My first show! I had been a fan of Phish since mid-late 1996, but a series of happenstances kept me from my first show until 18 years later. Yikes! But after finally having the chips fall in my lap, I was able to surrender to the flow in person, and enjoy the love and majesty that is a Phish show. Looking back, this show has the best of both worlds: Lots of old-school Phish (Mike's opener, Possum, MFMF, Bowie, Golgi all in the first set!), but enough of the (then) new material that was on Fuego to spice up the flavors a bit.
The Mike's Groove to open was a pleasant treat! Kinda short, but deep and dark, this Mike's wastes no time getting the proceedings going in a great way. Back on the Train is a personal favorite of mine, but it was certainly a little wild having it as the meat in the Mike's sandwich! The rest of the set was well played, and Beauty of a Broken Heart was a rare morsel that we really enjoyed. The Bowie didn't go too far out there, but was appreciated none the less, and the first Golgi of Summer Tour was eagerly devoured as a upbeat set closer.
Set II began with 555, but the real meat followed. Chalkdust had a nice little jam into Fuego, but it was the short jam out of Twist that led into When the Circus Comes that led to my "Aha!" moment of live Phish. Such a smoooooth transition, and it was a perfect moment for me! Piper was just getting going after the lyrics when Trey began rip cording into Rift. There seemed to be a bit of a "battle" between Fish, Page and Trey, but Trey eventually won out with the Rift theme, and they proceed to play a flubby, but energetic version. Waiting All Night, while I personally love this song and loved its placement, kinda gave a "oh boy, the set is done with this" vibe, but they pulled out a hot and tasty Reba>Zero to end the set on a more-appropriate note. A Loving Cup encore sent us home happy and gave me a memorable end to my first show. Have been to several since and hope to continue the trend in the future....