It was an evening of connections last night in Mansfield, MA where Phish finished its first weekend run of the band’s 2024 summer tour. In addition to the first performance of Undermind rarity “The Connection” in five years, the evening saw Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Page McConnell, and Mike Gordon connect for some of the most significant and satisfying improvisation of the weekend.
A triumphant opening “Free” was immediately overshadowed by the on-deck “A Wave of Hope”, which quickly devolved into minimalist space. In its three-year existence, “A Wave of Hope” has consistently proved itself a vehicle for launching the band into the deep end of improvisation early in the show. The 16-minute telling set a tone for the evening as Phish continued to dive into the depths with the ensuing “Bathtub Gin”. The first three songs of the show took up a combined total of 40 minutes, numbers that rightfully inspired a wave of hope for the evening ahead.
Phish — “Free” [Pro-Shot] — 7/21/24
Almost as if the previous jam was uninterrupted, “Bathtub Gin” quickly transported to the same spacey region as “A Wave of Hope”, launched by Page’s Wurlitzer and sparing lead patterns from Trey. The band’s next six songs would take almost as much time as the first three as the quartet rifled through quick hits on “Wilson”, “The Connection”, a modest “Thread”, “Joy”, a compact “Runaway Jim”, and a textured “Life Saving Gun”. Of note, the set-closer marked the seventh song from the band’s newly released album, Evolve, to appear during the tour-opening run.
“The Connection”, not seen since December 7th, 2019 in Charleston, SC on the band’s no-repeat fall tour, marked one of pre-breakup Phish’s closest attempts at a radio-friendly single. The studio version is a bit banal and sing-songy without much depth, though it did foreshadow the group’s disbandment a couple months later with the lyrics, “Then I change my direction / One foot follows the other / One foot follows something new.” A beautiful piano run from Page made the feel-good number more interesting beyond the bust-out, and the band followed it up by dusting off the first “Thread” since September 1st, 2021 at Shoreline Amphitheatre. The dark, multi-part prog composition from Sigma Oasis is reminiscent of some of the broodier tracks from the band’s latest disc like “Oblivion”, “Pillow Jets”, “Monsters”, or Mike’s “Human Nature“—suggesting the “Love and light” may be fading away for some grittier songwriting. However, “Thread” was immediately juxtaposed with the inherent joy of, well, “Joy”.
Phish — “The Connection” — 7/21/24 — Partial Video
[Video: digidigit]
On paper alone, Sunday’s second set is a thing of beauty. After “The Squirming Coil” opened a second set for the first time in 25 years, Phish set off on an exemplary run of jams through one favorite after another, beginning with “Tweezer”. The band held onto the coordinates from the spacey improv of set one, emblematic of how locked-in the members were with one another the entire night (compared to some minor miscommunications between Trey and Fishman on Saturday). This “Tweezer” was patient, building from plodding, feeling-out-the-room ambiance to effects-laden, interstellar travel from Trey to a cascading build pushed by Fishman’s snares and Page’s grand piano.
Phish — “The Squirming Coil” [Pro-Shot] — 7/21/24
Elsewhere, the compositional microcosm of “Scents and Subtle Sounds” checked off many of the boxes that have kept Phish fans coming back for 40 years—the wonky instrumentation in the intro, nonsensical sing-along lyrics, moments of subdued beauty, and an extended outro that began at a delicate crawl and ended in a full-on sprint. An ethereal ending to the jam brought on the sanctioned woo-ing of “Twist”. Though there were plenty of roaring Type I moments throughout Sunday’s show, some of the most thrilling passages came when Phish took its foot off the gas and locked into the communicative groupthink that has sustained the band for nearly half a century.
“The Orange Whip” himself, Jon Fishman, got his time to shine on a cover of Talking Heads‘ “Crosseyed and Painless”. Deep improv took a back seat to full-throttle jamming on the Remain in Light favorite, Fishman flooring it for 14 minutes straight before a climactic “Slave to the Traffic Light” capped the final set of the weekend. Opting to return for the encore—instead of skipping it like Trey had suggested the night before—Phish delivered a one-two punch of catharsis with “Possum” into the inevitable “Tweezer Reprise”.
Phish summer tour is officially underway, heading next to Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT for a sold-out run on Tuesday and Wednesday. Find tickets and tour dates on the band’s website. Subscribe to LivePhish+ to listen to every show on the tour and browse an archive of live Phish recordings. To order your LivePhish webcasts for any of the band’s upcoming summer shows, head here. [Note: Live For Live Music is a LivePhish affiliate. Ordering your subscription or purchasing an audio download via the links on this page helps support our work covering Phish and the world of live music as a whole. Thanks for reading!]
Below, check out the setlist and some fan-shot videos from Sunday’s show via YouTube user digidigit. Revisit Live For Live Music‘s nightly coverage of the Mansfield run: Friday | Saturday.
Phish — “A Wave Of Hope” — 7/21/24
Setlist [via Phish.net] | Phish | Xfinity Center | Mansfield, MA | 7/21/24
Set One: Free, A Wave of Hope, Bathtub Gin > Wilson, The Connection, Thread, Joy, Runaway Jim > Life Saving Gun
Set Two: The Squirming Coil > Tweezer > Scents and Subtle Sounds > Twist > Crosseyed and Painless > Slave to the Traffic Light
Encore: Possum > Tweezer Reprise
Notes: This show featured two bustouts: The Connection (last played December 7, 2019, or 151 shows) and Thread (last played September 1, 2021, or 123 shows).
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