. The rest of the set consists of solid versions, including the Divided Sky and Stash. This is Fall ‘94, after all, one of the peak eras for the band. The Guyute is noteworthy as being its Phish debut - not a bad first outing. Golgi closes out this decent but not amazing set.

Maze is a fantastic choice as a set opener as it can set the tone for the rest of the set. This version doesn’t disappoint and soars. After a Horse > Silent breather, we get to the centerpiece of the set, Reba, which is an inspired version. The whole band is locked in here.

Next comes Wilson and Scent, which are both fine. A relatively short, but smoking Tweezer follows. It’s hard to believe that in just under a month they’d be playing the Bangor Tweezer, which winds up on A Live One. It’ll be fun to see how they get from here to there as this version stays pretty much within the type I range. Lifeboy, My Sweet One and Tweezeprise close out the set decently. The encore includes the debuts of Foreplay/Long Time, performed acoustically, along with Cavern.

Overall, a pretty good show and a decent start to what will an epic tour.