Even among a slew of special dates around NYE, 12/29 continues being a reliable home for instant hits. As IndolentFool said in their review, this was an absolute barnburner; I cannot think of any word more apt than that. Fluffhead opener! And it absolutely rocked. That wasn't the end, though; far from it: the first set was full of vintage jams - each one was a contender for best version of the year of its respectful song. When I met up with friends at setbreak, I said to one of them that "That was a classic" in reference to the Gin, but he responded with "Well, which one? They were all classics!" To fool the crowd into thinking the set was ending with a supercharged Slave was another masterstroke, and the finally set-concluding Blaze On left us punch-drunk in the best possible way.

Set II was obviously no slouch, either - a fiery Bowie begat Everything's Right, and then an increasingly rare non-12/31 YEM during the YEMSG run was sublime. The Ruby Waves that followed was seismic in its issuances of jam, and the rest of the set was equally cataclysmic, concluding with a triumphant Character Zero. Rounding everything out, the Guyute encore opener was a welcome warm-up to the explosive Possum that finished things up. This show is definitely worth listening to again and again, and while I'm trying to type while acknowledging recency bias, this felt like an instantly vintage Phish performance. It's one I will certainly revisit.