This festival was sort of a dud, from the logistics (access to water?, drive-in) to a lot of the music (not so great). Further was a real bright spot though. These guys were awesome. The first night (aside from the Zach Brown blemish - oh that was horrible...) they played an amazing show.

Night two for them had the promise of Workingman's Dead in it's entirety, which was a cool idea.

Well since this is .net I'll stick to the Phishy section of the show. After an awesome run through of Workingman's (this band was pretty darn tight!), Bob said "We'd like to welcome our friend Trey" which was a pipe dream I thought would never come true. I was hoping they would be able to relive some of the magic of the Phil and Friends shows of 99 & 06.

So for Casey Jones they closed out Workingman's with a nice run through the tune. It had a good fast ending. Trey seemed pretty reserved (probably went out of his way to do so, not his band, three guitars, etc.).

Fun version, and Trey did take a little solo, which sounded oh so sweet.

They gave Trey the honors in Bertha. He did a great job with the lyrics and fit in very well to the sound of the band. He took a backseat throughout letting JK and Chimenti shine a bit. Awesome little run, but not a ton of Trey in either tune. Great warm up thought! Just seeing him up there smiling and belting out Bertha made it all worthwhile.

Well they kicked into a jazzy little jam that you knew was foreshadowing Truckin'. This was our first glimpse into the 3 guitar sound/jams we would be treated to. It was VERY laid back, with no-one really taking the lead (which would be a theme for much of the playing). On the bright side, it gave tons of space and each note was more impactful. It also showcased the very distinct tones and styles of each player. Bobby was probably the most active here, with Trey peppering in some tasty sustained calls and JK sort of weaving in between (he was a bit down in the mix, which was actually good as he seemed to play the most notes).

Well they dropped into Truckin' (one gripe...boy was it slow!) very nicely. They played a good clean version, lots of fun, great sing-along and everyone seemed to be having a great time. Trey threw in some tasty blues licks that really helped color the version (which was needed because it was slooooww). They drop into the jam portion and it ambles about with a nice Deadesque lack of urgency. There's a bit of back and forth with Trey and JK trading some blues lines and Bobby adding texture. Nice section, and neither guitarist was stepping on any toes.

Side note- I commented on how slow they played the song, but with Joe Russo behind the kit, he really kept things driving forward, even with the slow songs he made great use of his gear to keep propelling things forward in an interesting way.

So they ambled forward and started really driving the tune. (Phil was a monster - but that goes without saying). Trey and JK peak the jam with Chimenti contributing well. JK seems to be driving the segue into the Other One and does so masterfully, patiently, without pushing any other member to hard towards it. The whole time they were just nudging each other in different directions. Really democratic.

So the transition beautifully into the Other One and this was probably the straight up jam highlight (although the whole set was full of good jamming). Chimenti has some crazy keyboard effect going on the intro jam, which was really cool. They jammed on into the lyrics (which probably didn;t kcik in for like 4 minutes), Bobby did his best, but the smoking crater in his mind caused him to forget some of the lyrics. The jam was great, with everyone sort of trading off and taking turns leading. They built up some incredible tension culminating in an off-key musical vamp on the Other One refrain with Trey adding these major league echoes with fueled by the pitch shifter. Wowzers! Smoking crater indeed. They sort of died down with JK keeping us alive by playing some more notes and then Trey finds a great melodic riff and takes us towards a more Phish style space. They explore this for a bit, and it's nice and satisfying. They find their way back to the lyrics after all that great jamming and drop into Viola Lee Blues! Boy that's a good version of The Other One - go snag it!

Well I was hoping to this would be a 30 minute beast a-la some of the old Phil and Friends version aforementioned. It wasn't but it sure was good. They hit a couple very unique jam segments and managed to actually go out there pretty quickly. I think this one clocked around 11-12 minutes, but had some really cool playing, and Trey was a bit more active, which was nice. Just some good jamming. The ended the big three jams for the evening and the whole suite here was really really nice. Just good interesting playing. You always worry with too many leads/guitars, but they did a good job sharing the load. If anything Trey could have taken a bit more control at times, because he hit some absolute magic riffs at points, but seemed to pull them back in. It still worked very well.

Scarlet> Fire was the perfect way to wrap it up. Scarlet was very fun and very well played and JK did a good job singing this one. He took the first solo too and did a very nice job with it. Chimenti then had a nice go and played well. They turn him so loud during his solo sections though, it sounds a little weird, but he's good on this version. Trey than gives us magical glory in his solo. It's soaring, it's tender, he nails all the changes. His tone (like in the FTW shows) is so distinctly Trey, it gives a nice contour to the fact that you just expect that Jerry tone. It's just nice and warm without being a carbon copy. They go back to vocals and then hit a nice little jam section at the end. It's not too long but everyone plays well with Trey doing a nice job actually guiding this one. They could have kept this going but they segue nicely into the inevitable FIre.

Fire On The mOuntain was great. Glorious ending to a great extended sit-in. Trey's solo is majestic. It's maybe my favorite of the whole set. He just doesn't quite lead the final peak, which was a slight miss, but honestly, it was just so gorgeous.

Overall just go grab this moment in history. This was way better than FTW - sorry Mickey & Bill but JR propelled this, and the band was just more practiced! Kind of a bummer they didn't give the FTW shows the level of preparation that fans deserved.

This and furthur's first night are the only shows worth grabbing from Lockn, which was otherwise pretty awful.