View from the couch! As with any show I start off overly optimistic and work to sustain this optimism throughout the show. You never know when they will strike and so must keep your wits about you. This is doubly important from the couch where the distractions entering into the air space of your attention. How easily your dogs lying by the fire cuddled and cute can cause the innocent bystander to lose focus on the matter at hand.

That being said I felt engaged during the first set, taking advantage of the fact that I could, for once, see the expressions of all members faces and close up musicianship at work. Treys guitar work started off strong and his energy, as well as with Page and Fish, could be felt, if not outwardly seen. Mike, while always seemingly aloof, appeared much more distant.

There was a point in the first set, and this seem to continue, at points into the second, where it just looked like Trey was playing but little sound was being produced. It could have been the stream, I’m. It totally certain.

Anyway, mid second set, comfy as clam nestled deep in the sand, I found my attention slowly wander. I made it as far as Petrichor and then it happened. I fell asleep. I wouldn’t say the playing was entirely at fault, song choice being what it was...and it was a “school night” & the wife’s pregnant so I limit my intake quite drastically. Like many nights I might fall asleep watching television, when I wake I deny the fact to anyone looking to call me out on dosing off, myself included. Pebbles and marbles had just begun and my stream had not cut out, it couldn’t have been too long, right? When chalk dust reprise ended and the bows were taken I was anxiously awaiting the encore. Little did I know that was the encore. Raise the lights & cue the credits.

If I am looking at the show in its totality, removing any specific song bias, which I feel I do well at times, poorly at others (this show being the former), the flow was inconsistent, lacked cohesion and any semblance of connectivity in relation to cadence, (however frenetic it may be sometimes, the roller coaster start and stop and ebb and flow, sideways and slant ways often times have a underlying cadence) and lacked the attention grabbing that many shows have.

Song selection whether stymied by the band’s inability to connect, to themselves or the audience, along with a partially contrived expectation of not repeating a song, left this viewer longing for something. At least with BD there was a theme each night which laid a foundation for cohesion if only on that underlying thematic level.

I went to bed oddly satiated with Phish whereas I normally leave a show (in this case, leaving my living room for the bed room) with a powerful desire to see more, to catch the next show wherever and whenever that might be. I was caught off guard tonight by that feeling of complacency.

Thanks for listening, if you did, or disagreeing, if you did, or agreeing, if you did, or ignoring m, if you did, this humble narrator’s thoughts.

Side Bar: and you heard it hear first: I would be interested in webcasts having guest hosts, like sports commentators, who must be present or in attendance that are allowed a half time recap and then a show ending wrap up. Cutting between College Football and the webcast on Saturday at halftime I had this vision of the two merging. No play by play of course. Anyway thought I would share.