https://forum.phish.net/forum/permalink/1378094402

The world will never agree on a single "Most Underrated Phish Show Ever", but my vote for most underrated Phish tour goes to Spring 1994. As I've written in a previous review, the band began 1994 knowing that their next release would be a live album, and they had spent the winter improving their act to be the best possible. August 1993 is well known as a watershed month for the band's improvisational skills, but even the earliest shows from April '94 demonstrate that the band was picking up right where they left off. The shows in the month of May were even better, and while the Bomb Factory show from 5/7 towers over all the rest, there are a few other shows from this month that deserve to be heard, like this one from the band's first visit to San Diego. Phish would return to the Whale's Vagina in less than 7 months and play a show that was arguably stronger (and arguably more underrated) than this show, but there's plenty to enjoy here.

The recording I downloaded from the Spreadsheet includes the circulating SBD source for Set 2, which to my ears sounds unbalanced and very hissy (although this may have been improved - Set 2 on the YouTube recording above sounds much better). I suspect that the high-generation recording is the reason for the low rating on this show - it fails to capture the quietest parts of the set (I Am Hydrogen and TMWSIY), and the tape flip during the piano solo in The Lizards sticks out like a sore thumb. The setlist may not be to everyone's taste, but I think the combination of a blistering PYITE > FEFY works very well. As for the "sloppy" encore, I believe the band played much looser, sloppier versions of Bold As Love back in the 1980's. The first set shines as well, with another superlative '94 Reba, classic Phish humor before Wilson and David Bowie, and solos from Greasy Fizeek on washboard and Mike on upright bass during the acoustic Ginseng Sullivan.