Phish - Festival 8, Indio, CA - 10/30/09

Set I

Party Time, Chalkdust Torture, Moma Dance, NICU, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, I Didn’t Know, Poor Heart, Cavern, Beauty of a Broken Heart, Ocelot, Time Turns Elastic

Very nicely worked up since I saw it when first played at Merriweather. CDT had an uncharacteristically laid back non-rock out Jam, a welcome change, building to the rock out end. The Moma was super funky right from the get go. Really well done. Matt called and said those first three were really a great way to get things started. NICU was a standard version, but at as always fun. PLAYYYY IT LEO! Rockin. Stealing Time was great. My favorite new song, except Sugar Shack and maybe Party Time just because. Not your typical Stash…This one is fire. They went a little out there with the jam, one of the better ones I’ve heard in a very long time. Vacuum busted out the first night. The return of Henrietta! Comments from Trey about Fish playing the sound in the shape of an 8. Poor heart was well played, started nicely out of I Didn’t Know. Trey rocked out Cavern, it was very on point. Great jam in Ocelot, otherwise standard. For whatever reason I actually really liked this TTE. Something I wasn’t able to say about most versions this summer.

Trey’s tone and voice both sound really great. Better, brighter and tighter than summer.

SET II

Punch You In The Eye > Down With Disease > Prince Caspian > Wolfman’s Brother>Piper>Joy, David Bowie, Harry Hood, Golgi Apparatus

Umm holy crap. Set II is melting my face and I’m sitting at home in bed with my laptop. That disease was just sick. The jams from one song to the next have be wondrous. The dissolve of Wolfman’s into Piper was like nothing I’ve heard from this band in a very long time. I believe it was teasing the Who’s I Am The Sea. The Piper itself was out there and interesting, very dreamy/floaty sounding jamming and a flighty vocal jam tease of Light at the end. Then we have a 1-2 punch of a colossal Bowie and Hood combo…followed by a curiously placed, but very well played Golgi. This set was a monster.

Trey hints at David Bowie being the possible Halloween pick just before Bowie.

And yeah, the boys are finally and officially in Take>A>Set>To>Jam>Into>Other>Songs>Mode…

ENCORE

Character Zero

I think the statement I could make that would best sum up this show for me is that they’ve all finally got their legs back 100%. The whole show sounded completely comfortable and, right now, those legs are as big around as California Redwoods.

3am here. Signing off.