The bit that got me mad was this:
" For a while we toyed with the idea of attempting White as Snow tonight and they played Drowning Man again at sound check, but in the end we felt like it would probably be better to go with a set which would keep the mood up, so put in New Year's Day instead."
Now, I know you love NYD more than I do, but... How can they not see the vast gap between playing a song they've never done live before and one they've done a billion times?!? Was that the reason they wussed out with that bullshit about keeping the mood up? No, they just got scared and played it safe.
*fumes impotently*
This all just ties back to that baffling opinion that the set takes half an hour to recover from Drowning Man that was aired after the Barcelona rehearsals. WTF. No, you just play Streets or Bad or Beautiful Day, and whatever boorish people in the audience were lost by WAS/DM are straight back into the mood of it.