Tonight marked the 4.0 return to SPAC, and the band’s 24th show at this venue. As such a staple of their 3.0 summer tours, this SPAC run felt like an overdue homecoming. As someone who joined the fun in early 3.0, and a Vermonter, SPAC has always been my Phish home venue; I notched my 11th and 12th shows here this weekend. 11 of these have been on the lawn. There’s not much grass left and much of it is covered in rubber matting, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could see the entire light rig from my spot this weekend. At the Mann lawn, I couldn’t see the upper part of the rig. Given that they’ve upgraded the rig to be able to motor the trusses in smaller shed venues (they were stationary in 2022 in some venues), it was great to see the full show from the notoriously view-impaired SPAC lawn.

On Sound. I was a third of the way up the lawn, direct center, in line with a speaker stack. Trey sounded amazing. Mike did too, to my surprise; seems like they’re dialing in the Serek bass tone more and more. He was loud, clear, and had that special full-body resonance that I cannot get enough of. Fish’s mix seemed to be missing the cymbals a bit, which took away from a lot of the dynamic flourishes that help heat up a jam. Page was pretty hard to hear, which I heard from others around the venue too. This wasn’t the case at other venues this summer, so I don’t know what was up there. His synthesizers and lead vocals were clear, but everything else was just way too quiet. It sounded almost more like a power trio than our usual sonically democratic quartet. Yeah I could have moved around, but I would hate to end up with better sound only to be surrounded by a swarm of chads and wooks. Good lawn neighbors are worth a certain percentage of sound sometimes.

The first set was just plain fun. At first I wasn’t sure whether they were setting us up for a Saturday-night-special-type show, but as became abundantly clear in set 2, this was NOT the case. KDF was a nice water-themed opener, though a tad rusty. Trey was a bit late on the signature bendy riff after the first verse, and instead of coming in with him on drums Fishman just blasted away on the true tempo leaving Trey high and dry. Trey gave him the evil eye, which was funny to catch on the lawn screen. Moma got things going properly, and had some excellent and short interplay toward the end. A taste of things to come, and for sure an above-average rendition. Ocelot tipped the scales from Jam Land back toward the crowd pleaser side, but no harm done. Same with The Wedge.

In the pause following Wedge, the band hit Mull hard. Just a huge wall of sound out of nowhere. My girlfriend jumped in surprise. I enjoyed this one quite a bit (my first time seeing it live and only new live song of the weekend). I’m a sucker for grooves, and this Mike tune hit the spot. In my opinion, from Mull to the last note of SANTOS, this show fucking ripped. PYITE is one of my favorites and always fun to see live. This version was excellent, though unfortunately I was distracted first by a partied-out man careening down through the crowd (and me) and passing out a few feet away, then an altercation behind me involving some shouting by a drunk. Luckily the partied-out man was swarmed by caring neighbors and proffered Liquid Death, and the drunk moved along. Sadly by this point though Punch was almost over, but it was good.

Sand was excellent, by far the best rendition of the six I’ve seen live. They stretched the jam, and we were welcomed to Munchkin Land. In the moment I didn’t know what this was; it sounded composed, but also like something Trey might conjure in the deeps of a jam. After this one I was feeling solidly optimistic for an extended foray into Jam Land during this show. Rock and Roll was a well-chosen cap for this set, and a nice throwback to my first ever Phish show (6/19/10 right here at SPAC).

Evolve is a nice song, they kept it in the box. I’d argue that it was for the free youtube set opener stream, but the whole show was free tonight. I like the song. Shit gets real with A Wave of Hope. My first time seeing this live was Hartford 2022, where the band went DEEP and it felt like we were surfing the depths of a black hole, slowly coming apart in a black and red vortex. This rendition was an equally deliberate exploration, focused around pure chaos before coalescing into exquisite quiet bliss. The cool-green lights during this quiet later section really lent a nice touch.

I love the .net recap’s description of Trey barreling toward Simple like a toddler seeing a toy excavator across the room. Once settled, the lads were NOT DONE going huge and treated this to a similar treatment as AWOH. Again we get some intriguing chaos jamming, before later in the jam the full band merges on a simple downbeat theme. Then out of nowhere, Trey takes flight and it is soaring, anthemic, full band bliss. Get me a fresh diaper because this is IT, there is no intellectual fucking around, no ego, just unfiltered 200-proof Hose as the band chases down a triumphant theme that leaves me fully purified. This breaks down into a quiet, effects-laden interlude out of which Trey coaxes the Fuego theme like an evil spell. Just perfect transition stuff here. Fuego is an excellent continuation of the energy ride the band is taking us on.

Chalkdust closes and it is completely unhinged. What might have been a hard-rocking, fitting BAM! to close the set instead morphs into an insane game of cat and mouse. Trey leads the band into a second jam after the traditional final chorus, and it gets batshit. The band drives itself to the edge of sanity before resolving again, iterating several times over and whipping us all into a frenzy. CK5’s lights were almost too intense to look at; he was giving the lighting rig a full workout. A little Munchkin tease and we are done with what has been the best set I’ve ever seen live.

I was fully ready for Wading after this monster of a set and thought it was a really nice way to continue the plot. Beautiful interplay here. Then they close with SANTOS which was a perfect, low stakes, fun exclamation point on an incredible show. Mike played his Modulus for the encore tonight and tomorrow night too. Maybe testing the live tone comparison? Interestingly I thought it had less clarity than the Serek, but more depth. People will see this setlist and rate it accordingly without listening to a single note, but don’t be fooled. This is a 5 star show and if like me you live for the deep, exploratory jams, the 2nd set is Mandatory Listening.