[Titotimmy]

What’s in your top 3 this year? Personal bias is fine, anything plays really. I’ll go first.

3. The Madman’s Eyes debut. I was listening live to the Sirius stream for this and the thought process of “hmm WYA? Last Stop??” during the intro was fun. Idk if I’ve ever listened live or witnessed a debut in real time before. I’ve also haven’t been this excited for a new one in a long time.

2. (Personal bias pick) - Catching the WYA TD at SPAC. This was supposed to be where catching my white whale Last Stop at the greatest arena in the world was supposed to go - but the truncated version just left me with a big ol pair of blue balls if we’re being honest. I love WYA, it’s fast, loud, and mean which is some of my favorite DMB. The performances this tour of the song have been exceptional. The feeling of a song intro starting of a song you really love when you have no idea it’s coming (as is usually the case with a TD) is what seeing the band live is all about. Definitely helps being at SPAC after making the trek earlier that day.

1. You Never Know solo at the Gorge - some cool stuff happened as a result of the alternate format. Buddy on drums easily could have taken this spot but YNK is one of the best songs in the catalogue imo and any time you can get a new or unique performance of top tier material it’s worth mentioning. It’s also a really tough song to play/sing and Dave didn’t have the security blanket of the band to mask any flubs so I thought it was a real cool move for him to go out and play it by himself.