the previous night of shoreline was chalk full of heady treats and sharp jams, but this my friends, was the red hot september leg of the fall '99 tour. any show could be out done by the next nights show. well, phish had a very nice surprise lined up for this evening. warren haynes would pop back out on this evening, but trey and page's "phriend" from the april warfield shows would join the boys on their turf; well, their stage; I feel pretty safe saying that shoreline is still more phil's turf....

mozambique, which would fall out of phish's circulation shortly, works well as a nice opener. trey sounds really good on this one, as he should since its his tune. page works his way into this one nicely. guyute really bursts with energy and is played pretty cleanly. then they pull ghost out 3 songs into the show. this has a nice, textured, '99 style jam. lawnboy gives page a chance to shine before phish gets back into business. then, after dusting it off less than a week before in boise, they give peaches another nice little ride. the moma dance dives into funk town, and trey really gets down in this one. water in the sky is pretty straight forward, but circus is played oh so well. very tender playing by trey and page. back on the train picks it back up, and then bowie really rips. i would've guessed this to be the closer, but they tack on a nice little bonus coil.

they kick the 2nd set off with a nice exploratory runaway jim to open the set. trey is really blazing on this one too. goron and fish lay down a nice groove for trey and page to wail over. speaking of gordo and fish, they lay it down in a very strong sand. then comes, imo, the jam of the night. in fact, this is probably my favorite pre hiatus piper. this one just gets out there. gordo really rocks on this one, maybe trying to impress the man on deck to come out. roggae provides a much needed breather, but the yem takes off right from the get go. the song part of yem is played well, but the real treat is when they start jamming, and out comes a familiar face. big phil lesh comes out and helps the boys finish this yem off. nothing too crazy happens here, but he does find his rhythm in the band before bass dueling with gordo. this had to make gordo quite happy, as he was merely an attendee at the phil and phriends shows in april. then they crank up phil's favorite phish tune, wolfman's brother. this is not the greatest version but it is fun hearing the double bass action here. gordo and phil bounce off and weave between each other quite nicely. trey and page seem to back off a bit to give the bass players some extra room then they crank out their first "dead" song since terrapin station. cold rain and snow works really well, especially with warren back on the stage with them. well, you gotta know they're coming back out for the encore. then they crank out the big dog, viola lee blues. not nearly as long as the april version, but sometimes, it is the thought that counts. trey and warren swap nasties, and gordo and phil help fish fill out the bottom. what a show, and waht a surprise treat. the dead/phish relationship takes another positive step. it is good to see phish stop running from the whole "dead" thing. anyone with an ear for music knows that phish is far from a dead rip off. in fact, imo, they stole more from zappa than they ever could've stolen from the dead, but hey, what are you gonna do...

highlights:

set 1:
ghost>lawnboy, peaches, circus, bowie

set 2:
jim, piper, yem-viola lee (the whole phil segment)