Phish returned to Mohegan Sun Arena on Wednesday for the second night of the band’s second-ever run at the Uncasville, CT casino—featuring a notable nod to the first night of the band’s first-ever run at the Uncasville, CT casino five years ago.
Back in 2019, at Phish’s first-ever Mohegan Sun show, Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Jon Fishman, and Page McConnell surprised diligent setlist scholars with a rare rendition of “Weekapaug Groove” not preceded by its longtime running mate, “Mike’s Song”. On Wednesday, they closed the loop on that five-year-old missing “Mike’s”—and, in another feat of setlist nerdery, rearranged the two parts of a long-running, cheesesteak-inspired setlist “pairing” (“The Curtain” and its instrumental “With” variable)—to accent the homage.
If you’re a Phish setlist nerd like me, shenanigans like this are always an exciting twist. If you’re not, I apologize for the headache you have right now after reading that. Head’s up: It’s only going to get worse from here.
Phish – “AC/DC Bag”, “The Curtain” (partial) [Pro-Shot] – 7/24/24
After opening the show with “AC/DC Bag”, the band dove into “The Curtain”, the longtime first-set staple that has become a rarity in the 2020s, for just the third time in the last five years. Now, “The Curtain” is a weird one when it comes to setlist documentation. As the song’s history page on phish.net so eloquently explains, “As anyone who has ever ordered a cheesesteak in Philly will tell you, the most important question is ‘With or Without?’ (or, in the local parlance, ‘Wit or Wit-Out?’). The same is true of ‘The Curtain’. In Philly, ‘With’ or ‘Without’ refer to onions; for ‘The Curtain’, ‘With’ refers to an intricate 10 minute jam (and, as any true cheesesteak aficionado will tell you, it’s better ‘With’).”
So, in Phish setlist parlance, we have “The Curtain” (read: without instrumental section) and “The Curtain With” (read: with instrumental section), though “With” isn’t exactly its own song outside of “The Curtain”—except for the composed part of “With” that has been a part of “Rift” for more than 30 years. Or the way it was used on Wednesday. As the late Harris Wittels would say, “…sorry.”
Related: Phish Portends A Summer ’24 Golden Age With Wide-Ranging Mohegan Sun Opener [Photos/Videos]
Renditions of “The Curtain” sans “With” are uncommon enough that fans at Mohegan were content to high-five their buddies, say, “Nice,” and go on enjoying a strong first set featuring a Chilling, Thrilling, whirring, funky, delay-laced “Steam”, an explosive “Maze”, an eventually satisfying “Farmhouse”, a plucky “Mull” with a Trey-added “Tequila” floater, a serene “Reba”, and a thick, pulsating “Most Events Aren’t Planned” mic-drop.
Phish – “Reba”, “Most Events Aren’t Planned” (Vida Blue) – 7/24/24
[Video: digidigit]
Set two opened with a “Blaze On” that quickly spiraled into spookiness before pooling into an enormous, howling, show-highlight “Mike’s Song”. Perhaps, some thought, this was the one that got away in 2019.
Here’s where the setlist stuff gets nerdy again: While the end of “Mike’s” briefly touched on “I Am Hydrogen”, the instrumental that typically bridges the “Mikes” > “Weekapaug Groove” gap, the band quickly abandoned that route in favor of a different instrumental: the “With” jam that had eluded “The Curtain” in set one. “Weekapaug” dutifully followed from there, ballooning to yet another hair-raising climax behind red-hot Mike-Page interplay and writhing DNA strands of light from above.
Alright, let’s check the scorecard: After playing “Groove” without “Mike’s” in this room five summers ago, Phish borrowed “With” from “The Curtain” to underline the fact that this time, Connecticut was getting “Mike’s” > “With” > “Groove”. As I write this, people are disagreeing about the proper notation of this anomaly on the internet (dot net has it one way, Phish From The Road has another), but this feels too on-the-nose to be coincidental… right? When the nerdery is this convoluted, you can never be certain. But I’m pretty sure. Nice…
Phish – “Mike’s Song” > “With” > “Weekapaug Groove” – 7/24/24
[Video: digidigit]
While the energy never quite returned to “Mike’s With Groove” levels as Phish continued on to “Leaves”, “Fuego”, “Lonely Trip”, and “More”, each selection was impressively rendered. A climactic “Fluffhead” capped the frame on a particularly high note, while an encore two-fer of “A Life Beyond The Dream” and “First Tube” offered a balanced mix of emotion and elation to round out the Mohegan run.
Phish – “Fuego” > “Lonely Trip” – 7/24/24
[Video: digidigit]
The lasting headline from the evening will likely go to the setlist-wandering “With” and the 2019 “Mike’s Groove” redemption, but the first set’s “Steam”/”Maze” and “Most Events Aren’t Planned” and the second set’s “Blaze On”, “Mike’s > With > Groove”, “Fuego”, and “Fluffhead” are all worth re-listens as fans make their way from Uncasville, CT to East Troy, WI for the band’s Friday–Sunday run at Alpine Valley Music Theatre. For a full list of upcoming Phish tour dates, head here.
Fans can follow along with the tour from home with nightly video webcasts via LivePhish. To order your webcasts for any of the band’s upcoming summer shows or purchase a discounted full-tour webcast package, head here. [Note: Live For Live Music is a LivePhish affiliate. Ordering your webcast via the links on this page helps support our work covering Phish and the world of live music as a whole. Thanks for reading!]
Setlist [via phish.net/LivePhish]: Phish | Mohegan Sun Arena | Uncasville, CT | 7/24/24
Set One: AC/DC Bag > The Curtain > Steam, Maze, Farmhouse, Mull, Reba, Most Events Aren’t Planned
Set Two: Blaze On > Mike’s Song > “With” > Weekapaug Groove, Leaves, Fuego > Lonely Trip > More, Fluffhead
Encore: A Life Beyond The Dream, First Tube
Notes: Trey teased Tequila during Mull. The Curtain With was performed in two parts: “The Curtain” after AC/DC Bag and the “With” segment after Mike’s Song. The latter portion began as I Am Hydrogen.
The post A Mike’s “With” Groove Redemption: Phish Serves Up Setlist Nerd Gold In CT [Videos] appeared first on L4LM.
