@nichobert said:

To be clear, I was being a little sarcastic about being curious about people liking the Denver 97 ghost more than Dallas 15 Chalkdust... I personally find the latter more interesting, but that Denver show is held in hallowed regard and the Texas shows seem immediately consigned to the "lets pretend this never happened" pile.

I'm not overly concerned with the songs they use for the big excursions. The list of songs where they really got long winded was generally pretty short in 94/95 too.. Tweezer, Bowie, Mikes, Melt, Stash, a few Paugs, DWDs and Frees, a few singular curveball crazy versions of songs like Bitch

I guess the question is more about if Phish views 92-95 or 97-04 as their golden age. The last few years seem to point towards the former, and they seem to be taking a quality over quantity approach that hasn't really been their MO since 95.

I love that every tour has more people thinking "this is the best they've sounded since.." Personally still think the 2012 improv is the freshest style since 95 and the purest distillation of early and late 90s jam styles, but this newfound nimbleness in Trey's playing has lead to an increased swagger which really helps them develop jams quickly and confidently. Something like that Tweezer-> MFMF from Ingleood makes me giddy knowing that they aren't feeling the pressure to make every Tweezer long as much as the pressure to make everything great.
Seemed like the biggest problem from 2010-2012 was that their standards for what constituted interesting improvisation might have been too high, and they'd try to pull the ripcord on something before it got less interesting to the crowd than the next song might be. Clearly their standards are different than ours as a lot of those quick > s seemed to truncate jams right as they were exiting an amorphous space between themes and beefing the process of coalescing into something new. Late 90s/00s Phish they were a little bit too trusting that things would make a turn for the better eventually. A few years of stricter quality control have made the improv very mindful. I dig.

And despite some rocky parts in the process, there isn't a better sign for this bands vitality than them revamping and refining the way that they listen and play off one another. They seem really engaged and happy compared to when I started seeing shows.

as usual, i agree with what you have to say. (although in 94 and 95 there were simples and antelopes and gins and yems and timbers....)

my favorite moment thus far (summer 15) has been the friendly tweezer. sort of what i've been getting at. even the 15 min dust you've pointed to; how this > simple is so interesting. i'm more into this, of late, than a 28 minute dust or unfinished disease (carrying over from last year). especially in light of trey's nimble swagger! this is all a positive; they are playing so well.

as someone pointed out; the mechanical nature of executing bowie is insane.

the newer tunes are less demanding. now that the band has its collective verve, i'd love to see more of more.