This is the first part of a guide to 2018 I posted on Phish.net in the spring of 2021.
Ah, 2018. A somewhat controversial year for the band - Trey getting used to his new rig, a cancelled festival....but also some of the best improv of the band's career. Coming off of an incredible 2017, they took the confidence they developed on stage during the Baker's Dozen and continued the attitude of "we're going to play whatever the fuck we want, there might be flubs but we're having a great time up here", the first-set jamming, and improvisational breakthroughs. Phish was poised to have one of the greatest years of their career.
2018 is my favourite year of Phish. I was born a month after 1.0 ended and my first show was 6/24/12. I have listened to shows and jams from across the band's career and firmly believe that what they have sacrificed in chops and speed in 3.0 they have made up for with some incredibly diverse and unique jams that Phish in the 1990s would not be capable of playing. I love and respect 1.0 but just wanted to get that out of the way so you jaded vets can rip me up in the rest of this thread :).
Now, you may be asking yourself, "what's the point of this thread?" Well, after being an avid reader and fan of @FunkyCFunkyDo and @n00b100's essays (both Take the Bait and Honours Level Phish) and some urging from @RubyWaves, I decided to make an attempt at sharing my love for 2018 Phish with the rest of you. I do lack the writing gift of Funky and n00b to craft fascinating essays, so instead I'm going to cover every show of 2018, second-set The Lines and all to hopefully shed some light on WHY I think it is the best year of Phish. I sincerely hope you enjoy!
Ah, Summer 2018. Divisive and controversial due to some new songs making their way into the rotation, Trey's new amps not being dialed in properly, and a LOT of Leslie speaker guitar. But, a tour without fantastic highlights this is NOT. Here we go!
7/17 Tahoe: The single most underrated show of the year BY FAR. Absolutely all-killer, no-filler first set including a slinky grooving Free opener, a Moma that is positively DOUSED in extra mustard and is probably a top-5 version of 3.0 (after 7/3/16 and 7/22/17 of course), a 16-minute Ghost, and a Character Zero (yes, this is a real highlight) that has some of Trey’s best straight-up Type-I shredding of the tour?? A second set opening with a 17-minute NMINML (Page really stretching his legs on the Moog Voyager in this jam), a mid-set Slave, the first Type-II Soul Planet, and one of the most patient 3.0 Hoods I’ve heard (though Trey doesn’t perfectly stick the landing here). Not a bad way to kick off the year – a show with minimal rust, a statement that first-set jamming is here to STAY, and some fantastic playing from all four members!
7/18 Tahoe: This show feels a lot more like the typical 3.0 tour opener – much more song-y, some rust, a second-set opening 13-minute Disease, etc. But this show is not without highlights – check out the first of Ocelot’s 2018 renaissance! This Type 1.5 version has some beautiful and atmospheric jamming atop a silky bed of Wurlitzer….mmm. Outside of that, we have an ER that RAGES and is a sign of how that song will grow into a jam titan by the end of the tour. Not too shabby for night two!
7/20 Gorge: Here we are – The Gorge. One of the best venues in the whole country! Phish, three nights, let’s do it! The first quarter of the show features some strong renditions of first-set songs (debut of SYSF, yadda yadda), but really takes off with Simple. This near-15 minute version further develops what we heard at Tahoe – Page is IN CHARGE this year. Trey continues to play around very heavily with the Leslie speaker and his delay pedals, creating a phenomenal background for Page to absolutely melt faces on the Rhodes before a fantastic peak and return to the song. Will someone please explain to me why this second set-opening Chalk Dust doesn’t get talked about more often?? This jam is the BD version’s little brother to me. Touches on a lot of similar themes (though not as well) and follows the same second jam > quieter minor key jam > major mode > minor again > big hose peak as that one. It does feature a pretty neat plinko funk jam post-peak – though the rest of the set doesn’t quite live up to the fantastic improv of the opener (outside of Light which ends on a weird stop). As a full show I think I’d still rank 7/17 above it but this absolutely has one of the top jams of the tour in CDT.
7/21 Gorge: This is probably one of the more overlooked shows in the tour (for good reason to be honest). An incredibly standard first set with the debut of a new half-decent Mike tune, a run-of-the-mill 3.0 Mike’s Groove, and not much else to write home about. The second set seems poised for blast-off with the opening Tweezer and Golden Age but then hits a wall and contains Farmhouse, Caspian, Wading, and R/CT – all songs I enjoy on their own but it really takes the wind out of this show’s sails.
7/22 Gorge: Now THIS is what I’m talking about!! The tour really starts hitting its stride with the first amazing show! Trey is playing the compositions pretty well (Curtain With, Reba, and Fluffhead are top-notch in terms of execution), the jamming is here (Reba and Wombat in Set 1, Crosseyed, Twist, and Melt in Set 2), and the energy is HIGH! Split Open and Melt’s 2018 resurgence and the rise of darker jamming for the first time in YEARS (dare I say decades?) really begins with this incredible version and it even stands up to the titans that we’ll see in the fall. The Crosseyed and Twist pairing to open the set as well as the Wombat tend to be overlooked as well for some reason but I absolutely recommend you check them out as they are incredible jams! NEVER MISS A SUNDAY SHOW!
7/24 BGCA: THE HOT STREAK CONTINUES! Another blazing show hot on the heels of the Gorge run, first indoor show of the summer, and Trey walks on stage with a huge stupid grin on his face before RIPPING an incredible 46 Days – you know it’s good when Fish asks to play it again! Cities does suffer from an unfortunate case of jam-itis – for whatever reason they really resisted jamming this song out in 2018 despite the promise it shows in its 7-minute runtime here. Set 2 RAGES with an absolutely bonkers ASIHTOS (deep, dark jamming turns to major key then dives beneath the waves again and a somewhat awkward return to the song), a fantastic Mercury that really begins to stretch its legs as a jam vehicle (you seeing the trend of this tour??) AND THEN THAT CARINI. This Carini. Wow. 14 and a half minutes of pure, unadulterated Phish jamming at its best. Skipping the Type I jam completely, the band launches into a sexy funk groove with extensive Moma teasing from Mike that just grooves along for minutes before Trey surfaces from his Leslie excursion and BLOWS THE ROOF off of the venue with some insane hose peaking (can you guys tell I like this jam??). All killer, no filler. BAM! Maze, Boogie On, and Hood close the set out very nicely and a Coil encore lets Page (clear MVP of the show and tour so far) shine to end the night.
7/25 BGCA: Given how Phish normally operates in the modern era, this show could have been forgiven as the expected dud night following two absolute heaters. Though it doesn’t touch the energy and insanity of 7/22 and 7/24, it is definitely no slouch! An awesome Roggae opener (is there a less-than-awesome version of this song?) starts us off in a relaxed way before another pretty standard first set, another decent Mike song debut, the second phenomenal Ocelot of the summer (MUST-HEAR!), and a Number Line > More closer (playing the hits!). The second set, of course, is where things get GOOD. SYSF opens and immediately asserts itself as a massive jam vehicle. 24 minutes – not the best jam of the tour and this definitely contains some searching, but it is fantastic in its own right, especially the groove they find in the last few minutes. Page continues to dominate and is really pushing the boundaries of what his Moog Voyager synth can do! The only other real improvisational highlight is the raging Scents that builds and rages in a similar fashion to the first part of the 8/4/17 version. Lizards encore? Yes please.
7/27 Forum: High-energy first set featuring a fantastic ER (stock continues to rise, jams continue to get deeper and better) and Wolfman’s (holy THICK GROOVE), another strong Sand set closer. Second set flows nicely but lacks a big tentpole jam or any real improvisational breakthrough. Seeing Mike’s Groove broken up through second set and encore is pretty cool and I really like the way Mike starts his bass solo out of the end of Sleeping Monkey. Decent show, nothing to write home about.
7/28 Forum: What does a Julius > Suzy opening pair tell you but to PARTY? This first set is just high energy awesomeness (except for Tide Turns) with a great microjam (I just got 3.0-noob bingo) in KDF and all-around strong playing! The second set from this show, while it does look a little bit iffy on paper, has some fantastic jams. A nearly 14-minute Jibboo opens it up at a notably faster pace than we’ve seen the past few years (great airy jam taboot!) and establishes itself as one of the few improvisational Jibboos of 3.0. The Fuego that comes next would definitely still be held in higher regard if it weren’t for a certain Tweezer at a certain venue a year and a half later….but we can’t win them all. Beautiful jam here! Soul Planet’s best excursion to date starts off with a hiccup because the rest of the band seems to think that Trey’s B major vamp is signaling Ocelot (totally understandable) but the jam is pretty top notch! Rest of the show is standard fare, closing out the west coast leg with an extremely exciting encore of…wait, never mind. Side note: I do love Character Zero!
7/31 Austin: First Sample since the Dozen, no extra jam but you can hear everyone in the venue hold their breath when the band gets to the end of the bridge. High-energy awesomeness in the first set (except The Line – seems to be a trend with some of these songs! Someone should tell Trey!) that closes with a rage-fest of a 46 Days, which might honestly be the most consistently awesome of the tour! Everything’s Right makes a true statement opening the second set with a nearly 20-minute version with multiple peaks and some swampy jamming. YES! Disease continues the swamp trend and follows the 2015 model of Set 2 starting off with two big jams and kind of tapering off into standard fare after that (I want to say it was n00b who wrote that?). Rest of the show is pretty good but the excitement really ends after Disease.
EAST COAST LEG
8/3 Alpharetta: EAST COAST! *rubs hands together* We have arrived! Phish knows it – they are ready to ROCK!! First Tube opener? Check! BLAZING first set? Check! 20-minute jam in the 3-hole? Wait, what?? ALPHARETTA BABY! While this Ghost definitely hasn’t aged as well (at least to my ears) as some of its other counterparts from this tour, it’s the third 20+ minute first set jam since 2004 which is pretty cool. Page continues his hot streak through this jam, absolutely dominating on the synth and electric pianos. BOOM! By this time, Trey is still fiddling with his tone but it seems to be relatively stable for this show which is nice! Rest of the set continues with high-energy fare, another microjam Tube (*eyes Fall*) and a rocking Walls to close. Tweezer opens the second set with a powerhouse jam, following the now-standard spacey beginning to the jam before flipping to some fantastic major-key peaking and jamming. Blaze On and Caspian are standard before THE MAIN EVENT; CARINI! Delivering another incredible version this tour, the band could and would have been forgiven for fading out after the initial major mode Chest Fever jam – heck, it would still be a pretty darn good Carini had it ended there. BUT NO! They aren’t done – Trey summons the band into a rocking jam that gets all sorts of mind-melting with some inSANE synth work from Page – there’s a reason he’s the Synthlord!! Simple, Winterqueen, Hood, and More are great to finish out the show but at that point there is nothing they could have done to make it less than incredible. EASY best show of the tour so far. BAM!
8/4 Alpharetta: You know how there are those plants or animals that emit pheromones or something to lull prey into submission before going in for the kill? That’s exactly what Phish does at the beginning of this show. An innocuous Bouncing opener leads to a RAGING tension-filled Type 1.5 Chalk Dust – this jam paves the way for the next version to come at MPP, as seems to be the trend on this tour. The Wolfman’s in this set is also fantastic – another Page-led opening segment transitions BEAUTIFULLY into an early-evening laid back major key jam that returns to Wolfman’s proper very nicely to finish. The rest of the set is fantastic high-energy playing and even Things People Do works here! Now – this second set is no laughing matter, boasting incredible flow and one of the best jams in the tour out of Soul Planet! Sure, the song might not be ideal, but I’m of the mind that if Trey is going to pull a jam like this out of Soul Planet I am ON BOARD! For the umpteenth time this tour, the jam seems like it’s ending around the 14 minute mark and the band has a clear exit ramp but Trey refuses to let go and brings us close to another 10 minutes of top-notch Phish jamming! Rest of the show is gravy at this point and they bring us a 14-minute Piper that I really have never heard anyone talk about – LISTEN TO IT!! 2 nights into Alpharetta and we have two of the best shows of the tour – this is the kind of Phish I’m talking about!!
8/5 Alpharetta: Opening a show with You Sexy Thing into Tweezer Reprise means it’s going to be insane. Enough said. Despite a Petrichor that takes all the momentum out of the first set they manage to bring all the energy back during a fiery Most Events (check out Page’s piano work during the jam!! Talk about Chairman of the Boards!), not to mention the fantastic Reba and blazing hot Sand to close it out! Sheesh! Golden Age with Reba whistling included is the big tentpole jam of the second set and while there’s not much out-of-the-box improv in the rest of the songs, they keep the flow smooth and the energy high and that’s what I’m here for. This show may be a bit on the sloppy side but I think they more than make up for it in sheer power and energy. You Sexy Thing fest?? Come on! Fee is goofy and Trey forgets the lyrics BUT it leads to the first show-closing 2001 ever and the best 3.0 version to date, easily eclipsing the MJ and 10/31/16 versions in my eyes. This jam is a perfect showcase of how much Page is taking the lead on the tour so far – listen to the way he moves from Rhodes to Wurlitzer to Moog – straight fire all the way through and a blazing YST/Tweeprize ending!
8/7 Camden: Here’s where we start getting into the really lopsided run of the tour – Camden gets a little bit maligned for some of the song choices and I TOTALLY understand that, but it’s really a shame if you write off the whole run because of a mid-second set Number Line > IAWITW > Miss You. While that may take a bit of the momentum out of the show, and segments like this are I think why this summer tour gets criticized, this show has what might be my favourite Disease ever. This jam features a lot of stereotypical summer 2018 jamming, which entails a minor-key groove with Page on Moog and Trey on Leslie – you know it when you hear it. But it just moves through so many sections so smoothly and fades pretty well into Number Line and has all four members so dialed in to one another. The rest of the second set features the birth of WACTOOB at around the 6-minute mark of Light (another top-notch version, though best of the tour comes later) and a RAGING FILTHY Mike’s with some You Sexy Thing teases left over from Alpharetta. I also seem to completely have skipped over the blazing hot first set with yet another fantastic 46 Days jam (something about most consistent song of the tout). This show may not look good on paper but it has some truly transcendent improvisational moments.
8/8 Camden: Ah, another divisive show, another Julius opener – but this time in the second set! First set is extremely standard fare that would fit comfortably in most years of 3.0 with the exception of the ER closer. Imo the best version they’ve played to date, this jam takes the now-familiar major key turn after some nice funky Type I jamming, but instead of dying out after the first peak, Trey begins to hammer a minor chord, leading the band into an absolute SWAMP. This then leads to a blinding peak that fried the pants off of everyone attended – Listen. To. This. Second set has some cool flow but suffers from a little bit of ADHD Trey – outside of the first Scents with intro since 2015, the improvisational highlight comes from the second Melt of the year. Another great dissonant jam that stays in the box and doesn’t go as crazy as the version from the Gorge, it still brings the heat! Show is then closed by Zero (extra mustard!) and then a quick Suzy encore. Camden brought some fantastic improvisation, but the full shows lack a lot of the fire and consistency we saw on 7/22, 7/24, 8/3, and 8/4.
8/10 Raleigh: Party show!! No long jams to speak of, though Wombat, Drowned, and NICU are all nifty segments. First set stage banter and Trey’s dance moves during Meatstick set the stage for one of the goofiest and most fun segments of music the band played all year. Yes, I’m talking about the Runaway Antelope Policeman. Blending one song into the next with increasing huge grins and cheers from the crowd, this is 18 minutes of Phish on stage having FUN! Nothing super crazy improv-wise here but it elevates the show due to the sheer enjoyment of both the crowd and the audience – and the YEM that follows is no slouch for the era!
8/11 MPP: Did someone order 3.0 songs? Stash is the lone song in this set released before 3.0, the second set is oddly short, and the encore is four songs. A weird and kind of lopsided show all around, the highlights here are yet another first set-closing 46 Days (CONSISTENCY!), the second outside-the-box Mercury of the summer, and the Ghost. While none of these jams cover an incredible amount of groundbreaking ideas, they are still 2018 Phish jams which means there’s great egalitarian jamming happening!
8/12 MPP: One of my favourite shows of the year, this one spits absolute fire from beginning to end, features the best Type 1 Chalk Dust we’ve seen in YEARS (think if they did a crazy 1994 tension-release jam in 2018), a raging Type 1 Tweezer, a swampy Meat, and a fantastic Curtain With in the first set! The second set goes a similar direction to 8/10 where there’s a relatively short jam early in the set and then the band opts for some fun song picks instead of more big jams. Here, we get NMINML as the improv meat of the show with some great major key jamming and one of the most ferocious head-banging-y jams in Piper -> Tweezer Reprise Reprise (Page!!!!!!). 8/12 brings an inferno to the stage and more than makes up for the relatively lackluster flow and energy of the previous night.
8/31 Dick’s: The catharsis show. There were big emotional shoes to fill coming off of Curveball’s cancellation and the band walked on stage with one mission: MELT. FACES. After ferociously tearing through Free, the first Harry Hood in the first set since 2003 teed up some truly inspired play from Page on the Rhodes and more fire-breathing guitar from Trey – are we still in the second song of the show?? An atypical first-set WTU (second of the tour!) and a standard Blaze On gave way to a crazy Ghost -> Crosseyed and Painless segment. After the familiar major-key shift in the Ghost jam, the band brought in a seriously funky groove led by Page on the clav and Mike’s strong bass line. Listen to the crowd when they complete the segue into Crosseyed – I think the band more than fulfilled the post Curveball cancellation expectations. This is even without mentioning the impeccable five-song second set that includes some incredible Trey playing (especially In Carini!). We’re all pretty familiar with this incredible show – and for good reason!
9/1 Dick’s: N2 and N3 of Dick’s tend to get bypassed when talking about 2018 or even just the summer tour because of how mind-blowing N1 was. This is a HUGE mistake, since both of these shows (especially N2) have a TON of power! Raging Sand opener? 15-minute Type II FINISHED Disease? Funky Wolfman’s and ER? Raging Gin closer? That’s a damn good first set if you ask me – Phish, if you’re reading this, please finish Disease more often! The second set, while a little juke box-y after the opening couple of tunes, features another standout SYSF jam that I haven’t heard anyone talk about ever – in addition to the “classic” summer 2018 jam, the last few minutes features some great airy Mike-led jamming before Fuego starts up. Do NOT skip this 12-minute Fuego! The outro jam morphs into dissonant and dark space with some more fantastic Mike, hypnotic delay lines from Trey, and searing synth from Page. A fantastic display of how much the band can pack into 12 minutes in a year like 2018! Trey does rein the jam in unfortunately just as it begins to really simmer which leads to a relatively pedestrian rest of the show – outside of the blazing hot Chalk Dust (a shorter version of the tension-filled jam from 8/12) and a 10-minute 2001 that doesn’t touch on as many interesting ideas as the 8/5 rendition, but it stretches its legs a lot more than a lot of 3.0 versions (and check out the NASTY funk initiated by Mike and Page in the second jam)! Complain about a fourth-quarter The Wedge all day, but this show is no slouch otherwise!
9/2 Dick’s: The tour closer, the show with REALLY high expectations, and in this case…they didn’t QUITE deliver, at least improvisationally. 9/2 is easily the third-best show of the Dick’s run and aside from the sweet segue between Soul Planet and Possum and the second set-opening 46 Days -> Tweezer -> Golden Age (how about that crazy percussive jam at the end of 46 Days that bleeds into all of Tweezer?? WOW!), features some pretty generic Type I playing from the band. While this show in the context of a year like 2009, 2010, or 2011 would blow minds, at the tail end of a tour so packed with improvisation as summer 2018, it fails to end on as high of a note as a lot of people would have liked, which I believe explains why it’s a bit maligned. But, seriously, LISTEN TO THAT SECOND SET-OPENING TRIO!!
SUMMER 2018 SHOWS RANKED
8/31
8/3
8/4
7/22
7/24
8/5
9/1
8/12
7/20
9/2
7/31
7/25
8/7
8/10
7/28
7/17
8/8
7/21
8/11
7/27
7/18
TOP 10 JAMS OF THE TOUR
8/7 Down with Disease
8/3 Carini
7/20 Chalk Dust Torture
8/4 Soul Planet
7/24 Carini
7/22 Split Open and Melt
8/3 Ghost
8/8 Everything’s Right
7/25 Set Your Soul Free
7/28 Fuego