Phish closed out their five-night run at New York’s Madison Square Garden yesterday, celebrating their 1996 era with an instant-classic show that contained several notable bust outs and extended jams. The year 1996 was a transitional period for Phish, as they settled into arenas around the country and continued to move from the once tightly woven compositions that defined their earlier works to a more traditional, heartfelt style of songwriting. Beginning with their fall tour and their Halloween cover of Talking Heads’ highly rhythmic Remain in Light LP, Phish also began to explore a more groove-driven approach to improvisation in late 1996, hinting at the cow-funk style they would fully embrace the following year. Like at previous MSG shows, Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon were also dressed in cloths from the era when they took the stage yesterday.
Last night’s concert kicked off with an a cappella performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which Phish originally started covering in the fall of 1996 when they were asked to sing the national anthem before a series of professional basketball games. The tune remained in Phish’s repertoire for years, though they had not performed it live since a December 28, 2016, stop at MSG, during a run where they opened each show with a different a cappella ditty.
From there, the group launched into the always welcome “McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters,” from the Gamehendge rock opera, before segueing into “Axilla (Part II).” That tune, which appears on 1994’s Hoist, contained one of the multi-night stand’s rare conceptual flubs—the band actually started by playing its sibling song “Axilla,” but after Trey Anastasio noted that they had already run through that number earlier in the residency, Phish quickly pivoted to “Axilla (Part II),” even though the band didn’t play that cut in 1996 (or at all between 1995-2021). “Axilla (Part II)” then segued into the Junta epic “Esther,” which enjoyed several notable plays in 1996 before slipping out of regular rotation, and another multi-part composition from the mid-1990s, “Guyute.” As a wink to an era when Phish began incorporating acoustic music into their repertoire both live and in the studio, Anastasio then strapped on an acoustic guitar for their first take on “Talk,” a seldom-played Billy Breathes selection that debuted in 1996, since October 13, 2023. It was also only their third reading of the tender original since the band’s 2009 reunion. Anastasio remained on acoustic for the wistful Hoist ballad “If I Could,” another song that fell out of regular rotation after 1996, and Jimi Hendrix’s “Bold As Love,” a tune Phish has covered with varying degrees of frequency since the 1980s and played once in 1996.
From there, Phish offered fans of their more mythological epics a treat, launching into another white whale, the heavily composed pairing of Gamehendge chestnuts “Colonel Forbin's Ascent” and “Fly Famous Mockingbird.” At one point, Anastasio looked as if he was going to lean into one of “Colonel Forbin's Ascent”’s once-frequent narration segments but he quickly shied away as the song segued into “Fly Famous Mockingbird.” Then, the group busted out their oratory epic “Harpua” for the first time since the December 31, 2013, MSG show where they performed Gamehendge in its entirety. This version of the oft-requested cut looked back on Phish’s first major camping festival, 1996’s Clifford Ball, where the band famously did not complete “Harpua” after a fan jumped on stage and interrupted a gag they had set up involving a stunt plane. (They did, however, complete that “Harpua” a year later during their second festival, The Great Went.) In his long narration yesterday, Anastasio picked up where the Clifford Ball story left off and used the opportunity to recount many of the memorable moments in Phish history the central "Harpua" character Jimmy purportedly missed during the past 30 years, including their Big Cypress festival, the “Mike says no” joke from the IT festival, the famed “Tahoe Tweezer” and Anastasio getting struck on a platform during the 2019-2020 New Year’s Eve gag. In total, “Harpua” and “Colonel Forbin's Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird” have been played less than 10 times in the same show.
Just as Phish moved from a more refined, structured style to a looser, more adventurous approach to jamming throughout 1996, when the Vermont Quartet returned for their second set they showed off their improvisational prowess. The segment opened with an over 36-minute, unfinished take on their signature tune “You Enjoy Myself” that uncoiled into a funky jam that found Anastasio adding some auxiliary percussion, before segueing into the emotive Billy Breathes ballad “Waste,” which originally debuted during a surprise 1996 show in Woodstock, NY. The theatrics continued after that: Anastasio moved behind the drum kit and Jon Fishman utilized his vacuum during a fun cover Richard Wright’s “I Didn't Know.” And, after Anastasio noted Elvis Presley’s famed appearance at MSG, the band busted out their humorous, Fishman-led take on the King’s hit “Suspicious Minds” for the first time since their December 6, 1996, Las Vegas debut. (Phish covered “Suspicious Minds” frequently in the mid 1990s, but it had been on the shelf for almost 30 years, though their geographically appropriate December 6, 1996, version is well documented on the Vegas ’96 live album). They capped off “Suspicious Minds” with the run’s only repeat, the Fishman-vignette coda “Hold Your Head Up.” However, one could make a case that last night’s version was, in fact, the bookend for the version from the opening night of the run.
Showcasing the roots of their ’90s rhythmic style of jamming, through the lens of their current approach, Phish then launched into an over 30-minute take on Talking Heads’ “Crosseyed and Painless,” a Remain in Light track that has grown into a Phish showstopper since Halloween 1996. Anastasio utilized his percussion kit once again as well, and “Crosseyed” segued into a set-closing take on “Character Zero,” a Billy Breathes single Phish debuted at the beforementioned Woodstock show.
For the encore, Anastasio returned to the stage with a custom-made Knicks jersey that had his name and the number 96 on the back and the group then ran through their version of The Beatles’ singular “A Day in the Life,” which was frequently played in the mid-1990s before disappearing for several years. They then wrapped-up the cheekily nostalgic run with “Backwards Down the Number Line,” a song Anastasio and Mike Gordon debuted in 2008 and Phish recorded in 2009. Though it was the only selection from the entire five-show residency that stemmed from a different period, the song’s lyrics fit the conceptual theme and wrapped up the run nicely.
Phish will return to Boston’s Fenway Park tomorrow and Saturday.
Here’s a look at last night’s setlist via Phish.net
Wednesday, July 29, Madison Square Garden, NY
Set I: The Star-Spangled Banner, McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters > Axilla (Part II)[1] > Esther, Guyute, Talk[2], If I Could[2], Bold As Love, Colonel Forbin's Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird, Harpua
Set II: You Enjoy Myself[3] > Waste, I Didn't Know[4] > Suspicious Minds >, Crosseyed and Painless[3] > Character Zero
E: A Day in the Life, Backwards Down the Number Line
[1] Lyrics restarted.
[2] Trey on acoustic.
[3] Trey on mini drum kit.
[4] Unfinished.
This show was Phish's 96th performance at Madison Square Garden, featured a setlist composed of songs from the band's 1996 era sans the show-closing Backwards Down the Number Line, Trey and Mike wearing outfits from 1996, and multiple bustouts: The Star-Spangled Banner (last played December 28, 2016, or 362 shows), Talk (last played October 13, 2023, or 122 shows), Harpua (last played December 31, 2023, or 116 shows), and Suspicious Minds (last played December 6, 1996, or 1,021 shows). The venue was lit in Knicks orange and.blue prior to the show. In Axilla (Part II), Trey began the lyrics to part I, said "wait, we did that one already", and then sang part II. Talk and If I Could featured Trey on acoustic guitar. Harpua's narration focused on Jimmy stuck in the clouds for 30 years since Clifford Ball's unfinished version, all of the Phish moments he had missed, and Jimmy eventually being freed from the clouds and returning as an old man. You Enjoy Myself and Crosseyed featured Trey on mini drum kit. Trey introduced Fish as Elvis Presley in I Didn't Know (which was unfinished). Fish teased Buffalo Bill and quoted Suspicious Minds in Crosseyed. Trey played the encore in an Anastasio 96 Knicks jersey.
