After their triumphant return to Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Phish played a one-off show at Xfinity Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut, on a sweltering Sunday evening that boasted temperatures in the 90s at ticket time with thick humidity to match. Hartford’s modest skyscrapers were in full view from lot and stood in stark contrast to bucolic Bethel, but Phish’s strong summer tour proved capable on adapting to different environments and gathering momentum on the way.
After an always-welcome “Cars Trucks Buses” opener, the band directly referenced the discomfort of the weather with “Breath and Burning” (the first version played since the February 23, 2020 concert in Mexico that — unbeknownst at the time — closed out the “3.0” era), and “The Final Hurrah,” in which guitarist Trey Anastasio took a big, juicy bite out of the line “taste the humidity.” “Free” then ushered in the first summer 2022 repeat of the evening, followed by bassist Mike Gordon‘s reggae composition “Yarmouth Road” and “Plasma.” Unlike the exploratory “Plasma” performed at the Xfinity Center, this one hewed close to the song’s tropical vibe and didn’t venture past the seven-minute mark.
Clearly, the band was saving its big first-set jam for “Sigma Oasis,” which followed. After the version performed earlier this year on May 28 at The Wharf Amphitheater in Orange Beach, Alabama, the Hartford “Sigma Oasis” became the second-longest version in the song’s brief history — featuring a long jam grounded in robust bass work by Mike Gordon and elegantly swinging drumming by Jon Fishman. After luxuriating in this deep pocket for several minutes, keyboardist Page McConnell switched from organ to his baby grand piano and helped bring the improvisation to a rollicking, Rolling Stones-like climax. Finally, “Limb by Limb” and “Sand” brought the set to a close. Coming at the 70-minute mark of the first set, nobody could have expected a lengthy “Sand,” but it still packed a serious punch in under 10 minutes.
Read on after The Skinny for the rest of the recap and more.
The Skinny
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The Setlist | |
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The Venue | |
Xfinity Theatre [See upcoming shows] | |
30,000 | |
6 shows | |
The Music | |
9 songs | |
9 songs | |
18 songs | |
2005 | |
14.78 [Gap chart] | |
None | |
Cars Trucks Buses, Breath And Burning, Yarmouth Road, A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing, Farmhouse | |
Breath And Burning LTP 02/23/2020 (60 Show Gap) | |
A Wave Of Hope 23:42 | |
Farmhouse 5:32 | |
Rift – 1, Billy Breathes – 3, The Story of the Ghost – 1, Farmhouse – 3, Undermind – 1, Joy – 1, Big Boat – 2, Kasvot Växt – 1, Sigma Oasis – 1, Misc. – 4, | |
The Rest | |
91° and Sunny at Showtime | |
Koa 1 | |
The second set began with “A Wave of Hope,” another one of the newer songs in the Phish repertoire. Trey’s fast-paced quarantine anthem sounds a bit like he wanted to write a Phish original with similar musical character to their cover of Velvet Underground’s “Rock and Roll,” and the band’s eagerness to help the song find its wings inspired the lengthiest version yet in Hartford — at over 23 minutes, it beat the 18 minute “A Wave a Hope” earlier this year at Orange Beach, Alabama, and one gets the sense Hartford won’t hold the record for long. Over the space of those 23 minutes, the jam went from a melodic cruise to something increasingly abstract and eventually to a dark, noisy space full of layered guitar effects, powerful drum rolls and a gnarly character that almost belied the relentless optimism of the lyrics.
They kept the momentum going with “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing,” which stretched out to more than 18 minutes of rock improvisation that was often reminiscent of the Grateful Dead in its blissfulness. At around the 13-minute mark, Trey stumbled into a slick little blues riff, grabbed it by the horns and rode it to the end of the song, building it up within the crescendo and testing out different ways to present it, like holding a jewel up to the light to discover new characteristics in it. At some point, the band must have discovered how easily this riff could fit into a “Blaze On” jam, as they slid fairly easily into that song and then rode the entire seamless medley into the sunset with an amient improvisational passage heavy on distorted effects.
As if suspecting they might have lost some of the audience during those mellow washes of sound, the show was heavy with crowd-pleasers the rest of the way. “The Wedge” featured some nice play by Trey at the end, and “Farmhouse” found Mike joining him for a calm duet. “Backwards Down the Number Line” and “Character Zero” closed the second set, and the band encored with the rare double-tube of “Tube” and “First Tube,” sending the audience out smiling.
It should be noted at this point that aside from “Tube,” the oldest song played this evening was “The Wedge.” It’s astonishing what the band is doing with newer material, and while the setlists may inspire cringes in crusted vets (full disclosure: present company included), the results often lead to rich and varied concerts. If you wanted to have your face melted by noise flowing from Trey’s effects pedals? You had “A Wave of Hope.” If you wanted a rock jam in which the band cycled through motifs and flexed their former-bar-band muscles with 40+ years of seasoning? You had “Sigma Oasis” and “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing.” For ambient cool-down sessions aglow with vibes, there was “Blaze On.” Most of the time, you got all of these flavors within a single jam; sometimes, all within a few minutes. That’s been one of the main characteristics of this consistent and strange summer tour so far.
Phish resumes the tour on Tuesday with the first of two nights at Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York. Livestreams are available via LivePhish.com.
Phish From The Road Photos
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Phish Tour 2022: Bethel Night 2 – Recap, Setlist & The Skinny
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Phish Tour 2022: Bethel Night 1 – Recap, Setlist & The Skinny
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Phish Tour 2022: The Mann Night 2 – Recap, Setlist & The Skinny
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Phish Tour 2022: The Mann Night 1 – Recap, Setlist & The Skinny
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Phish Tour 2022: Bangor – Setlist, Recap & The Skinny
