The St. Louis '93 box set contains some truly sensational Phish, captured right in the midst of their metamorphosis from great to legendary. The spring component of the two-show collection might not be as widely beloved as the summer half (it's tough to compete with August '93...), but there are certainly some heavy hitting moments from this performance that make it stand out among the shows played to date. Memorable for many reasons, 4/14/93 belongs on the listening list of fans looking to scratch any deeper than surface-level.

Set 1's Buried Alive opener and ripping Divided Sky inject some great energy into the first half of the show, but the real slugger here is the Stash->Kung->Stash, Kung>Horse>Silent run. The slip from Stash proper jam into a Dave's Energy Guide-laden Kung break distinguishes this Stash as one of the more tense iterations up to this point, and the descent back into the closing of the root tune (plus Trey's continued Kung quotes) delivers a nasty payoff. Not quite finished with the poetic, music-less verse, the band re-performs Kung piecewise while Trey noodles on the acoustic guitar, creating an extended intro into one of my favorite compositions, The Horse>Silent in the Morning. Throw in a Harry Hood tease and short Pinball Wizard jam, and you get an especially memorable lead-in to what is usually a pretty cookie-cutter song.

Set 2 starts out with a sweet engagement between the eponymous Roger of Gamehenge fame and his fiance, a tender and memorable moment that sets off a smokin' AC/DC Bag that contains a couple fun teases in Trey's solo. The second-set Tweezer jam begins with a developing movement around the A minor scale, but soon recedes back into a bit more of an amorphous groove-based territory. Doesn't go quite as deep as usual, but we definitely get some nice mileage out of this one. The Spooky YEM beast definitely takes the ribbon for the set: the grooving is funky and relentless, with clean transitions in and out of the Dusty Springfield tune and a longer-than-typical vocal jam that teases the Jeopardy! theme quite nicely. The show wraps up with a three-song encore that covers all the bases and leaves the stage smoldering, ready to be re-visited four months later....