Although I'm a huge 2003 fan, this is not the most exciting show. Having said that, the first set has a nice Gin -> Mango that, while it won't change your life, is very well played. OTOH, the DWD -> Catapult that opens the second set is required listening. Probably a top 5 version of this song and proof that the high points of 2003 are right up there with the mid-nineties.

I like how the one reviewer says that Phish is "spent" after the DWD, but then goes on to gush about the Hood being one of the most interesting versions he's ever heard.

Twist jam also, pretty excellent pointilist ambience.

My favorite part of the show is the Roggae which is only mentioned in these reviews because someone says its rough.

Well it's 2003, Phish not remembering how to play their songs should have been a given by this point. That said, the Roggae is probably the single most atypical version of the song. There are other versions (mostly in 2010 & 2011) with more exploratory or psychedelic jams, but this one has a totally different structure to the ending of the jam and I find it really powerful. Whereas your usual Roggae will crest and then dissolve into a brief pause before the large power chords, this one works the jam up into those chords and uses them as the crescendo. It works phenomenally and I wish they'd give this style of Roggae a spin again. It reminds me of the 7/31/99 Simple in comparison to an average Simple. Similar breathtaking move upwards right when the jam would usually end.

Phish wasted no time showing their fan base that their triumphant return to one of their most hallowed venues would be exactly that: triumphant. A smoldering combo of Axilla > Rift, both seemingly played with an extra dash of Cholula, really kicked things off nicely. The energy was palpable through the AUD and you could feel the crowd frenzy-ing after the vocal-trill ending of Rift. Bathtub Gin comes in next, and so far in 2003, we are batting 1.000 with Gins. This one, the shortest to date (in 2003), leaves nothing to the imagination. A precursor of sorts to the styles of Gin we hear today, this one wasn't an exploratory, transcendent groove-machine a la 7.9 or 2.28. or 2.2.22 or 2.14. Instead it was a "From Concentrate" Gin that was most likely 60% ABV, if not more. This thing is fierce and has a bite! It builds into a hot climax with plenty of Trey-led crush-ness happening. What a wallop! Then it fades ever so briefly into a Gin-them fakeout and the jam subsides into a soft landing, while never breaking beat, and eventually morphing very nicely -> Mango Song, What a way to start the show! Axilla > Rift, Gin -> Mango! Holy Crap! Mango was played very well and kept the impeccable flow raging at Flood Stage level. Roggae was a PERFECT compliment to Mango, and this one, although not an all-timer, fit the set perfectly. This Roggae has more of an edge to it - still pretty and fluttery - but also crunchy. I dig. I am not the biggest fan of Discern, but its placement here was not that bad. It fit the slow-down trio-motif of Mango, Roggae, Discern that countered that frenetic trio motif of Axilla, Rift, Gin. Phish is showcasing very good balance in this set. Discern, song wise, is fine. It's just that damn jam section. They just kinda wander for a bit, with no leader or even direction. Oh well. Not the worst choice in the world, but definitely not the best. A wacky I Didn't Know reprised the comedy from the Kansas show, complete with THE FIRST EVER VERSION OF DUST IN THE WIND PLAYED ON A VACUUM. Show notes gold right there. This little break provided a big uptick in energy for the set, got us all in a feel-good mood again, and we were ready for more! A highly cost-effective Bowie drops in next. Listening in the moment, I was very impressed with the fury of this Bowie in such a short time frame. A total song length of barely 11 minutes, this Bowie uses every second to scorch the Wisconsin countryside. Wow! A handful of truly locked-in, blazing apexes sends us off into setbreak with a smorgasbord of high-quality set 1 jams and very good flow... even if the set itself was a little short.

Sometimes all you need is one song to define a show. Even with the quality of Set 1, this Down with Disease eclipses the sum of everything else in this show. Holy cow is this thing good. 26 minutes of everything your heart desires, this DWD is simply fantastic. It starts off burning phosphorus. Untouchably hot. Wow. Untouchably isn't a word, but that doesn't mean it cannot describe the heat the fist 5 minutes of this jam produce. They are just killing it. The band shifts into a DWD-themed fakeout, like Gin, before taking off into another dimension entirely. They converse musically for about 4 minutes, trying to figure out the next phase of this journey, and eventually lock into this almost surf-rock, up-tempo groove. This is one of my favorite segments of summer. It is so good. Bouncey. Peppy. Spunky. All with an edge. The jam really takes on a persona of "I Mean Business" and the business is prohibited! Dance moves arose that were so controversial that I can't legally describe them to you. SO here we are, 17 minutes in and BAM they just keep going. The jam wave crashes onto an ocean of hard-rock, demented riffing that will make you flail your arms and bang your head grunge style. Great stuff here. The jam rampages onward as the Catapult lyrics are recited over the slowly fading, yet still fiery jam. Finally, the flame exhausts all fuel and... is there anything left? Is anyone alive? The fact that you and other fans survived this jam is a testament to the heartiness of Phish fans. What a jam!!! Bug is beautifully played and placed, as we needed a cool down moment. Even still, this extended Bug really got after it, with Trey obviously feeling inspired from the gargantuan DWD that preceded it. Secret Smile was uninvited, and did not fit the bill for a follow up song to Bug. Two Versions of Me really didn't help get us off the path that Secret Smile started. It was a fine version, but a mid set trio of Bug (even though this was a great version), Secret Smile, Two Versions of Me was, uh, underwhelming considering that groundwork that DWD laid. A grimy, dark, dissonant Twist takes us into outer space, but still lacks that fire that DWD burned so richly. Perhaps that DWD did exhaust all the fuel...? This Twist might pique your interest if you;re into super dark and discorded Phish, but for me, this version is forgettable. A rollicking but almost premature-feeling Character Zero closes the set with serious musical fireworks... but it was almost a "too little too late" type of version. A huge, exploratory Hood pops into the encore slot with great gusto and surprise! This version follows the pipeline of almost all 2003 Hoods, meaning it builds into typical Hood fashion, then reaches a false summit (where you think they're gonna explode into YOU CAN FEEL GOOD) but instead they drop down into a second groove. Though similar into pattern, the feel and energy of this Hood is a little lacking (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because I find 2003 to be a great year for Hoods), so by comparison it isn't as strong as previous Hoods, but it is still one kick-ass encore!

Must-hear jams: Bathtub Gin -> Mango Song, Down with Disease -> Catapult!!!!!
Probably-should-listen-to jams: Roggae, David Bowie, Harry Hood

This has to be the most underrated, least talked about Hood ever. I suppose that's because it follows a very different path than your typical hood. Fans usually expect a stellar Hood to have a slow, steady build up to a euphoric crescendo of a peak. This one really "peaks" in the middle section, and the end of the jam is actually a short, very delicate a beautiful IMO end to the jam.

At first it was just the tangent in the middle that grabbed me, and while that 2-part adventure is still the mind-blowing peak for me, after numerous listens the entire jam, from the drop to the end, is a masterwork in its own right.

RIDICULOUS replay value here, if you give it a chance and a few listens to really grow like a fungus on your cerebral cortex.

The first set is kind of a wash besides Roggae but it's nice to hear Discern. Gin is not bad but it does not compare favorably to others from the period. Down with Disease anchors the show with a ferocious jam segment that is at times unfocused but any time a jam -> to Catapult is fine by me. Following that up with Bug, Secret Smile, and Two Versions of Me seems redundant, but they're played well. Twist has a dark, effects-driven jam and the Type II stuff in Hood is really on point. This is not one of the stronger shows of the tour but Roggae, DwD-> Catapult, and Hood are swell.

Agreed with the previous post; while this show is nothing spectacular, this DWD>Catapult is fucking amazing! Energy sweating off the venue, melting your face, mind-left-body intensity and it is well-worth the download! The Gin is real good, too, followed by a good Mango. Mucho banter in the first set...interesting to say the least. David Bowie, while rages, still doesn't hold a light to many finer versions of yesteryore. Sadly, and with a heavy heart, I must say that after the astronomical DWD>Catapult, this show goes way, way, waaaaaaaayy south. Twist provides a super-spacey, escapist route, but the Zero is lackluster and the Hood is 'OK'.

Got to attend these Alpine shows 16 years ago, and in the context of other great shows from the year (2/20, 2/26, 2/28) I recall being slightly disappointed. Taking a walk down memory lane here today, however, and seeing the quite low rating for this date makes me think this run, and this show in particular, deserve more credit. The Gin is contained and shorter for 2.0 standards, but it still packs a wallop of hard-driving jammy energy, as does the Roggae finale in the first set. Bowie is a strong set closer as well. The Disease is a 24 minute rocked-out bonanza that doesn't let up, only to find itself in a cool-grooving Catapult. This ain't 3.311 star material here. Some have suggested the show fizzles out by this point. WHAT!? I'll take some outdoor 2.0 Bug hose to keep things super summer level—and it's quite okay to drop into a couple ballads after the previous half-hour rage fest. Secret Smile is a nice change of pace and a more welcome song these days as a rarer tune that has grown on me. What ever happened to Two Versions of Me (or Discern)?? The song was kinda "lame" sounding in the earlier singing parts ("oooooooooooone" . . . "twoooooooooo"), but could usually find a pleasant outro jam. Nice to hear it again! Let's not overlook this dark, blood-curdling 14 minute Twist that finds an evil yet meditative groove. This is indeed the post-hiatus ambient-bliss jamming most of us came to know and love. And pholks, what solidifies this show as a 4-plus star level rating is certainly one of the best Hoods of 2.0: a 17 minute masterpiece that includes full-throttle jamming that almost could have turned into a high impact Dave's Energy Guide section, but it's a unique Hood jam all its own. An epic-fire conclusion for the evening. I recall these Alpine shows being sold out and being a pretty huge event given the venue size, so tickets were actually harder to find on the lot, but I finally found one only minutes to show time. So glad I made it!

My first phish experience. No doubt it felt like magic and I returned for more!

PHISH, FRIDAY 07/18/2003
ALPINE VALLEY MUSIC THEATRE
East Troy, WI

We made the drive overnight from Bonner Springs. First, we had to drop LMSYEM off at the Kansas City airport. LMSYEM, it was a real pleasure doing Phoenix>KS with you - I hope we can do it again sometime. The drive was really stressful. I got an hour and 10 minutes of sleep at some rest area in Iowa at 7am and that is all the sleep I would get before this show! Sleep when your dead! We arrived at our campsite (Mukwonago, WI - Mukwonago Park) around 4 I think after running into danelson1749 and his crew at a liquor store in Lake Geneva. They had decided last minute to jump in the car and go to Alpine from Denver! They drove all night as well. These guys were camping w/ us, so it was pretty funny running into them at the booze shop 15 miles away from where we were going to camp! JoeR67 organized this group campsite and when it was all said and done, I think there were 45 people there! Great place to camp if you are going to a show at Alpine, the rangers are friendly and it's about 15 minutes from the venue. We did not hit the lot until 6 or so. It was a very mellow scene. There was hardly any vending going on. Apparently if you were caught vending the fine was $1,000! We ran into Ahh back at Alpine Valley! I really like this place having seen Phish here in 97 and 00 both excellent shows (especially 97!). It was good to be back in the Midwest and seeing Phish.

SET 1: Axilla: Nice opener, really starts things off with a bang. >

Rift: The energy stays high with a relatively well played Rift. It did have a few minor flubs. I don't think I have seen a completely clean Rift since 96 but what are you going to do.

Bathtub Gin: Page just destroys his baby grand on this intro. Hell yeah! Could it possibly top the monster from Shoreline? No. But this was a great Gin in and of itself. Totally straightforward jamming in this one, very fiery! This version is about 13:30 featuring Trey really tearing it up. At the end he toys w/ the intro to Mango very slowly and the band picks up on it and an incredible segue into ->

The Mango Song: Right on! Great version of Mango, almost flawless I thought. Vocals sounded great, and the composition of the song stayed true. Great job here and sweet pairing w/ the Bathtub.

Roggae: this one really soared. This is the best version I have heard, live or on tape. If you are a fan, go out and get this show.

Discern: Doh! OK, this song isn't that bad - it does have a nice jamming section to it.

I Didn't Know: > Dust in the Wind > I Didn't Know: Good old humorous Phish! This featured Fish on vacuum, Trey announcing Dan (Page has to correct him on the guy's name, Trey was saying Dave) as the winner to last night's Mike's hotline contest to see who could name what Trey had teased in Makisupa; it was Dust in the Wind. So what Dan won was a Fishman vacuum solo just for him (EARMUFF's -LOL!). Comical stuff. Dust in the Wind: A brief attempt at a collaborative effort by Trey and Page at the lyrics. Again, comical Phish here. I have to say between last night's Bonner Springs show and Alpine this night, this is the most banter we've seen out of the boys in quite some time, something that our group had talked about leading up to these shows: the lack of banter in modern Phish. Anyway...

David Bowie: Smoking, stellar version. This one had all 35,000 on their feet and going nuts. Th is Bowie really set the table for what I thought was going to be a big time throw down during the second set.

SET 2: Down with Disease: My God, this one is an absolute monster. I think this one will go down in the phishtory books for sure. This one takes out Chula Vista as best on tour so far, I thought. Absolutely smoking Disease. Somewhere relatively late in the jam there was some Psycho Killer teasing going on, but it was not to be unfortunately. Scintillating segue into ->

Catapult: Nice! Crazy Phish lyrics. This one sort of goes back into DWD (not the reprise just the jam that they laid underneath Catapult) but not really then melts into brief silence...

Bug: Excellent. There were definitely some groans around me but after that DWD toyed w/ my head after so little sleep, I was ready for a semi breather. I LOVE the lyrics to the song; they mean a lot to me and did not disappoint tonight. Good version. After this tune is where the evening goes south for the rest of the set:

Secret Smile: YO! Stop playing this! Not good! Not good at all!

Two Versions of Me: Like the song, abhor the placement.

Twist: Very solid, would recommend! >

Character Zero: Standard.

ENCORE: Harry Hood: I like to refer to this set as the one Harry Hood salvaged. After such an amazing start w/ DWD>Catapult it just totally bogged down. Hood propped it back up. An interesting Type II Hood here in the encore slot. This Hood was much different than Chula's (i.e. not jammed) and much better than the too mellow Gorge version. Flat out inspiring let me tell you. They sent us out into the night w/ a great buzz after a spine-tingling encore. Good stuff.

Replay Value: Bathtub Gin -> The Mango Song, Roggae, Down with Disease -> Catapult, Harry Hood.

Summary: I would rate this as a solid enough 3.5 out of 5. Would like to bump it up closer to 4 but can’t because of the crash and burn in the second set. We hung out in the lots pretty late drinking. After it had cleared out, we made our way back to Mukwonago and partied for another hour or so. Finally I could not deny myself my comfy sleeping bag and tent, so I crashed out.

Making my way through Summer 2003 on LivePhish+ and this show stood out to me despite its paltry rating here on .net. Yea, it drags in points with the slower songs and the song selection leaves something to be desired at points (Secret Smile and Two Versions of Me back-to-back? Swing a miss, Trey!), but some of these jams really shouldn't be slept on.

Gin is a SCORCHER, and I think compares favorably to all the great versions in Winter 03. This is a seriously firey jam if ever there was one, and how it got excluded from the jam chart is beyond me. Roggae is not its usual 3.0 self (read: pretty, twinkly, winding, low-key 1st set jammer), but instead delivers a powerful and precise peak that another reviewer aptly recognized as being atypical of the song's usual jam structure. The set-closing Bowie, while not legendary, is well-played, shreddy, and fairly clean for an era occasionally marred by compositional flubs. Disease --> Catapult, as noted, is a groovy affair and I'd wager it's somewhat more danceable than a lot of Disease jams (at least to me). Twist is more of what 3.0 Roggae is (see above) while still hitting some of those effect-driven and spacey places that 03 tended to. The Hood encore is a lovely, well-played night cap.

I'm giving it 4 stars. Listen to the Gin, Roggae, and Disease if nothing else.

Alpine will always be my second home. It didn't really seem like Phish was actually back until they came here. The sun shining and the "Axilla" opener felt awfully good. Otherwise this first set didn't do a whole lot for me; nothing wrong with "Gin">"Mango" but I wouldn't call it essential listening, and "Rift" and "Roggae" and the composed section of "Bowie" were all ugly and "Discern" did not exactly impress me, although the finale of "Bowie" was pretty smokin'. The funny thing about the second set is it played out a lot like the 3.0 formula: one monster "DWD" aaaaaaand they're spent. It's no mystery why "Secret Smile" and "Two Versions" aren't still being trotted out, eh? "Twist" was a pleasant drift through space, "Character" was "Character". But "Hood" was a revelation. Sure, the composed section was a little hard on the ears, though nowhere near as bad as the first year's worth of 3.0 versions. But (as Kenny Powers notes above) the jam blew me away; probably still the most unique, exploratory "Hood" I've caught live. Right in the middle it reaches a viscous, full-band molten groove almost independent of meter, the kind of stuff that the boys only rarely touch on since the mid-90s, the shit that makes you forget where you are. Just maybe 30 seconds of hose and a peak and then a really unusual denouement, and honestly this little taste of old-school glory was worth more to me than that whole huge "Disease". Felt like Phish was back, for tonight anyway.