On the final night of 2020, Phish fans got their asses handed to them by the band in the long-awaited rematch of the storied band vs. audience chess rivalry of 1995. The long-awaited grudge match came along with a stream of 12/31/95 at Madison Square Garden—the night the initial chess competition came to a close exactly 25 years prior—billed as Dinner and a Rematch, a special edition of the band’s quarantine cooking and archival webcast series, Dinner and a Movie.
Related: Phish ‘Dinner And A Rematch’ Stream Companion: 12/31/95 & Chess Grudge Match [Watch]
Phish and the audience have a long, fraught history on the chess board. In late 1995, as Phish traveled around the country on an extensive tour, they initiated a new challenge with their fans: chess. Using a massive board behind the stage, the band played chess against the audience, a couple moves per show, throughout the tour. The first of two matches started on 9/30/95 at Shoreline Amphitheatre, where Page McConnell and a tour kid named Pooh played out the first few moves of the match as the band appropriately jammed on Jefferson Airplane‘s “White Rabbit”. The match continued on 10/2/95 in Seattle with some moves as the band played “Night Moves”. More moves came on Halloween in Chicago, and Trey Anastasio taunted the audience with some “We Are The Champions” teases during their move on 11/9/95 in Atlanta and finally won the first match in Tampa, FL on 11/15/95.
Of course, we couldn’t possibly recap this matchup better than Phish did themselves with the Dinner and a Rematch announcement video, which casts the Phish vs. Audience chess competition as a classic sports rivalry a la NFL Films. Take a few minutes and watch the clip below:
Phish Dinner and a Rematch Announcement Video
[Video: Phish]
In the end, the band prevailed in the New Year’s Eve 2020 Audience Chess grudge match. The band’s victory, however, didn’t come without a valiant showing from the fans. With more than 20,000 fans attempting to join the game, the Chess.com “Vote Chess” servers immediately crashed as soon as the game began. Jokes abounded on social media as the Chess.com team scrambled to put together a backup plan. By the time the first setbreak came, the game was on—in an altered format thanks to the onslaught of Phish fans that had knocked out the site.
Congrats — you crashed https://t.co/mbpRJHAV08’s servers!
We’re making a quick pivot, 2020 style, to live chess mode. We will be using a moderator from https://t.co/mbpRJHAV08 who will take feedback on the move within the chat and then complete the audience move.
— Phish (@phish) January 1, 2021
Sure, it wasn’t perfect. Sure, we lost the game. But despite the absence of a real New Year’s show, we still got to spend the evening having some quirky fun with Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon, and Page McConnell—and that, in itself, is a blessing. Watching Fishman get his head shaved live on the air was just a bonus. The music wasn’t half bad, either.
Good game, Phish. Next time, you’re going down.
Happy New Year! Thanks for a great game…until the next time! pic.twitter.com/anQT9Bleoq
— Phish (@phish) January 1, 2021
The post Phish Defeats Audience In 25-Year-Old Chess Rematch, Fish Shaves His Head On NYE [Watch] appeared first on L4LM.
