(posted to rec.music.phish in early 1998...after I'd elected to go to the Rose Bowl instead of the '97 NYE Run)

Wow. First show at the Garden. I really feel dumb for going to the Rose
Bowl. Put on your seat belts and crash helmets and get ready for the
12.29.97 MSG Antelope.

The jam section of this (after the "silly" intro as I like to call it...
- Page is really silly toward the end of this one - everything up to the
5 big chords where the "jam" starts) really opens like a typical (from
what I've heard) '97 Antelope. I remember Champaign with this sort of
feel, at least for the first 5-6 minutes. They both get this kind of
loopy rising and falling for a long time, but the Champaign one does not
get as intensely raging as this one. Fishman literally goes nuts here.

But at the end of the build, when Trey finally hitts the riff way up on
the neck of the guitar - usually signifying the end of the jam and the
entrance of the Ry Ry Rocco groove - the "sonic cliff" as I've heard it
called comes too soon imo. Just that they've stretched it much further out
before is all.

But that groove that follows is so grand! A "break it down!" solo from
Trey and Mike (Mike has some suuuuper lines in this section by the way...)
and a passage where Page takes an extended moog solo. Really nice,
although really characteristic of fall '97 jams.

Next thought: What a great place to put the obligatory "15 minutes"
announcement. Almost as good as the placement of the "We had a great time
tonight" in the Champaign '96 Weekapaug (it's happened other places,
too, I'm just to lazy to recall which ones). "We're gonna take a break
and we'll be back with lof of funky music..."

I swear to god, if we ever subvert the dominant culture and establish our
own nation, Run Like an Antelope is going to be our national anthem. The
"set the gearshift" line will be the point at which everyone screams like
they do for the "and the land of the free" line today.