Even though it had been almost two weeks since Phish last performed at Mondegreen, the band stepped onto the stage at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park limber and ready to play on Thursday. The 2024 Phish Dick’s kickoff outside Denver saw an emphasis on tracks from the band’s new album Evolve, with a record-setting “Pillow Jets” in particular highlighting the jam prowess of the setlist additions.
The Labor Day weekend run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park has become a time-honored tradition for Phish and its fans. In 2022, Dick’s edged out The Front as Phish’s second most-played venue behind Madison Square Garden. As Phish.net pointed out in its exhaustive “By the Numbers” pre-run statistical rundown, throughout 12 annual runs and 45 shows the band had shockingly never played Talking Heads‘ “Cities” at Dick’s in Commerce City. That is, not until the opening of Thursday’s show, with the old-school cover from the band’s earliest days starting the run on a historic note from the beginning.
“Cities” dropped into a funky jam that was anything but a warmup exercise. Everyone instinctively knew his place, as Trey Anastasio gave his wah-wah pedal a workout for some “Cow Funk”-reminiscent vamping, Page McConnell laid down structural grand piano chords, Mike Gordon churned below with subaqueous bass patterns, and Jon Fishman was the glue that held it all together with rolls across his snares and toms. Six minutes into the concert, Phish was already in mid-show form.
Phish — “Cities” (Talking Heads) [Pro-Shot] — 8/29/24
“Cities” was only the beginning, as Gordo’s aquatic basslines bubbled to the surface for the intro to “Down with Disease”. Coming out of the roaring song structure, Fishman gradually pulled back the throttle to ease the tempo while Page got to work setting a starry ambiance with his Rhodes. Shimmering notes from the electric piano danced around Trey’s sparing leads for a jam that embodied the vast emptiness of space. It felt like the band could’ve floated there for some time, until Trey began to pick up speed and led the band back into Earth’s atmosphere by way of the song’s ending coda.
After nearly half an hour of continuous jamming, Phish took its first stoppage in play of the evening. This brought on the pensive intro to Evolve‘s “Ether Edge”, the first of three songs from Phish’s latest album to appear in Thursday’s show. Together, these three songs took up about one-quarter of the concert’s total runtime. And that’s the real story of Thursday’s Dick’s opener: Phish enthusiastically bringing its newest compositions into one of the band’s most time-honored traditions.
The sing-song structure of “Ether Edge” gave way to a jubilant jam, highlighted by playful runs up Page’s grand piano. The ensuing improvisation was an exercise in patience, Trey’s snarling distorted leads pushing the song in a more menacing direction than the sanguine lyrics would indicate. This “Ether Edge” had legs and with multiple unique sections in the jam, felt a lot longer than its total 13-minute runtime. After “Ether Edge”, Phish put Evolve on the back burner until the second set, tearing through a traditional fast “Llama” next before diving into “Theme from the Bottom”.
“Sugar Shack” pushed the first set along and into an extended 11-minute amble through “Ocelot”. Just seven songs into the show, Phish had already played four songs over ten minutes long, with eight of the show’s 16 songs all clocking in at double-digit minutes. Surprisingly, the set-closing “Blaze On” that followed “Golgi Apparatus” was not among them.
Keeping up the funky openers, Phish started the second set with the story of the “Ghost”. The ensuing improv opened up into a similar sonic setting as the spacey jam from “Down with Disease”, with Trey sending notes echoing around the home of the Colorado Rapids professional soccer team as he cycled through his effects pedals. “Ghost” hung in that astral atmosphere until, once again, Anastasio’s aggressive playing dialed up the intensity into the song’s conclusion just as it did in “Disease” and Phish capped the song at 15 minutes.
Phish — “Ghost” [Pro-Shot] — 8/29/24
Though “A Wave of Hope” has consistently proven itself a reliable means for exploring extended jams, Thursday’s version of the Evolve track was held to a brief eight minutes. It did, however, begin a three-song series of newer Phish songs with the ensuing “Sigma Oasis” and “Pillow Jets” taking up the bulk of the set and serving as the undisputed highlight. In total, the pairing would clock in at over 40 minutes as the title track to Phish’s 2020 album and a now well-established jam vehicle “passed the torch” as they say to the emerging fan favorite.
In “Sigma Oasis”, an enjoyable bit of Type I improv rounded a corner into uncharted territory by way of Trey’s favored low-octave pedal, forming the basis of an undulating vamp that heard Anastasio and Gordon working in tandem on the low end—one of the jam’s two distinct sections. After rising to the surface in the latter half of the 19-minute telling, “Sigma Oasis” gave way to “Pillow Jets” which has become a new live favorite for its penchant to send the band into “evil Phish” territory. Thursday’s telling did not disappoint, as the noise rock section sent Phish tumbling through effects-laden cacophony, brooding soundscapes, on-the-fly communal melodies, and deep dark space which ultimately led into an all-too-brief six-minute “2001”. This “Pillow Jets” blew past previous versions to become the longest in the band’s history, easily edging out the 15-minute version from Sphere that previously held the record. Historically, the song has lasted anywhere from seven to 15 minutes, with the Dick’s version wrecking that curve.
Phish — “2001” (Richard Strauss) — 8/29/24
[Video: Alan Gofberg]
Finally, it was up to “Harry Hood” to close the show, and he was more than up to the task with a patient, delicate mid-section that ultimately built to a cathartic crescendo. After an 86-minute first set and 87-minute second set, Phish had just a few minutes left on the clock and made good use of them with a rocking “Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S.” one-and-done encore.
If you’re at Dick’s, be sure to check out Live For Live Music‘s full schedule of late-night programming at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom. Head here for more details and tickets. If you can’t make it to Commerce City, tune in to Phish’s nightly performances via LivePhish. [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!].
Check out a gallery of images from night one of the 2024 Phish Dick’s run courtesy of photographer Kit Tincher.
Setlist: Phish | Dick’s Sporting Goods Park | Commerce City, CO | 8/29/24
Set One: Cities (Talking Heads) > Down with Disease, Ether Edge > Llama, Theme From the Bottom, Sugar Shack, Ocelot, Golgi Apparatus > Blaze On
Set Two: Ghost, A Wave of Hope > Sigma Oasis, Pillow Jets > Also Sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss) > Harry Hood
Encore: Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S.
During the soundcheck, Mike teased Passing Through in the first Jam and quoted Weekapaug Groove in the second Jam. The soundcheck’s Ocelot was under a minute long and instrumental.
The post Phish Greets Commerce City With First “Cities” In Dick’s History To Kick Off 2024 Run [Photos/Videos] appeared first on L4LM.
