From the second the band took the stage on Friday (April 18) to kick off its spring tour in Seattle till it waved goodbye to followers in San Francisco on Wednesday (April 23) evening, Phish by no means performed the identical music twice.
That’s 5 exhibits at three totally different venues totaling some 15 hours in music and staggering 88 songs carried out — with not one single repeat.
Superb.
No surprise Phans adore going to a number of Phish exhibits, none of which ever boast the identical setlist. The depth of this group’s live performance repertoire is past spectacular and its all made doable by the power of Phish to show any given music into an enormous spotlight on any given evening. That’s the ability of improvisational music on full show.
Having spent a goodly period of time peddling more moderen materials through the first 4 nights of the tour — with just about uniformly wonderful outcomes — Phish was in full-on greatest-hits oldies mode through the second of two sold-out nights on the Invoice Graham Civic. (Learn our overview of Evening 1 right here.)
In fact, “greatest hits” is an odd selection of phrases to make use of at the side of Phish, on condition that the Vermont jam band — that includes Trey Anastasio on guitar and lead vocals, Mike Gordon on bass, Jon Fishman on drums and Web page McConnell on keys — actually has none within the conventional sense (i.e., gross sales numbers, radio play). However we’re utilizing time period to imply fan favorites oldies, which, on this case, we’ll outline as something that got here on or earlier than 2000’s “Farmhouse.”
These 2025 Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame nominees — who at some point prior had realized that that they had formally crushed the Fan Vote over the likes of Mariah Carey, Oasis, White Stripes and Oasis — had been swinging for the fences from the second they took the stage proper after 8 p.m., opening with a glistening 12-minute “Simple” that was something however after which jamming proper right into a muscular “Punch You In the Eye,” the funk-driven “Gumbo” and the far-reaching “Reba.”
Gordon and Anastasio did their little synchronized dance routines throughout “Punch You In the Eye,” then mixed with Fishman and McConnell to take “Gumbo” right into a mellow and spacey orbit. Anastasio delivered some actually transcendent guitar work through the practically 14-minute model of “Reba,” which closed with its common whistle jam.
These 4 songs alone stretched practically 50 minutes of stage time.
Stopping briefly for the relative new music “The Well” (from Phish’s wonderful newest disc, “Evolve”), the group ventured proper again into fan favourite territory and closed the roughly 75-minute first set with the explosive doubleheader of “David Bowie” and “Character Zero.”
After the 35-or-so minute break, Phish was again in motion — benefitting from the very best gentle present within the enterprise — and ignited the second set with a fiery “Sample In the Jar” and earlier than rambling into “Tweezer” territory. The latter had everybody in the home buzzing with the hope that the band would then select to incorporate the music’s famed decision — “Tweezer Reprise,” aka the Phish fanbase’s most generally cherished music — within the encore.
But, the unique “Tweezer” itself was nothing to sneeze at — crammed with a number of the most impressed jamming of the evening and clocking in at simply over a half an hour all by its lonesome.
The group’s standard cowl of the Speaking Heads’ “Crosseyed and Painless” was sandwiched by the Anastasio solo minimize “Lonely Trip” and the “Evolve” quantity “Pillow Jets,” properly organising a virtually 20-minute “You Enjoy Myself” to shut the second set.
Phish then returned to complete up the present — and the San Francisco stand — with a two-song encore. No, it didn’t embody “Tweezer Reprise” (Phans will almost definitely have wait till this weekend’s three Hollywood Bowl exhibits for that). As an alternative, it kicked off with mesmerizingly stunning “Velvet Sea” after which modified course 180-degrees for a triumphant finale with the high-energy rocker “First Tube.”
Setlist:
1. “Simple”2. “Punch You in the Eye”3. “Gumbo”4. “Reba”5. “The Well”6. “David Bowie”7. “Character Zero”Set 2:8. “Sample in a Jar”9. “Tweezer”10. “Lonely Trip”11. “Crosseyed and Painless”12. “Pillow Jets”13. “You Enjoy Myself”Encore:14. “Wading in the Velvet Sea”15. “First Tube”
Initially Printed: April 24, 2025 at 8:58 AM PDT
