I'm honestly kind of shocked that the show as of now has a sub 3.5 rating, due to both personal opinions and my assessment of what .net like in general. I'm gonna take a jam-centric approach to this review to save me some time, but I thought songs were played pretty solidly throughout, continuing the trend of the past 2 years.

This show has incredible relistenability to my ears. Wolfmans isn't strictly in the box, signaling they meant to explore today, and that came true almost immediately afterwards. Everything's Right jam GOES places - they're loose, trying new sounds, and exploring a nice dark space, getting a little funky before the end. Page, as mentioned by others, steals the show in pockets with the synth. If this was in set 2, they might not have cut it off after about 8 full min of jamming, and I can only imagine where that would go...this is an instant welcome addition to the repertoire.

The No Men was solid ambient type 2, very pretty and mellow, with Mike and then Trey exploring excellent textures. Page is on and off the synth as in Everything's Right, with classic "2017 Sound" (I say this jokingly, but if this is indicative of the year's jamming I am 100% down). Actually as I relisten to this jam I'm upgrading from "solid" to "enthralling". To a previous reviewer saying this goes sideways, take me sideways more.

Oh, and I haven't gotten to my favorite jam of the night. Guys, this is the most exploratory jam out of a Halloween '14 song - where's the noise? The pre-GA cat takes a Dayton Jam-esque space to my ears, modding from funk to space rock, with the GA filling in for Slave (the segue is a little rough to me). After a what is to be a Tweezpian-sequel setlist debate maneuver, there are a few more min of this fantastic jam space (in Golden Age's key, I'll add - so I want to say it's not a sandwich...). Fantastic stuff.

Hood is a consistent wildcard these days, and I'd say infusing mountain jam and WTU makes this Hood as pleasant, gripping, and fun as it sounds on paper. This rounds out a great trio of exploratory jams in the second set.

The other new songs: Leaves I think will grow on me the same way Wingsuit did. Could use vocal work though. The reggae one...let's just say when I take my family to their first show at MSG in a few weeks, I hope they don't play this.

My first review (3.0 Noob!), so go easy on me folks

N1 really set the tone for what turned out to be some amazing music, oozing with soul and passion...such a good-feeling kinda vibe that continued through the whole weekend!

What's the Use opening the tour was a total surprise, but a great one! Tears were streaming down my cheeks. Wolfman's was off the chain, really high energy, good funky grooving. The debut song (Everything's Right) did not take long to get on board with at all - the energy was so positive and happy spirited and the guys wasted no time getting right down to a hot jam! A definite highlight! Limb X Limb was a nice continuation, great crowd energy and Nellie Cane pure fun - fans doing a jig, goofy hoedown dancing abounded all around me, myself included. A surprise for me was how I reacted to Theme From the Bottom. I like Theme, but it's never been one of 'those' big heavy hitters for me until this night. I never would have anticipated the kind of emotion and feeling that came over me during that song - it started after they sang the line, "...know who's your friend" and as they started into the jam. From that point and into the start of the build, I was instantly moved to uncontrollable tears that would not stop for the rest of the song. I was sobbing. The band was really feeling it and the vibe was undeniable and soaring - soaring is the best way to describe it! I get emotional on playback and probably always will, I suspect. On to Set 2 and the momentum just kept going. NMINML was every bit as amazing as you would imagine - what a jam, so great! The My Pet Cat - Golden Age - My Pet Cat was unique, unexpected and a lot of fun. Tons of heavy funk that was impossible not to dance to! Harry, Shine a Light through Julius was a favorite sequence - straight fire and undescribable energy from beginning to end. The encore was the perfect recap for the evening. Though the "Love is What We Are " debut 'could' come off as cheesy, it worked with the vibe of the evening and the high-energy classic Golgi as a follow-up, perfect (and my first Golgi taboot)! What made it all the more fun is I had taken a pic of myself before the show holding my ticket whilst singing, "I saw you, with a ticket stub in your hand" - my phish road crew all turned to me with cheers and high fives once they started playing it. I could just feel a Golgi coming, lol

I could go on and on...

N1 is one of those shows that will probably not get much buzz and most likely fall in the underappreciated category. I'm grateful I got to be a part of it because it was really pretty special imo - a sweet start to a beautiful weekend of great Phish music.

The long months of waiting are finally over, and we are happily back on Phish tour!

I won't be in attendance for any of the shows before the Baker's Dozen, so I'll be couch touring these next few shows.

The first show of any tour is usually one where the band shakes some rust off, but tonight our favorite quartet from Vermont didn't sound rusty at all. They sounded rehearsed and tight, and put on a very good show!

Interesting choice to begin the tour with What's the Use?, but it was mellow and it worked.

Breath and Burning, not my favorite song, actually had a very good jam towards the end of it. Trey really sounded great.

Wolfman's Brother sounded very nice, and there was a nice Type I jam towards the end of it.

I was in attendance for TAB's debut of Everything's Right at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY back in April, and I remember enjoying the song a lot. But tonight, the boys truly surprised me with how great their performance of this TAB song was. Really fantastic playing by everyone; superb debut by Phish.

The first set ends with excellent versions of Limb by Limb, Theme from the Bottom, and Blaze On.

Quite a good first set.

The second set starts with what might have been the jam of the night, No Men in No Man's Land. Really funky, slow, dark interplay between all members of the band in this 17 or so minute jam. Mike sounded great, and I was digging it.

Fuego came next, and I don't remember ever enjoying this song as much as I did tonight. Another good jam.

My Friend, My Friend > Your Pet Cat -> Golden Age -> Your Pet Cat, and Leaves came next. This grouping of songs was probably the low point of the show for me. Decent jamming throughout, but I think the boys lost some of the great energy they had in the first two songs of the second set.

The Harry Hood that followed, however, was excellent, and boy does it feel good to feel good about hood once again!

Shine a Light and Julius were a nice, upbeat coupling with great playing by everyone, especially Trey, to end the set.

A reggae encore > Golgi Apparatus is nothing to complain about, and left me feeling good after a great tour opener!

In all honesty, this show may not look great on paper, but you can't judge a show just based on how the setlist looks. Sure, there wasn't a Type II Tweezer, Ghost, Gin, or Disease, but the boys came out tonight well rehearsed and played very well throughout. This was a very nice tour opener with some great jams in both the first and second set.

My rating: 4.5 / 5 Stars

Can't wait to couch tour the next several nights, and I'll hopefully see many of you .netters at MSG for the opening of the Baker's Dozen!

I sometimes get beat up for my reviews, but I honestly just call 'em like I see 'em. This one was a tour opener and it sounded like it... reminiscent of the Bend opener in 2015.

What's the Use? was a great choice for an opener, and while it wasn't extraordinary it was so off the wall that it got me excited. Then the first set just kind of presented a collection of songs, all played well enough, but with no real stand outs... except maybe Everything's Right which just might become a really good jam vehicle given proper care and feeding. I headed into halftime saying "that was a really average 1st set".

Okay... that's what second sets are for... right?

NMINML had some serious possibilities. I mean, it certainly had the length, and it kept trying to get exploratory... it just never really got there. It kind of went sideways... too bad.

The other missed opportunity in the second set was the Your Pet Cat->Golden Age [and almost]->Your Pet Cat. By almost I'm saying that if they had locked into that sandwich and jammed it out, that could have been crazy good and really made the show. Instead it just faded off into [yet another] new Trey ballad.

The rest of the set felt to me like "let's throw a quantity" at this thing, and the songs are good ones... they just aren't particularly special versions of anything.

I'm always really skeptical of 20 song shows and this is the reason why... there's just not enough meat to go around. For me at least.

Looking forward to tonight's show... hopefully this is now out of their system.

Okay... flame away!

I'm overwhelmedly glad that Phish is back! This, the first show of a small summer tour--well, in locational variety it's small, but in conceptivity it's large, I mean, c'man the Baker's Dozen my pholks!--I will rate 3 stars. Here's why.

What's the Use? is an interesting and perhaps even ballsy opener. I like to hear Breath and Burning; it's got a tropical vibe that must've been somewhat synaesthetically refreshing in this summer heat (though I don't know if Chicago is getting it quite the way we are down here in Atlanta.) The Wolfman's is a good version, maybe not outstanding, but welcome, nonetheless. The new a cappella tune might need a bit more polish, but I'm certainly happy that Phish is trying new tunes in that format (Cf. Space Oddity.) Everything's Right has grown on me since my initial exposure to it from Trey's 2017 Paper Wheels tour, and the jam is really remarkable, especially on a personal note for me because Page deploys some synthesizer wizardry which I've been clamoring for ever since he introduced the Nord Lead on 10/31/14. I kind of feel like the Nellie Kane, Theme sequence saw some missed changes, or just didn't have its fingers on the pulse of It in the way we're accustomed to, but this is only the first night of tour (Blaze on!)

No Men in No Man's Land sees a funky outing that features some more flattering synthplay from Page. I would've loved to see Fuego jammed out in an yuge fashion, as well, but alas. Good to see My Friend, My Friend in the rotation (YEMSNBC/Nod to Tur?) and the Your Pet Cat -> Golden Age -> Your Pet Cat is phun, though I have to agree with whomever said in the forum that after the 10/28/16 Golden Age, this one stacks up as (these are my own words) "merely" phun in comparison with that mammoth jam from Vegas. I kinda dig Leaves... I'll have to hear it played more often before my opinion can really crystallize, but my initial impression is that Phish has taken cues from the vocal phrasing of Mercury and parlayed them into this song, which I think bodes well for their songwriting and experimentation. Harry Hood definitely hints at Mountain Jam, in my opinion, though whether it'll be counted an official tease is questionable. Shine a Light and Julius closed roughly, but Love Is What We Are (the "dad reggae" tune, LOL) continues in the affirmative direction of Trey and Tom's recent collaborations (presuming this is a Trey/Tom tune) and Golgi Apparatus closes the show on a classically Phishy note.

I'd like to rate the show higher, if only based on the debuts, because I like to think I vibe encouragement to the band to try new things, whether they be new songs or new jamming styles or whatnot, but being completely honest and perhaps in the interest of influencing consensus--who knows, maybe the band will read this--I've gotta consider this an average-great show. (And I don't hasten to qualify that, but in case you aren't yet aware, when average Phish hits, I feel no pain.) Rock on, Chicago.

I thought this was a great kick-off show. I won't say much more, except I would suggest adding that there was an evident "I Wanna Love You" tease (Bob Marley) at the beginning of Hood. It was unmistakeable. Considering they played that new reggae tune for the encore, I think it's relevant to mention the tease!!!

Great show, even though the lack of a massive jam (emphasis on massive) probably explains the 3.5 rating.

The jams in Wolfman and Everything's Right are really great. The last minutes of NMINML are pure cow funk, twenty years later.

Above all, everything is played with energy and gusto and the two sets unfold beautifully. From Fish's rock-solid foundation to Page's addictive fun with synths, from Mike's splendid combination of rhythm and melody to Trey's quirky ideas, the band is in perfect shape.

Ok, so here is my big point about/theory this show and Phish in general. My point will center on the show’s opener, the song that would christen Phish’s 2017 Tour: What’s The Use. WTU is an odd but powerful song for Phish. First off, it’s a hidden gem from an album most pholks never listen too, let alone buy: The Siket Disc. The album was made in 2000, a couple of months after probably the most well know album Phish ever made, Farmhouse. (I must confess that I forgot this fact, until after I saw that show and listening to the album again). Strange songs full the album, but WTU stands in the list with a more robust sound that has a spacey but dark tone. The song has an empty feel too it, but still powerful and really speaking to the title of the song: What is the Use? One of the unique qualities of Phish is that there are surrealist, absurdist and even nihilist undertones to their music. Phish is a band that has been influenced by postmodern surrealist ideology that have entered into Rock N’ Roll in bands such as Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, and Talking Heads. This quality of Phish is what makes people dismiss of them for being “too bizarre” or “too silly”. But Phish’s surrealistic and nihilistic qualities are in full flow in this song and it is done in amazingly where the band combines heavy and dark sounds with a spacey/transcendental mix. What is also unique about this song is that it is a slower but immense jam for Phish. As I have mentioned in my pervious reviews, Phish has gotten slower with age but they have created a new sound with that slower feel. We are never going to get again the wild and crazy jams of the 90s, but The Boys have been able to adapt their sound where that same spirit of the band continues. WTU is the quintessential song to the 3.0 era since it combines a slower tempo with spacey, dark, and heavy jams. I personally was blown away by this song in 2015 at Alpine when The Boys made a superb jam out of WTU in the second set.

But when they opened the show with this song, I was taken off guard. I would have not thought that Phish would have started a show with such dark sound and style. It was still powerful jam, yet I felt like The Boys were trying to say something. And as I am a Phish Phan with a philosophy background, I will offer to you my personal theory: Phish was speaking to the political/global state of the word. 2016 was a rough year: Trump wins the White House and American and even the world seems more divided than ever. It feels as if Phish was offering a postmodern nihilistic commentary on the state of things and how they have been feeling about it. Remember, Fishman was a big Bernie supporter. This song definitely changed the whole feel of the crowd when it first started to play and it was a chilling reminder that as much as Phish can offer you a happy/childlike take on the world with their bright bouncy beat, the band can also be dark, spooky, and strange.

However, even with all of the weird and spacey sounds that were introduced in the first song of the show/tour, Phish’s postmodern, absurdist, surrealist message was brought home even more with the song afterwards: Breath and Burning. This song is very upbeat and offers you a chill but bouncy rhythm to dance to. But listen to the lyrics and you will hear a sad, scary message, “…What does it matter. If the nightmares all came true? The black clouds that scattered across the sky so there’s nothing left we can do.” I don’t know about you, but those lyrics seem pretty helpless. Again it echoing back to nihilist/absurdist ideological tones that have influenced Phish for decades. When I picture what Phish is, sometimes I imagine a hippie from the early 90s, Gen X, probably Trust Fund baby, who dropped out of Amherst to fall the band around. Almost apathetic to the world around him but joyfully accepting of his reality because he is “…not going gently”, he is “gonna rage with Page at the dying of the light!” A positive carefree attitude in the shadow of emptiness and hopelessness is true to the Phish spirit. With these first two songs, you get a picture sorrow and joy rapped together into crazy jams and odd lyrics. I believe that balance of dark and light is at the core of Phish.

So after these two songs which, for me, capsulated so much of Phish, the rest of the second set had a much more upbeat feel. It was an extraordinary treat when The Boys did the a cappella tune of Good Old Summer Time only four songs into the set. The glories of summer were praised by the marvelous harmonies. After the a cappella, Phish jumped into a Trey original, Everything’s Right, but then moved into a strong Limb By Limb. The peaks on the jams of that song were solid and probably the strongest song they played in the first set. The style changed a bit with a move into Nellie Cane but then jived right in with a TFTB and ending with lovely Blaze On. Overall, the first set had an amazing energy, and with the profound starter of WTU, gave this show a value that I was not going to remember.

Phish opens the second set with NMINML, which I have frustrating history with. I have heard a few NMINMLs before, particularly in the first set of shows and in general, the song has never really grabbed me as a powerful Phish song. I was little surprised that The Boys had this song as “second setter” but then they started to jam with it. The jam was not super long but enough to offer a little more depth to the song that I had heard before. Also by this point, they began to show off the new light system, which engulfed the band with a rainbow of stunning lights. No Men moved into the Fuego, which is my favorite 3.0 era jam song and set a strong tone. Fuego moved into a MFMF and then in the crazy Pet Cat Golden Age sandwich. I would say that Golden Age was not the most amazing Golden Age I have ever heard but mixing into a surreal but heavy Your Pet Cat jam was first-rate. This moved into a Phish debut of Leaves, which I was very impressed with. Actually every new song Phish played on the Chicago run left me wanting to hear more. Leaves put a small pause to the jams but The Boys then started with up with a Harry Hood, which was the highlight jam of the whole show.
Marvelous energy in the song and the best part of it was the teasing of WTU into the jam, which was a reminder of the importance of WTU to the whole show. Harry moved into Shine A Light, which brought a lot of heart to the show and brought me back to this special balance of optimism and sorrow that was the meta-theme of the day. The second set ended with Julius and exploding energy. For the encore, Phish brought on another original debut: Love is What We are. A reggae tone, which gave a nice mellow sound to the encore, but the energy was pumped back up with the final song of Golgi. In summary, the theme of the night was light cheerfulness mixed with dark sadness, which I would like to call nihilistic optimism. This unique mix of ideas and energies brought and awesome sound to show and, like I mentioned in the big point about WTU, is indicative to Phish’s legacy.

This was my first Phish show which made the "What's the Use" opener kinda anticlimatic because I wasn't very familiar with this odd track as it was much less common back then compared to the time of writing this in 2022. However, it is a brilliant and magic opener and it set the tone for a rather curious show which we primarily remember for its many debuts. It came as a surprise to see the band gather around the mic for an acapella number so early in the concert and while most did not know "In The Good Old Summertime" it was easy enough to grasp, very fitting for the occasion plus short enough to not interrupt the flow too much. As an avid follower of Trey's solo output I knew "Everything's Right" though. The tune has been in the rotation as jam vehicle ever since this debut outing and many longer Phish versions followed but none of them were as sharp as this one. As a matter of fact this version remains my favourite, constituting a strong case for quality over quantity. In the second set "Leaves" was another surprise, it felt like an Elton John song. Coming back for the encore with an unknown Reggae tune was of course another surprise, I naturally assumed this would be a Bob Marley song I wasn't familiar with. This "Love Is What We Are" was perfectly placed in the setlist as it appropriately brought the lovely vibes of "In The Good Old Summertime" to a full circle, given this was an open air venue under a perfect summer sky. It makes me smile to this day and I wish they would bring it back...