Phish Tour 2021 – Setlist, Recap & The Skinny: DICK’S

Phish opened their three-night run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Colorado on Friday night. The band, marking the 10th anniversary of their first Labor Day Weekend run at the venue, unfurled a show whose festivity, antics and extended jams exemplified what makes this place so special for Phish and their fans. Between a massive 22-minute opening set “Carini,” a phenomenal “Chalk Dust Torture” > “Beneath A Sea Of Stars” in the second set and a show-recapping mashup medley in “Plasma,” Friday night summed up why we all still love Dick’s after all these years.

.article-summary-wrap {
margin-top:25px;
}

.panel-article .list-posts > li {
border-style: dotted;
}
.panel-article .list-posts > li:last-of-type {
border-bottom-width:0;
}
.panel-article .list-posts .excerpt {
margin: 3px 0 0;
}
.panel-article .list-posts .btn-sm {
margin-top: 10px;
padding: 3px 10px;
}

Phish began the show not with any theatrics, nor with the setlist-spelling tricks they’ve employed in previous Dick’s runs, but with some straight ahead balls-to-the-wall rock. “46 Days” blazed; “Party Time” then threw some musical confetti on the crowd. “Steam” ushered in some slinky grooves, with Page McConnell‘s organ fills complementing Trey Anastasio‘s pull-offs perfectly. Jon Fishman propelled the band during “Timber (Jerry The Mule),” as Trey’s trills provided some lovely accents. “Yarmouth Road,” which filled the mid-first set Mike Gordon vocal slot, was followed by some banter in which Trey remarked, “Here we are 10 years later, still loving Dick’s.” The band proceeded to wipe (possibly fake) tears on a towel, throw it into the audience and tell them to pass it around to everyone in the crowd over the course of the weekend. A questionable idea during a pandemic!

A slew of heavy hitters followed: “Foam” — making a second appearance in a calendar year for the first time since 2014 — and then “Vultures” (complete with the “potato to the throat” lyric) and a typically strong “Pebbles and Marbles.” But the set’s centerpiece was its final song. The jam out of “Carini” covered ground as vast and diverse as that between California and Colorado. Over the course of 22 minutes, the band finished each other’s improvisatory sentences, rocked out, funked out and everything in between, before settling on a major key “hose” jam that reached a searing climax. They finished the song and took their bows, marking the first time “Carini” had ever closed a set.

Read on after The Skinny for the rest of the recap and more.

This summer has seen many second sets open with an amuse-bouche before the main musical course. Tonight’s appetite-whetter came in the form of a quick “Rise/Come Together.” Next was “A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing,” which included some pensive, psychedelic passages, but never settled on one direction, so Trey cut the song off for “Chalk Dust Torture.”

“Chalk Dust” has a storied past at Dick’s: as Scott Marks pointed out on Twitter, it’s been played during every one of the band’s weekends at the venue. And, like several of those versions, this one was an all-timer: the jam was full of subdued full-band interplay, multi-layered and intensely focused. They followed a decrescendo to near-silence, transitioning into a perfectly placed “Beneath A Sea of Stars.” Much like “What’s the Use” does, “Stars” leverages Phish’s increasing skill at creating captivating moments out of serenity and quiet. Near the end of the song’s jam, Mike improvised an impossibly beautiful bass line, which Trey briefly played with before starting “Light.”

“Light” included a brief but grooving jam that spotlighted Trey’s pedal board, before a seamless segue into “Plasma.” Trey seemed to realize something as he was singing “you always end up where you start,” then began reprising songs from earlier in the show: some “Party Time” vocals, the “46 Days” guitar line and “Chalk Dust Torture.” Mike and Page began singing the “run away” line from “A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing,” which led to a clever turn into “Runaway Jim.”

The energetic run on “Jim” was followed by a gorgeous set-closing “Slave to the Traffic Light.” The three-song encore began with a “Cavern” that was notable for Page McConnell’s Wurlitzer, which typically does not appear in the song. “Waste” was played to perfection, before the year’s first “Good Times Bad Times” closed the show with an exclamation point.

Phish returns to Dick’s tonight for show two of the three-night run. Livestreams are available through LivePhish.com.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTZsEkQL3qx/

!function ($) {

$(function(){ // document ready

$(‘.video-sticky’).stickybits(
{
stickyBitStickyOffset: getNavbarsHeight()
}
);

});

}(window.jQuery);

.video-content .panel-body {
padding-top:40px;
padding-bottom:40px;
}
.video-sticky {
z-index: 999;
background-color: #fcfcfc;
}
.honorable-mentions {
padding-left: 0;
margin-left: 1.375em;
}
.honorable-mentions li {
margin-bottom:5px;
}
.honorable-mentions .fa-li {
margin-top:-2px;
}

.video-summary-wrap table.glance-table.jambase-videos-songs-table{
background-color: #e2e8ef;
}

!function ($) {

$(function(){ // document ready

$(‘.video-sticky’).stickybits(
{
stickyBitStickyOffset: getNavbarsHeight()
}
);

});

}(window.jQuery);

.video-content .panel-body {
padding-top:40px;
padding-bottom:40px;
}
.video-sticky {
z-index: 999;
background-color: #fcfcfc;
}
.honorable-mentions {
padding-left: 0;
margin-left: 1.375em;
}
.honorable-mentions li {
margin-bottom:5px;
}
.honorable-mentions .fa-li {
margin-top:-2px;
}

.video-summary-wrap table.glance-table.jambase-videos-songs-table{
background-color: #e2e8ef;
}

Phish From The Road Photos

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTYKgVYHD95/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTYnk6LD_gp/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTYnpjBjFhr/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTZXjJ8nBVP/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTZXsPvH_d7/

Posters

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTXYSJNFCi5/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTXm_D2luw0/

Source: JamBase.com