was in attendance and if recollection serves me, fuego, soul planet and (to a slightly lesser extent) jibboo each contained peaks of significant and sustained duration. these three meaningful jams alone made the set a real winner for LA, a city with a decidedly on again off again relationship with our favorite band. yes the song choices didn't make the show look special on paper (screen) and the disappointingly standard birds/meatstick duo (at that point in the 2nd set) was all filler no killer but i wholeheartedly applaud them for not falling into the predictability of a tweezer/2001/yem dependent saturday night show. cavern and unfortunate lyric flubs aside they found a way to structure this set without too many tried and true staple crutches showing a forward thinking approach in pulling from the breadth of catalog and showcasing new material along the way. in a way zero seemed like the only fitting closer this night and i relished it. it's still early in tour after all. a 2 night stand in fickle LA at MSG West is nothing to scoff at. if upon relisten the aforementioned trio of highlights don't hold up i'll eat crow but this was a victory for us east coast transplants who normally have to travel far and wide for a multi-night run of solid phishows. 7/27 may have had the big guns and heavy hitters to deliver the goods both in @phish_ftr twitter and those who heard it happen but 2nd night took more chances and paid greater dividends as a result. looking forward to the festival even more now knowing what heights they can attain with pedestrian song choices. we're surely in store for more great things to come as the tour winds its way to watkins.