ah, back it deer creek for another year. fresh off the announcement that this was it for phish, we were expecting them to pull out all the stops. sure, trey was all smacked out, but from what i've heard, the deer creek and alpine shows were the last good phish shows until 2009. these four shows all had gordon, fishman, and page stepping up for the "hindered" trey. gordon and fishman really played better than i had ever heard them.

set 1

llama: they came out guns blazing. it was promising... trey sounded pretty with it on this one. i like to hear them come out fast-paced and rocking though. good llama. not '94 good but good none the less

batr: not my favorite, but i feel like they always play something i love right after....

bt gin: and my theory holds another day! this was a very good gin, especially for the 03-04 era. this gin jam seemed to be a little more rocking and they changed tempo with relative ease. they really brought the house down when they brought an end to this one.

yamar: this was a nice mid set cool down on a lovely indiana summer night. page did a few nifty things in this one.

pebbles and marbles: this is one of the few round room songs i liked, so i was happy to hear this one. it was a pretty decent version. not bursting with energy like the one i saw in hampton in 03 but still pretty solid.

army of one: i love page, but this song doesnt quite do it for me.

soa melt: they didn't get too weird on this one, but they sure kept the rocking vibe going. trey had some pretty good licks throughout this melt jam. straight forward but very strong.

set 2:

halley's comet: this got the crowd back in the game in a hurry. they burned through this halley's pretty quickly, and then they just slammed into..

cross eyed and painless: it was like a wsp segue. sure it was a little sloppy, but you can spring ce& p on me anytime. as for this cross eyed, it rocked. this was my first taste on this run of how fishman's and gordon's talents were now on display. gordon especially really blazed on this jam. after a very intense jam, they petered out, and page led them into...

slave to the traffic light: page really drove the bus on this one. it was a very good slave, especially for the times. trey came out when he needed too, but page was the star on this one. very good playing by the man on keys.

nothing: i went to take a leak and grab a much needed beer.

46 days: i came back and they were starting what ended up being a pretty nifty nothing jam. this worked pretty seamlessly into 46 days. it was kind of an odd pairing, but it worked well. gordon had a pretty cool effect going on the 46 days, but other than that, this was somewhat uneventful

scents and subtle sounds: i will never know why they cut the intro out of this song. that was my favorite part...hmmm. this didnt do a whole lot for me.

limb by limb: pretty standard version

cavern: good 'ol fashioned rocking way to end a set that had kind of petered out a bit

enc:
waste: really...that's it. hmmm...

overall:
the first set had enough highlights to make it worth your while. the 2nd set started in fine fashion, but they seemed to lose steam after slave. the jam out of nothing was somewhat interesting, but it wasn't enough to really carry the back half of the second set. bring back the old first section of scents and subtle sounds!

highlights:
set 1: bt gin and soa melt
set 2: halley's>cep>slave