NYC is so incredible when the "big city" to you is Portland or Seattle. It feels like a different world or different country at times. The wealth of food, the ease of public transit, the sights.. It's wild. We spent a lot of 12/29 during the day at the Met, Central Park, and meeting up for the show with the Phishcord crew at a nice sake/ramen bar near MSG. I totally now get the charm and the draw of meeting up with the same crew members again and again at different shows. We ended up Taking the "A" Train into the venue.

Anyways, this is a top-tier show among top-tier shows. Let's get into it...

Sample was the opener. Great to get the crowd going early. This was also in the first set of my very first show, 10/17/2014 Eugene. I was selfishly hoping that there would be some sort of a Sample jam, such as the vaunted opener of Jam Night here at this very building in 2017, with *that moment* once we realized what we were in for. Not to be, but then another great opener next, and a great placement for AC/DC Bag. This actually gets out for a nice little stroll, it's 9 minutes rather than 6 minutes. Crowd very engaged at this moment and I think Trey picked up on it as they really really really extended the opening for Moma Dance (which was clearly a tip of the cap to the MOMA in NYC /s). This is worth a listen as it's special. I remember seeing Trey looking towards Mike and they were playing off of each other. I know they have been playing around with the opening a bit lately, sometimes extending it, but this one had me more convinced than any other in recent memory that they might omit the lyrics and just do BEK instead. I know I wasn't the only one to think that either. I wouldn't be surprised if this happens sometime in the next couple years. Either way, they did eventually get to the lyrics, and this is a really good Moma Dance. I knew at this moment it would be a special show. Rift is always cute, and Prince Caspian is the first big surprise of the run. This goes out for quite the walk and there is a very nice jam attached to it, and a very fine return to the song proper. Monsters is such an absolutely amazing song. It goes along with Mercy and Lonely Trip as some of the most genuine songwriting Trey has done in a while, and he really has reached a new plateau in that realm ever since Ghosts of the Forest and the pandemic really opened up his and a lot of our eyes on mortality. Was very pleased to be able to sing along to Monsters and the crowd healthily rewarded Trey's efforts.

The hits absolutely continue to bang with Runaway Jim. This jam is so wild. It immediately gets into this Plinko-esque realm with far more abstraction than usual - there's some Melt-type jamming and it really really gets out there for the amount of time it contains. A must-hear. I wonder now knowing the NYE gag if that had any influence on this jam. To continue this blowout set, they drop into YEM, which was such a treat. Not only was the crowd almost delirious at this point and time, but there is this fantastic rhythmic section prior to the B&D that Trey really excels at. He was very animated with his dancing as he was dropping the funk riffs. To throw a curveball, the vocal jam is trundicated, the band never leaves their instruments, and they sing a segue into Ghost. Super cool and there's a nice peak to end the set. This was an absolutely electric first set and everyone in the building knew it. So much excitement was in the air for Set 2.

Bathtub Gin started Set 2 and I was immediately hyped - always a good sign when that gets the late treatment. It sort of had a moment of excitement before they brought out Ruby Waves. I think at least for this run they started all sets with a short tune, perhaps for the YouTube crowd or something. The drop into Ruby was hype - it's been such a good jam vehicle lately! It also reminded me of Alpine N3 where they tried out Mercury before going deep with Ruby. And holy shit, did they go deep with this Ruby Waves. I would have to listen again for a full review, and I will leave the details to someone else, but that was where I elevated to a new level with this run. It felt like they were just doing incredible movement after movement. And I was so hyped, cheering them on. It was mind-blowing. They would discover a groove. Then Trey would dive a little deeper. And then another groove. And repeat a dozen times. It definitely held up on my first re-listen last week. After it (finally) came to a close, the band paused for a moment to let the crowd pop, and it was absolutely ELECTRIC. Once it finished, I was screaming my head off completely. And then Waste was the *perfect* choice for a slowdown. People were literally hugging each other around me. The backdrop was that to my left, there were a few of the more "jaded" old heads who didn't quite appreciate anything new. Hate that attitude, but they were there near me. And after that Ruby > Waste combo.. I mean people didn't know what to do. Hugs, fist bumps, wouldn't be surprised if the emotions just swelled for everyone. That pairing dissolved everyone's biases and just was an electric moment of crowd communion. Waste everyone sang along to and I was expecting maybe something again on the slower side... Fuego! Boom! A great idea, a thunderous jam that *everyone* in MSG sung along to - that song has POWER... A nice jam to boot and then I was maybe expecting Hood or something... God damn the opening notes to Crosseyed came. One of my favorite ever Phish covers. An absolutely inspired choice to play that at that time. I was jumping up and down by this point, on Cloud Nine. A ferocious finish and the ovation was thunderous when they dropped the closing chords.

I did not know what was going on, it was so wild. Everyone knew immediately that this was a legendary show. Bold as Love was an awesome encore choice - that was the first time I've gotten that one live. It almost felt like a bit of blue balls that they were just ending the show there, but they knew what they were doing. Leaving everyone else hooked for the next two nights. Simply amazing to see this band at this level - if the first amazing night wasn't enough, this night confirmed that I made the right choice to fly out to NYC from Portland. It's shows like these that show everyone what they are capable of - just performing at such a high level. I would not be exaggerating to say that this band is easily the most rewarding interest or passion I've ever had. We are lucky to have them doing so well lately. Did the Gamehendge AC/DC Bag flip a switch in their brains and push them to even higher heights?

Afterward I hung out at a bar with a guy who runs the King Gizzard equivalent of Phish.net and there were some great stories exchanged. That guy was only coming down for one show, and obviously his gamble paid off as maybe he saw the best show of the year. Another fellow we met in the bar claimed that Mike Gordon smoked a bong with him in his garage in Lawrence, Kansas, when Mike went there for a solo show. It sounded somewhat unbelievable since the guy was pretty wasted but it does appear that Mike has played Lawrence, Kansas at least twice, 3/15/2011 and 3/12/2014, so maybe it really did happen.