One of the things that gets lost in the quibbling about the new-ish songs at the micro level is how they function at the macro level.

The two song salvo that draws the curtain on this years' Garden party is an opening mood to a concert/run that the band couldn't have pulled off even five years ago because these particular songs didn't exist five years ago. The sparkling, ebullient jam in a Wave of Hope (with its roots firmly planted in Donovan's There is a Mountain) is directly colored by the measured but hopeful tone of the two songs that precede it. One doesn't exist without the others.

Yes, it's dadrock, but it's really freaking profound dadrock. Some, I daresay, of the most profound ever performed.

The subsequent Cities provides a dreamy complimentary jam, and the rest of set I that follows is no slouch either, with a couple of relative rarities, a swampy Free, and an old-timey Stash that adds some nostalgia to the mix.

Second set, then, is one of the jammiest of the tour so far, despite having no singular jam approach the 20 minute mark. Much ground is covered here, some of it unexplored and new, including, improbably, a swing jazz jam in Plasma that's somewhere between a 1920's speakeasy and the Mos Eisley cantina band from Star Wars (really, where the hell did this come from?) Simple gives us a glimpse of the machinery under the layers of love and light, and the closing Melt reveals the heart of reality to be an alien AI hive mind undergoing wave after wave of cascading system failures.

The Good Times Bad Times encore functions as a grade-A stamp of approval from the band, marking this as the first truly great show from a tour full of really good shows. And truly great it is, able to sit easily at the table with the likes of 10/29/21, 12/30/22 etc.

The last few years have been full of watershed moments like this one, old Phish mixing and meshing with new Phish, giving us new forms and new meanings and interpretations. I don't think the full weight of what's transpiring now will be known until the passage of time provides some much needed perspective. Best to layback and enjoy the scenery here at what may be later recognized as the top of a mountain.