Thanks @FACTSAREUSELESS @AlbanyYEM and @melt_the_tek9 for real interesting thoughts. I'm in the camp that this particular Dicks3 was super meandering on the jam front.

@FACTSAREUSELESS you totally hit it when you said age is no excuse especially given their almost unique-in-the-history-of-music advantage when it comes to control over locales, scheduling, consistent positive fan input, etc. And being 50ish player - man, they SHOULD be peaking right now with only comparatively slight declines in physical dexterity and so many years of learning under the belt. But does that mean we should expect greatness at every turn. Hells no. What makes this great is no matter how hot they are playing the unpredictability will NEVER disappear. There are always a bounty of predictable (Trey took too long an afternoon jog and his knee hurts, Fish didn't practice quite enough the week before tour, Page caught a wittle sniffle from his kid, Mike's brand new Finnish designed poly-fiber trenchcoat is causing an unexpected mild itching between the shoulder blades) and unpredictable (the un-quantifyable interpersonal communication shit) factors at play.

Oh, and whatever Page was working on in the offseason turned out to be pure gold this tour.

@AlbanyYEM I totally hear you that short clusters seem so much for difficult to pull off. They have come out swinging for a bunch of opening runs recently but usually those end up pal-ing in comparison to the rest of the run.

@melt_the_tek9 - love what you are saying here. But compartmentalization is by design in a lot of cases I think. So many amazing Possum Trey solos this tour, he calls the tune 'cause he has been feeling awesome soloing over it! And - agree Trey's chord playing has been beefing up and it really helps things out. This exploratory chord style and crazy voicings have roots in the past couple years of Maze, Birds, stuff like that. Moving that kind of work into open jams is a huge step forward!

(thanks - this is my first post here after reading awhile so good to meet all you folks and thanks for coxing me in with such great words and thoughts).