Phish just finished off their second night at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Denver, and the show featured solid playing front to back and a few surprises as well. While the first set featured a strong song selection of a few of my personal favorites, the second set really dressed to impress. After a 15 minute “Down with Disease” to kick off the second set, the band transitioned pretty quickly into “What’s the Use?”, it’s first appearance since 8.25.12. Then the “Carini > Light > Fuego > Slave” segment immediately following was just absolutely wonderful; a strong “Carini” with a long jam and solid transitions into the other songs in that segment. Where people thought the show may be ending, the band dropped a “Meastick” and a quick move into “Bold As Love” to end the second set.
When the encore came and the band started playing “The Horse” it was pretty clear the band has been having fun talking about what they have and have not played. Afterwards, they paused, and then eventually got into “Silent in the Morning” — and Trey chatted afterwards about how that was funny that they hadn’t played “The Horse” in so long and how the band was cracking up about that backstage. Then he told the story about how they wrote a song a long time ago called “In a Hole” and rehearsed it a few times ready to play it, then they actually played a piece from the song and joked about how it was something they always hoped people would laugh at. They last played this 1,300 shows ago or so, definitely the bust-out of the summer (so far).
Here’s the setlist via Phish.net:
Phish @ Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, Commerce City, CO 8.30.14
Set I: Free, The Moma Dance, Halley’s Comet, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, 555, Rift, Sample in a Jar, Devotion To a Dream, Yarmouth Road > Sparkle, Wingsuit, David Bowie, Cavern
Set II: Down with Disease* -> What’s the Use?, Carini > Light > Fuego > Slave to the Traffic Light, Meatstick > Bold As Love
Encore: The Horse, Silent in the Morning, In a Hole, Fluffhead
* – Unfinished
Notes: This show was webcast via LivePhish. The second set was preceded by Call to the Post teases. Down with Disease contiained What’s the Use? teases and was unfinished. Page played the guitar part of The Horse on piano while Trey sang; following The Horse, the band acted as if the show was over before starting to play Silent in the Morning. Trey told the story of writing In A Hole before playing a portion of the song; In a Hole was last played on 12/16/89 (1346 shows).
