SET 1: Possum, Wilson: A couple of ragers to open up the show, love it! >

Roggae: Nice breather here. Maze, Meat > Sparkle > Standard.

Split Open and Melt: Supposedly one of Mike’s favorite jams from Fall 98? Can anyone expound on that? I’ve listened to this a number of times over the years and then again three times in preparation for this review. It’s good but certainly not great. The whole band is featured as one throughout this jam, no one member steps up and takes charge. It is steady and consistent but doesn’t have any WOW moments. It surely is not anything like an early to mid-90’s tension and release type version.

SET 2: Makisupa Policeman: Love this spacy jam with great Trey effects, crowd definitely goes nuts for the university rent a cop key word. What exactly was the story behind this, I cannot remember anymore >

Funky Bitch: In the two hole in the second set? Page gets the crowd riled up. He had the opportunity to blow the roof off but more or less chose not to, interesting.

Simple: Extremely chill, whole band, groove centric jamming. Very mellow, the definition of that 98 ambient sound - ethereal. I like Fish on vacuum leading into Caspian – cool touch ->

Prince Caspian: Fishman and crowd go crazy for the naked guy “Bring him back, bring him back!” >

Fluffhead: Pretty good segue into Fluff! This version has some slop to it.

Hold Your Head Up > Bike > Hold Your Head Up: Fishman introduces the piano player as the organ player, the bass player as the bass player, the guitar player as the guitar player, etc et – He blows some lyrics then says everyone groan now which the crowd reciprocates. I get the sense he has a whole lot of IDGAF during this segment. Very curious.

Harry Hood: Huge cheers was over the arena when the glow sticks get busted out early into the jam. Someone on stage must have caught one on stage at 8:05, huge cheer. Not long after that one drills Fish’s kit and the crowd ‘OHHHHHHSSSSS”. Trey sounds distracted during this jam, likely fearful of getting drilled upside the head. Probably the same for the rest of the guys too. This is weird in that they go for the peak and it’s super meh. They regroup and go in for it again and honestly it’s not much better the second time around. Below average Harry Hood.

ENCORE: Birds of a Feather: First and last time they ever encored with BOAF.

Hello My Baby: Standard.

Summary: Solid show but it isn’t much above average. The show starts off with some fire in it’s belly and the first set is fairly solid. The anchor of course it the SOAMelt. I know there is a lot of love for this version and while I think it’s good I don’t think there is anything that’s great about it. Shrugs. Simple is quite exquisite and has tons of replay value. Outside of SOAMelt and Simple this show just doesn’t do it for me. I would rate it as a 3.5 out of 5. The current rating of 3.89 seems far too generous. Friday night energy in Madison probably skews some things. The crowd brough their energy, but did the band? I don’t think they did for the most part.