“I want to tell you, Detroit, that you done set me up for a comeback,” former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said after he was forced to resign last year. Echoing the words of the infamous Detroit mayor, Phish returned for a comeback of their own in the Motor City for this year’s fall tour opener, however, delivering on the comeback would be a different story. Save a few bright spots, (Down With Disease>Free and 46 Days) the show sounded like the first show of a tour, a bit rusty and apprehensive.

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The quartet came out to a barrage of roses from someone hopeful for Ween’s Roses Are Free, that unfortunately didn’t come. Most of the first set was fairly straightforward as nothing really found a perfect fit. With the newer songs Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan and Kill Devil Falls, guitarist Trey Anastasio’s, for lack of a better word, Joy, was apparent as he played these new compositions just as noticeably eager as he was the past summer to push the crowd to enjoy them as much as he seems to.

It’s Ice made for an interesting highlight of the first set, but most of the opening stanza was filled with slower tunes such as Mist. Things got slightly more upbeat with Poor Heart and 46 Days would branch out a bit, with Trey pinging notes over a spacey pulsing background soundscape while lighting director Chris Kuroda covered the side walls of Cobo Hall during the ambient improv. Slowly, the space in 46 Days fizzled into silence before it got to any real interesting territory.

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READ ON for more of Pietro’s thoughts and photos from Phish…

With the hit of drummer Jon Fishman’s hi-hat, David Bowie attempted to give the first set a closing shot in the arm. However, the four members of Phish never really got in sync as the ending of Bowie sounded frantic and disconnected and never reached full throttle to finish the first set.

The second set would open up with a few bright spots, namely Runaway Jim and the highlight of the evening -  Down With Disease -> Free. Trey would drive the jam out of Disease jumping around the stage as, for the first time in the night, all four members clicked in and barreled forward as Kuroda pulsed lights around the legendary venue.

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Soon Trey started fluttering chops across his Languedoc to slowly sneak into Free. The rest of the second set, however, went back to slower tunes. Waste, Taste, Bug and Wading In The Velvet Sea found a lot of people sitting down as a quiet cloud of chatter hung over the crowd.

Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove  brought most of the crowd back to their feet. McConnell crunched a dark dirty organ in Mike’s Song for a change of pace, while Trey searched across the fretboard with slamming chords before going back into the verse of Mike’s. After the tender Hydrogen and a short Weekapaug, the second set ended with a predictable and standard Cavern.

Overall the show never found much, if any, solid coherence between all four members to create anything spectacular, but a certain amount of that is expected for a tour opener. A relatively inattentive and somewhat undersold crowd also didn’t help matters any. Here’s hoping the rest of the tour will find the band taking more chances and pulling out more surprises than they did in Detroit.

Phish
November 18, 2009
Cobo Arena
Detroit, MI

Set 1: AC/DC Bag, Foam, Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan, Bouncing Around The Room, Sample In A Jar, Kill Devil Falls, It’s Ice, Horn. Mountains In The Mist, Poor Heart, 46 Days, David Bowie

Set 2: Runaway Jim, Down With Disease -> Free, Waste, Taste, Bug, Wading In The Velvet Sea, Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, Cavern

Encore: Character Zero