I’ll spare you full reviews seeing how often I’ve sung the praises of this lineup, but with now two Phil & Friends Nokia shows under the ol’ belt for the run and a third on deck tonight, here are five off-the-cuff observations:

[Photo by Rob Chapman via Phillesh.net]

1. There’s a nice little debate kicking around the Phil faithful at the moment asking whether this year’s Nokia residency is better than last year’s. Most folks are hedging, but some glass-half-empty comments I’ve heard favor last year’s, saying that now that this incarnation of Phil & Friends is comfortable, it’s lost the surprise factor and settled into predictability.

Based on this year’s setlists, that seems a little absurd to begin with, but to me, that’s an apples-to-toothpaste comparison anyway. Last year’s Nokia run was essentially a test kitchen for this lineup to see just how chemistry it had and how much excitement it could muster, and on its last weekend, most observers agree, they clicked and became a band. This year’s model is the same personnel, give or take a guest, but a band utterly sure of itself after a long summer of touring and now confident in its ability to “get there”—aware of all its strengths, working on its weaknesses—with everyone willing to add a bit more of his (or her!) personality to the mix.

Most noticeably, Steve Molitz isn’t as reticent about slipping in the nutty keyboard effects this year—he’s been blasting off all over the place, and doing it tastefully, as in Tuesday night’s fierce Feel Like a Stranger second set opener. Teresa Williams, too, now qualifies as a full-fledged band member, and it’s been great to see her in places both logical (boy, did she nail that beautiful, beautiful Peggy-O on Sunday) and surprising (she and Jackie brought marvelous harmonies to Music Never Stopped on Sunday and Cassidy on Tuesday—both set two enders, both Bobby songs the Phil lineup doesn’t often play, and both terrific.)

READ ON for four more observations from Chad…

2. I have never heard a Terrapin Station from any Phil & Friends lineup that did it for me, and Tuesday night’s wasn’t an exception, despite the cursory pleasure of hearing the crowd swell whenever a jam melts into those first Lady With a Fan climbing progressions and you know what you’re in for. Hard to say what it is; Phil’s vocals on the tune are able, if colorless, the band didn’t blow too many of the transitions and delivered a juicy jam in between the “bought or sold” and “Inspiration” passages, I like what Phil tries to do with speeding up the tempo during the “Inspiration” lift-off, and Larry added a lot to the tune with well placed snatches of cittern and mandolin. I can’t put my finger on what the problem is—it still sounded clunky.

Maybe I haven’t heard enough PLF Terrapins—I’ll gladly take recommendations, you PLF bootleg hounds—or maybe I’m in the camp that believes the Grateful Dead’s recorded version of the entire, 16-minute Terrapin suite can’t be improved upon with improvisational passages by any group anywhere. A good argument to be had there.

Fire On The Mountain 11/03

3. One of the best things about both the original Phil Q and the current group is its streamlined roster: the personnel bloat that dotted some Phil lineups between 2003 and 2007 led to chaos and people stepping on each other and confusing the jam as often as it did transcendence.

That said, adding Barry Sless to this core group is a masterstroke; given Sless’ command of the material and experience playing in bulky Phil ensembles, he knows when to be a colorist and knows when to step out and get dirty. His spacey steel added so much to the opening run of tunes Tuesday night—a ripping Me & My Uncle, a really funky Mr. Charlie and a so-rockin’-it-was-almost-a-boogie Big River—and having him flex on guitar frees Larry up to put his “master of things with strings hat” on aplenty. Lots more cittern and loads more mandolin from Mr. C last night, especially in the second set, and the plucks of those strings add a different flavor to the stew. Phil seemed encouraged by Larry’s string work—a twinkling mandolin breakdown as The Eleven built toward its chorus put a smile on the big guy’s face—and it’ll remain to see how the band makes room for it during louder, meatier jams.

4. It didn’t exactly go unnoticed that the opening and closing songs of each set Tuesday were dyed-in-the-wool Bobby tunes. Samson and Delilah positively blew the place out, and Jackie sang lead, even allowing himself one or two Weir-like yelps to punctuate certain passages. Is the inclusion of so many Bobby songs simply Phil expanding his repertoire with more of the catalog? I think so, but I won’t dampen the excitement of Phil fandom’s conspiracy wing, which sees a Phil show tonight, sees that Ratdog is in the area (they played Newark last night) and has the night off tonight, and is hoping to put two-and-two together. Wouldn’t be surprising.

I Am The Walrus – 11/11

5. I wouldn’t call them the absolute highlights—those honors for Sunday go to the seriously ferocious Other One (and what came around it) and for Tuesday night to that spicy Samson—but in both shows did Phil choose to knock the crowd for a loop part way through the second set with a well-placed Beatles cover. This band wears Beatles really well: soulful, playful and energetic in their execution, and willing to use those songs sparingly as surprise bust-outs instead of as overused gimmicks. To hear the audience recognition when a long, gooey jam out of New Potato Caboose suggested any number of destinations only to arrive at the curvy, bent-tone I Am the Walrus intro was as awesome a collective “Oh, fuck yeah!” crowd moment as I’ve had this year.

• Previously on HT: Stormy Mondays
• WNEW: Phil Lesh and Jackie Greene Acoustic Set
• Jambands: Phil Lesh – This Is Weird America
• Stream or Download the Philathon: 10/31, 11/1, 11/2, 11/3, 11/6, 11/7, 11/8, 11/9,