Good news everyone! A whole live Phish show to review, plus new material. After three more weeks off the road, this a great high energy show to start off the Fall tour. Lots of Rift Material, and some flat out weirdness. Pretty good sounding recording.

Good solid Maze to start off with. Page rocks. Fee is ok, not great, as they are getting settled in. Some feedback in there too. Foam is pretty good, except they kind of blow the ending. Glide is good. Great jam in Melt. I feel like they haven't played this one in a while. Nice to hear Mound back in the line up. It sounds a little rusty. Divided Sky feels the same. It's good but, has rusty parts, as does Esther. Hilarious "those were the days" section in Sky. So after a double shot of Junta material, we have a new one! The first Axilla is hot right out of the gate, and Trey says it's his favorite. Horse>Silent is getting better but, is also a little rusty sounding. Antelope has a weak intro but, really jams. Mike almost blows the end. Pretty good energy set, although a bit rusty.

Nice Yes tease from Trey before he starts a good Mike's Song. Hydrogen is a little rough from Mike. More rust. Weekapaug is good but has a vocal jam and a "Price of Love" ending. Weird. Bouncing is pretty normal. Ice is good. Better middle section. Not sure what the deal is with Walk the Line. It sounds out of place and weird. A good Tweezer follows including more weirdness going into the BBFCFM jam. Another first timer comes out with the explanation of The Big Ball Jam and Pete. I forgot they used to use four balls instead of three. Then Gordon Stone comes out and does a great Poor Heart with the boys. Great interplay during the solo section. Another first timer, and one of my favorites, Fast Enough for You debuts complete with pedal steel. The ending is a little shakey, but overall really good. This may be Phish's first real ballad. Gordon stays on for a ripping Llama, which turns rather creepy sounding with the steel. And if all that isn't weird enough, we have a first timer in the Fishman section! I'll have to say though, this is the coolest Lengthwise I've ever heard. Complete with vacuum. He should bring back the reggae. The stage banter is priceless tonight. After all that, Cavern sounds a little tired. Like they gave all they had. Crazy second set.

Last, but not least, we have a bust out of Bold as Love for the encore. Page sounds great.

What a night! Seven Rift songs. Four new songs. Special guest. Definitely worth the listen. Looking forward to the rest of this tour.

Like much of '92, this show features some pretty strong and tight playing in a vacuum but does relatively little to stand out in the band's greater musical context. Instead, distinguishing marks for this show reside primarily on paper: a few fan-favorite debuts among Axilla, FEFY, and a sweet reggae Lengthwise; the first Big Ball Jam (which doesn't translate well to audio listening, imo); and a Gordon Stone slide guitar sit-in that elevates Poor Heart, FEFY, and Llama nicely. That isn't to say the show is boring or not worth listening to. Moments like the Those Were the Days jam in Divided Sky, the Johnny Cash x BBFCFM detour in Tweezer, and the vocal jam in Weekapaug offer unexpected departures from the typical formulae of these tunes. Do they make the show absolutely mind-blowing? Would these make the list of must-hear jams? Probably not. But Colchester '92 is definitely a choice selection from this era of Phish that represents the band's strengths of the time, and I'm happy to have it in the LivePhish release collection.

Phish is introduced onstage while fish starts maze.pretty nice tweezer into walk the line is very interesting.weekapaug ends with an average vocal jam.the fast enough for you with Gordon Stone is really beautiful with his pedal steel guitar.the lengthwise is awesome with fish doing his rastaman impersonation.overall a fun,strange show.
4 stars