Phish. Seattle key arena 10/20/14. Number-lined

Small crew (Jar, Lisa, Jaclyn Hirsch and Tessa) for the show but also got to spend some time with Brian and Blaine for his first hometown show ever. Tickets were everywhere outside - Tessa is 2 for 2 on miracles thus far this tour. Pretty awesome view of the space needle walking in next to park. We settled into our seats mike side and had a perfect view of fishman drumming. Its amazing to watch the robot work. First thing I noticed when the show started is how awful the sound at key arena is. Old venue, has an echo. Meh. The only banners hanging in the arena are the Seattle Storm - a sad reminder of of OKC stealing the Sonics. Trey was in a (too long) t-shirt and lol like he just woke up...typically a good sign. Cavern and the obvious Wilson had the place rocking early and trey was in a great mood. Standard first set Moma...but then the energy was sucked right out of the building. Line, sugar shack (trey just throwing mike a bone or something) and KDF literally had me sitting down. Lisa and JAR said I was moping. Wolfmans was good and Gin was a solid set closer. However with a mid set punch to the cut plus an uneven flow to that set left the masses wanting. Second set starts with the DWD I could see coming a mile away. Standard, nothing to write home about but solid. Then things picked up....golden age -> fuego -> Light -> cities -> 46 days -> sand was an incredible run of music. The transition from light into an unusual super funky and fun cities was $$$ and I always love me some sand. And then they played an incredible 2001. Except they didnt. It was a perfect build to 2001, you could envision the tease fest alla Darien lake 2011 that was coming (golden age was already teased) and then bam... We got number-lined. We often joke that BDTNL shows up in songs at the worst spot changing all momentum of a set. This was the classic definition of getting number-lined. If you look up number-lined in the dictionary you will see this show. The feeling in the room was one of disbelief. What an awful call in the spot. I immediately turned to jar and told him that the phish apologists are guaranteed to say "yeah but it was a great jam" no matter how it was played and despite the fact it crushed the set. The bold as love was a nice shout out to Hendrix and the last time they played seattle 11/27/96 (also Jimi birthday) but the damage had been done. Trey was leading the Meatstick and the all too obvious character zero closed out the show. Also love him or hate him but Antelope Greg was absolutely on fire last night. Dude was rocking out and dancing as hard as anyone possibly could. When you are throwing down to the line you are on one. He was really entertaining to watch last night. We had a blast as always. Pacific NW was fun, I personally enjoyed the flow and feel of eugene more than seattle. Looking forward to going back to California...no aching in my heart though. Safe travels.
Location: Seattle, WA, USA

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