Excellent 1st of a three show run, did more than enough without going totally full blast, treating it more like a marathon rather than a sprint. Fishman was clearly the MVP to my ears last night. The engine that propels the band was on hyperdrive at times. Maze, CDT and Antelope had some sort of insane energy going on and I pin it on Fish. But the entire band was happy and on fire. Trey was hoping up and down like mad on Wolfman's and that was only the 2nd song! After a Farmhouse opening that was as far out from left field as humanly possible.

Make no mistake, this is the Fuego tour. I've seen this movie before and it is all good. A band totally deserves and in reality has an obligation to play the music of a brand new album, if only for the new fans that get into it via the album. But I don't think they are playing it any safer because of it, the Wolfman's was straight up funked up, Maze slayed, Mound was spot on, Roggae was my highlight of the set, some sublime moments from Trey on it. And Possum was Possum.

The Gin>Limb By Limb was firemost and Limb dissolved into into a rather sticky goo that if you walked in as a newbie on the shoulders of Fuego it may have had them asking themselves if this was the same band that played on Fuego and/or if this was such a good idea to come to this show based on Fuego, LOL! Wintergreen was beautiful and The Line was really good, I'm really starting to dig its vibe.

For those that might have been bored by the new stuff Tweezer should have done a good job of amping the adrenaline level in one's blood flow. Prince Caspian was nice, I actually called Sparkle while hanging outside with my peeps before entering thru the gates and Antelope, thanks to Fishman, was out of control. Almost. But damm if riding that fine line between staying on the tracks and a high speed train wreck isn't thrilling fun.

I thought Sing Monica was great and honestly thought that they were going to save the Reprise for another day but Reprise they did, the final musical orgasm for the first roll in the grass here in SPAC. Page thanked everybody before the encore for being so receptive to the new stuff and reiterated, as they always do here at SPAC, that they loved playing here and their performance shows their love for both venue and audience. Truly believe that they have much more musical fireworks planned for us over the next two days, in every respect possible. Shout out to my peeps, a truly loving hang, and new peep Rome, truly a righteous dude. Enjoy and have a great and safe 4th. How can one not, we're here with the greatest traveling circus in the whole wide world, the epicenter of the musical universe.

Peace,
Alex