The set started out of with a song I did not know but that’s ok because it was actually a fun song to start with. Pigtail is Trey original, and it has that hallmark Trey sound with gave the energy of “upbeat bouncing” feel for the crowd. I was particularly impressed with vocal harmony, which made it no surprise that the boys would want to play it. Wolfman’s Borther was lovely play off the energy from Pigtail and again it continue to give upbeat vide for everyone. Surprisingly, DSTS brought the crowd to a “bluegrassy/folky” mood, which was secretly what I wanted. In my heart of hearts I would have loved for a acoustic bust out from the boys but the first set brought two bluegrass songs which gave the feel that the boys wanted to great a folk/country feel for their time in St. Paul.

Now when The Dogs came in, this the energy and mood entered into a more ominous, darker realm. The song is kinda scary and Lele even told me during the show that she did not like the song because of the barking. And I don’t blame her, the song definitely created a different tone from the first several songs that started the set, but it created this unique energy which I feel like the boys were trying to create in this Minnesota show. There was going to be this vibe of an “upbeat folk song mixed” with a “shadowy/spacy” sound (a type energy that came from the albums of Round Room and Undermind). Undermind kept this vibe but then came the cover of Dear Prudence which was an awesome cover. I was hoping for a unique cover for this show and I got two! Interesting Minnesota hippie fact, but Dead & Company also cover Dear Prudence when the came to the Target Center in the fall. Which band covered it the best? Well to be honest Bobby does have a better voice than Page. However, you felt a great connection between Dead and Phish through The Beatles.

Stash, Round Room and Horn again all met that same vibe as before. Now there were some complaints that this show was chopping and not as fluid as other shows. Which I understand, but I would say that first of this show was the first of the tour so I think boys were playing it easy to warm up. But also feel that the lack of fluidity was done on purpose. I feel like the boys were making a statement with the stops, almost giving the show a stoic, weird orderly feel to it. But again who knows.

After Horn came Uncle Pen which brought up the bluegrass energy for the crowd and who doesn’t love Mike singing! Then came HTTM was a nice call out to Minnesota since Page talks about going to Duluth in the song and the crowd gave good hearty roar when Duluth was sung about.

Finally, the first set ended with WOTC, which was my favorite song of the show and I felt that the song signified the whole show to me. Again the boys for me were trying to create this “upbeat/bluegrassy/dark-spacey/jammy” feel and why there was not a lot of bluegrass in the song there was this beautiful mixture of upbeat energy mixed with the solemn spacey intensity, which I find unique to Phish. There was level of a bitter sweetness to the song as if the boys were mourning for something or someone. FYI WOTC is a tribute to those who died on 9/11. But again this unique energy was the perfect and awesome gift to Minnesota and I was really rocking when they played this song.
Second Set started with a strong but rather standard Mike’s Grove. Nothing really crazy happened during it but I would have say Mike was just tearing it up on the bass! So that was treat. BATR was nice but I was not super impressed with Ghost. While it still matched the theme of the night nothing really crazy happened with that song. This could also be due to the fact that were no fluid connection between these two songs. The Line actually got me really in the mood, I think because I have really loved the Fuego Album and The Line is from there. Then came Simple ->IFAR, which I felt was the beast song/jam of the night. Again that same energy/vibe from before came out in these two songs and IFAR was an excellent Velvet Underground song to cover.

Now I have never really gotten into NMINML. I first heard some shows back and it really has not catch on to me. But with this performance of the song, was when I really started to see Trey shredding. With that shredding I am starting to appreciate this song more. Then came a lovely BB with the ending of the second set with Bathtub Gin. Now here is another confession, Bathtub Gin gets old for me. It just does not tickle in the way it gets other phans. But again, there was some great Trey shredding in this song’s jam and with gave me a new appreciation for the song. It was great ending.

Ok, saddest part of the show was the encore. I mean, common the boys, you couldn’t play a PRINCE SONG!?! I know that Mike said in his Star Tribune interview that covering Prince would be cliché but really? I mean Phish was really the first big summer concert for Minnesota so no other band had covered Prince yet. And the Boys have a relationship with Prince and his music. So it was a bummer, and the crowd definitely felt the same way. Trey’s speech about using one of his old guitar was nice but neither WITSK or CZ were special enough to make the encore anything really amazing.