SET 1:

Mike’s Song: nice, talk about declaring intent to rage the place! Pretty nondescript dark jam out of this one though. Painful whale call fail at 4:24, ooft. >

I Am Hydrogen: a little rough in the second half but the beginning is beautiful. >

Weekapaug Groove: Mike’s bass solo is unique here, would recommend.

Tweezer: BOOM! Crowd goes absolutely bonkers at this! Trey cracks up in the second refrain, he’s clearly loving it. Funny effects in the section just before the jam where things fall apart. Page does some really interesting clavinet work at the start of the jam, louder and more melodic than usual. Trey’s really cleaned up his tone this run compared to Dick’s and you can hear it in the solo. Turns major key about halfway through and then gets mellow, Mike and Page do great in this section and there are some light Weekapaug teases from Trey. Builds to an okay peak, the best part of which is his chordal shredding just before the outro. Lots of length to this jam, especially for a first set, but not much relisten value IMO. Love the old-school slowdown at the end here! Sets things up very nicely into… ->

Ass Handed: Hahahaha, too good! Probably the best version of this, with Fish absolutely bellowing out the lyrics at the start and then encouraging a crowd singalong.

Kill Devil Falls: Great energy in this set so far and good placement of this. Strong type 1 playing. >

Bathtub Gin: Slightly funkier jam than usual for Gin at the start. Really cool arpeggios from Trey at the 7 minute mark, great playing in general on this one. Slowly builds to a big peak! Lovely.

Brother: Yessssss, great bustout and the song feels like it’s made for this arrangement, much more so than slow Llama or Maze. The crowd recognition when Trey’s riff comes in is great. Not the most whip-sharp they’ve ever played it but if you didn’t know the original song you wouldn’t know that anything was off. Even gets a smooth lil funk jam after the main theme, clav central. Awesome one-timer and arguably as good as the original; no idea why this one hasn’t made a return.

More: standard.

SET 2:

Down With Disease: slightly unconventional full-band intro. Composed section is pretty poor, not much conviction. Things pick up real quick in the type 1 section of the jam though – Trey the guitar hero shines through big time. Things start changing around 7 minutes in and we get some awesome delay-led spy movie jamming (love the call and response between Page and Trey here.) Crowd senses something big coming around 9 minutes in. Mike is very high in the mix and takes the reins here – fuck yeah @ the clean melodic line he settles on at 10 minutes or so. Settles into a very contented atmospheric passage full of Trey effects soon after. Not quite blissy but definitely happy. Mood sours around 14:30. Mike once again impressing with the octave pedal around 16 minutes in, why doesn’t he use it as much these days? There’s a noticeable increase in intensity when Fish plays a bit louder at ~17:30 – Mike is LOUUUUUUUD, wow! Just searing through the mix. Then all of a sudden there’s a small transition section and Trey finds a confident chordal riff, we’re back to clean and happy. The blissy peak from here on out is well-earned, unlike the Tweezer from before, and Trey goes ham on his playing! Listen to the passage around 25 minutes in, that’s pure ’94 machine gun. Some stop-start ‘woo!’ encouragement in the wind-down section, which I’m a sucker for (and the way Trey weaves in and out of it reminds me of Tahoe Tweezer). Feel like there was an opportunity for a smoother segue here, but nevertheless we go into… >

Steam: good placement of a song I’m indifferent on. Standard up until 8 minutes in when the song dies out and they enter some of the oddest, eeriest, most Eno-like ambient improv I’ve heard from this band since 2.0. Goes on for a solid 6 minutes – must’ve been crazy intense at the venue. What is with the glockenspiel-like sound nearish the end, marimba lumina I’m assuming? Not a whole lot of replay value, I suspect, but INCREDIBLY unique for the era, even with 2017 synthy-ness to compare against. Trey gears up for a segue with a few seconds left to go… >

Light: love Fish’s latin-ish groove that he nudges the band to adopt 6 minutes in. Pleasant but sort of meandering jam. Gets a little weird towards the end, nothing particularly notable though. >

Farmhouse: lovely. If you hate this song you have no soul.

Run Like an Antelope: victory lap. Maybe slightly less confident en route to the peak than usual. Good end to a big set though.

Encore:

Sleeping Monkey: fitting!

Tweezer Reprise: standard

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OVERALL: legendary 3.0 show whose reputation obviously rests on a handful of big tentpole jams. Down With Disease maybe isn’t an all-timer but its reputation is totally deserved and there’s some awesome stuff in there especially from Mike, would recommend. Steam, (surprisingly) Farmhouse and the reworked Brother are for sure worth revisits too. Ultimately doesn’t eclipse Dick’s N1 and some of the BD stuff.

4 stars on the dot.