Rob, first off love this project. Have been ‘on tour’ since 2020/1995. To answer your question, I think December ‘99 is perhaps criticized more than the others bc:
1. Phish were no longer an underrated quartet, they were a Pollstar Sweetheart. The more intimate feelings of 95/97 are gone and there is a warmth to those shows that is missing here. I am not saying that disqualifies the tour but I hear a hollowness and I don’t think it’s at all surprising they took a break a year later.
They are making great music here but it sounds like the end of a very long fuse.
2. Length. This is a weird tour and they kind of get dumped into fourth quarter expectations on their first shows. That probably does not help. -RG
The set list were sometimes weird. I mentioned above the Hampton run look at the first night. I mean, I liked it that was one of my favorites SOAMs of all time and I’ve been blessed to see someone of the good ones. In fact, I call it the birthing song because I had it set up when my wife had her child. I had the 97 Gorge SOAM set up in the car because she was about to Split Open and Melt literally and have a child. She didn’t like it so I don’t recommend anyone doing that but we had an amazing child named Driver.
I’m from the south but I enjoyed the U.S. Air Arena or the 12/28/97 was Phun even with the Ghost in the PA but that 99 tour was beautiful. The next night you were in Raleigh at that little bitty basketball Arena that might’ve been the hardest ticket of the tour and then you had the Hampton run. 99 was a good year. I enjoyed every show I went to even though I got into some trouble after the first show on the summer it sandstone and ended up missing the next day shows which was really not fun but you guys who all were there had a blast
Rob, first off love this project. Have been ‘on tour’ since 2020/1995. To answer your question, I think December ‘99 is perhaps criticized more than the others bc:
1. Phish were no longer an underrated quartet, they were a Pollstar Sweetheart. The more intimate feelings of 95/97 are gone and there is a warmth to those shows that is missing here. I am not saying that disqualifies the tour but I hear a hollowness and I don’t think it’s at all surprising they took a break a year later.
They are making great music here but it sounds like the end of a very long fuse.
2. Length. This is a weird tour and they kind of get dumped into fourth quarter expectations on their first shows. That probably does not help. -RG
The set list were sometimes weird. I mentioned above the Hampton run look at the first night. I mean, I liked it that was one of my favorites SOAMs of all time and I’ve been blessed to see someone of the good ones. In fact, I call it the birthing song because I had it set up when my wife had her child. I had the 97 Gorge SOAM set up in the car because she was about to Split Open and Melt literally and have a child. She didn’t like it so I don’t recommend anyone doing that but we had an amazing child named Driver.
I’m from the south but I enjoyed the U.S. Air Arena or the 12/28/97 was Phun even with the Ghost in the PA but that 99 tour was beautiful. The next night you were in Raleigh at that little bitty basketball Arena that might’ve been the hardest ticket of the tour and then you had the Hampton run. 99 was a good year. I enjoyed every show I went to even though I got into some trouble after the first show on the summer it sandstone and ended up missing the next day shows which was really not fun but you guys who all were there had a blast