This is only a review for Sunday's show, because it's not fair to compare it to the other three shows at Mondegreen. Also, personally I was working this week and weekend and despite living only an hour and a half away, the Sunday Night show was the only one I could make. I'm an adult and life gets in the way sometimes and you make the best of what you can. I'm very glad I had the opportunity to get to The Woodlands and see one of my favorite bands and the festival the put on for us. The festival itself was awesome, from Questlove doing an awesome set, free Iie cream at Ben and Jerry's, and an experience in the woods that was far too Cerial to ever forget. I wish I had gotten to experience it more, but I'll take what I can get.

As for the show itself, while the band was quite tight and sounded great, it was not the Phish show I came to see. The improv was lacking, the pace of the songs felt forced, and the setlist felt like "These are the songs we would have jammed out if we had time, but we didn't." I didn't see a lot of the expected interplay between the band, and I would have greatly preferred a few awesome jams, or a crazy bust out. Everyone should be honest in reviewing this show in a vacuum that it just wasn't the show anyone came here to see. If you have 2 hours and 1 encore to play, make it memorable, not just a run through of the greatest hits. Both Simple and Gin came in under 10 minutes for petes sake! This is not to say I didn't have a good time grooving to the music. Highlights for me were Martian Monster, Isabella, and maybe Fuego, except that the dark Fuego from 7/29/23 lives in my brain as the best ever. Unfortunately there just weren't enough musical highlights on Sunday. Ultimately on a scale of 1 to 10, this show was a solid 5. It was ok, but it wasn't great or spectacular for any musical reason. Mondegreen on the other hand was an experience I'll never forget.

I understand the weather concerns, and they're probably justified for doing what they did because on the flip side if things had turned out bad, everybody would have remembered Mondegreen as the Phish festival where someone got killed by lightning out whatever mayhem might have occurred, and thank God that didn't happen. More than just the safety of the phans was on the line here, but the thousands of people working the festival from the food concessionaires, the medical staff, security, roadies, cleaners, port-a-pot emptiers, and everyone who made Mondegreen such a successful event deserved the opportunity and concern of being able to get home to their families safely. So thank you to everyone who made it possible, and I'm already looking forward to MPP in 2025.