i was on vacation in philly catching up with family (longwood gardens, etc.) during the fourth of july weekend when superball ix took place. however, i streamed “from the archives” (and portions of the sets when I could) via sirius xm and remember being blown away with the bethel waves soundcheck. whole new territory! like "holy s**t, this is completely new!" territory.

fast forward to today and the above discussion. i hadn't thought about the bethel waves soundcheck or the storage jam in quite a while. but, i remember everyone going ape shit that weekend on .net and via text messages from those on the ground. i will say this: i don’t think either jam has been given its proper due in quite some time. i just think there has been too much good stuff since they initially dropped and they have been put on the backburner. in fact, it took me a minute to even seriously consider the notion of the storage jam by @funkycfunkydo as THEE turning point of 3.0. with that said, i wholeheartedly agree with funky that the storage jam was the actual turning point of 3.0. but, i think it was properly set up by kevin shapiro with the bethal waves soundcheck the night before on “from the archives.” you know, to get the listeners' ears properly tuned for what was to come. in fact, i think both jams go hand-in-hand (even though they were played a few weeks a part) due to their proximity with superball. so, maybe superball in general was the turning point for 3.0? ahh, not going there…

below is a snippet of the .net blog post from 7/1/2011 discussing the “from the archives” set. (bolded added for emphasis of intriguing, insightful, and foreshadowing take):

"Waves" - Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Bethel, NY - 5/27/11 (Tech Rehearsal)

Well, spank my ass and call me collect. Phish may well be more comfortable these days improvising when there's no crowd in front of them (see today's post-"Ginseng" soundcheck jam). This "Waves" is a full-blown 29-minute revelation, emphatically type-II, and undeniably the best known version of this song that Phish has ever played (including the iconic IT reading). This is one of those rare Phish jams in which Page prods the conversation to a darker place. When he does so the rest of the band nearly always follows, and they do so here to great effect. What follows is pure distilled hose. By the time we wake up tomorrow, this recording will be highly sought-after, and hopefully widely available, because it's a tearjerking gem that every fan must hear.

Hey, Kevin, how about a Live Bait of just soundchecks? Please?