Live Phish: 8/7/10 Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA

This three-disc, 20-track show from the Live Phish Downloads series captures the band on the second of a three night stand at the Greek Theatre in Berkley. There are outstanding performances of Lou Reed's "Rock & Roll," "Backwards Down the Number Line," and "Show of Life" in set two. The encore is a rousing reading of Led Zeppelin's "Good Times, Bad Times." Despite these highlights, the show stealers are both in the first set: a nearly 11-minute version of "Guyute," that the band continue to wrestle with, is the third cut in show. More than likely, Phish will never completely conquer it because of its tempo, key, and harmonic shifts, as well as its sleight-of -hand counterpoint subtleties. But the effort here is one of the more valiant — and inspiring — ones in the archive. The other transcendent moment is the reading of the Talking Heads' "Cities." Despite being only a little over seven minutes , its performance comes as close to defining what Phish is all about as a band as anything they've written themselves. This was a hot night on the tour, and the entire evening is worth the purchase price, even if set one trounces the second.