@nichobert said:

I don't why MPP would be lumped in with the nostalgia act slump either. The last set of MPP had more 3.0 songs than old ones. Not only that, but they whipped them into one of the most cohesive sets of the summer. There wasn't a single overriding highlight, but everything but The Wedge had some improv, even the Loving Cup got a little extra juice sprinkled in it! I'll probably listen to that as an entire set more often than anything from this run so far outside of the first 2 Bethel shows.

Respectfully, you are clearly reading the phish.net blog (which is awesome, it is great to have new voices engaging with intelligent thoughts) but you may perhaps confuse things said by different people about different shows. I never said MPP2 was a "nostalgia act" rather that, based on the second set, that the show as a whole was, indeed, part of the "MINI-slump/funk." In fact (and you could look it up, in the recap for that show on this blog) I was hopefully clear about my appreciation for set I and the encore from MPP2. I wasn't especially fond of MPP2 II, but because it had "high viscosity" (bad flow), almost no improvisation, etc. [The Good Wife: "In your opinion?" Yes, your honor, In My Opinion. /The Good Wife] It was, in my humble opinion, both poorly conceived and poorly executed. But not a "nostalgia" set.

If you think differently... awesome. Whether you were enjoying it live and/or on the recordings, if you were enjoying it, that is all that matters.

Cheers.