Can't give this anything but five stars, of course. It looms large in my memories of 1.0 Phish. But relistening to it for the first time in at least ten years, I am surprised how much less energy is there than I remember it, but only in the first half or so of the midnight set. This was my first time watching the show's video feed, and also the fan-shot video on YouTube. What a gift to have that video. I was way back at the only tree in the venue, standing on a block of ice so I could just see over people's heads. There was a line of blocks of ice to demarcate a walkway, and me and my buddy Stu, along with other heads, stood on the ice like that. I danced that block of ice into water over about 7 hours, minus my one pee break during Albuquerque. The acid/molly combo provided the stamina needed for such a thing. But being way back there, we could barely see the video feed. It's remarkable how stoned out Trey looks. I think seeing that affected the way I listened to it now.

I should say, the first set is simply smoking and just perfect, exactly as I remember it. After Midnight seems obvious now, but in real time, man, that was the best breakout there ever was. Or most appropriate song choice for a particular moment by any band ever. I very much remember the deep smiles on everyone's faces when that dropped. The boogie was intense. Such excitement for what might be coming!

So the midnight show comes out with a blast for ten or fifteen minutes after midnight, and then surprisingly it really mellows out for a bliss jam. Which is nice, but a lot of the jams for the next few hours end this way, and it makes me suspect Trey was floating on molly, like I was. Wonderful, but quite mellow. Things start off with a bang, and then peter out a bit.

I do remember thinking when they shred through Axilla, how are they this fresh at 3:30am? I think that's when you really started to feel how late at night it was.

I feel like Mike starts pushing Trey to rock harder with My Soul, which looks on the video like Mike's call. Trey delivers, and then I'm pretty sure he goes and takes the onstage bathroom break with Fishman that he's talked about in interviews. There's a long pause, and then Page and Mike vamp for awhile until Trey and Fishman come back and they bust into Drowned. From there on, I'd say, for listening purposes, it just gets better and better. It settles a bit with Horse-> Silent and Bittersweet Motel, but that's because it's 5am. Looks like on the video that Trey takes a sniff of something, and then he rages through Piper and comes up with amazing melodic stuff for the rest of the show.

I'm sorry I'm focusing on the drug aspect so much. It maybe doesn't matter so much, but to me it's worth noting. Ignore it if you like.

Roses was and still is just everything, man. Watching the way the sun comes in and it slowly becomes day, even on the crappy VHS recording we have, that really comes through as something amazing. You've just never seen it before. The Harry Hood fake out is cute, and then that 2001. You forgot you were waiting for it the whole time, and there it is, magnificent. It does bring back the weird feeling of that morning. We didn't know what we'd come back to when we reentered the world through Orlando airport. Did the Y2K bug take down the whole internet? Can planes still fly? We didn't really know. No cell phones around with internet, none of that. Might the world have changed somehow?

First thing I saw when we turned onto the Florida highway and back into civilization was a big buzzard. Very ominous, very Florida.