It’s been just over two weeks since Phish’s Mondegreen music festival in Delaware, the band’s 11th in their more than 40 year career, and a reunion of fans as the band’s 2024 summer tour wound down.
Spread out widely across the grounds of The Woodlands and Dover Motor Speedway, fans found themselves walking miles at a time to make it into the festival. And that’s before you’re dancing and driving your step count up and up. If you walked around 30 miles in those four days, you seem to fall in the median of the 40,000 attendees, based on anecdotal data.
Amid the huge jams and festival Phish that was heard over eight sets, there were plenty of non-musical highlights as well, particularly the art installations that peppered the festival area.
Over four days time, you’d have had the opportunity to see Luke Jerram’s Museum Of The Moon, where a 21-foot recreation of the Moon was suspended in mid-air, shining brightly through the trees at night. Just past the security checkpoint, you could see Lars Fisk’s Dodge Ball (a dodge caravan reimagined in the shape of a ball) and on the far side of the concert field, Henk Hofstra’s Eggcident installation.
There was the parallel reality of Nova Heat, Olivier Grossetête’s Cardboard City Hall (which had to be dismantled a day early on Saturday, due to expected high winds) and Leigh Fordham Hall, which doubled as a game show stage before and after Phish each day.
Standing out as the most memorable and unique was The Cerealist Bowl, which was a speakeasy that required a password, featuring costumed servers and strange performance art, uniquely, a man who sat in front of a cotton candy machine, slowly covered in stringy pink sugar fibers.
Centered in the festival field was The Heliosphere, a beacon of light that bumped late-night music post-Phish, and served as a way to find yourself in these expansive grounds, making the immense festival feel much smaller, manageable even.
There were of course some downsides, including fan complaints during and after the festival citing ADA shuttle issues and accommodations. Add in communication issues between production team and staff in the campgrounds (also with shuttles) and there were some things that could have been done better. But nothing on the music or art end was lacking at any point of the weekend.
Even though the threat of severe weather on the final day led to a single afternoon set of Phish instead of two evening sets, fans took this in stride, rejoiced at the idea of afternoon Phish at a festival (something scrapped for Mondegreen, but a staple of all 3.0 fests, Magnaball, Superball and Fest 8.
While some who lived proximate to Delaware and were home Sunday night, others had time to rest before they ventured home, as planned, on Monday. For a four day run, the idea of music ending a little earlier was welcome to some older fans, allowing time to soak in these few days of Phish before heading back to civilization.
While the severe weather never materialized, the band made a smart call to plan for safety, to ensure the music was not impacted, and informed fans with plenty of advance notice, a notification going out on the Mondegreen app around 5pm on Saturday evening.
Overall, the festival was a huge success by all standards, with fans left wondering how long until they return to Dover for Phish Festival #12.
Below, view photos from Phish’s Mondegreen via four NYS Music photographers, each with a different style and eye for the band over the four day music festival.
Derek Java
Brian Ferguson
Filip Zalewski
Taylor Weinberg
The post Phish’s Mondegreen: A Photo Essay appeared first on NYS Music.
