Phish Concludes Chicago 2017 Run: Recap, Setlist & The Skinny

The first stop of Phish Summer Tour 2017 came to a close on Sunday night with the band’s third of three shows at Huntington Bank Pavilion At Northerly Island in Chicago. In typical fashion, Phish delivered a more song-based first set and then went a more exploratory route for portions of the second set including a 20-minute “Carini” that stands as the highlight of the evening.

Phish kicked off the festivities with a rare “Possum” opener, which marked the Jeff Holdsworth-penned song’s first appearance at the beginning of a show since July 3, 2013. A double dose of bassist Mike Gordon singing lead continued with “555.” A short-but-sweet “Tube” and languid “Ocelot” were then followed by Page McConnell stepping up from the keyboards to front “Lawn Boy.” Up next was “Stash,” the tour’s first song off 1992’s A Picture Of Nectar. Though the foursome had some struggles with the composed section, they built Sunday’s “Stash” jam to a peak that seemed more powerful than usual.

More first set staples laid ahead in “The Line,” “Birds Of A Feather” and a cover of Son Seals’ “Funky Bitch.” Phish concluded the frame with a typically high-octane “Run Like An Antelope” filled with aggressive riffing from guitarist Trey Anastasio. Sunday’s opening stanza may not have contained adventurous song choices or jams, but did find the band members adding a bit of “extra mustard” to their respective parts throughout.

The quartet wasted no time diving into improv after setbreak as “Carini” was the call to begin the final set of this summer’s Chicago run. Phish had taken the song’s jam in two very different directions in recent years with some of the evil, minor-key variety and others exploring more blissful, major-key motifs. Sunday’s version saw the band alternate between both until landing on an anthemic, major-key chord progression Phish rode to glory. The bliss-filled peak of the “Carini” jam featured Trey and Page exchanging euphoric leads. Eventually, the beautiful improv melted into “Twenty Years Later.”

“Twenty Years Later” was ever-so-slightly extended and featured deliciously weird guitar work from Trey ahead of a move towards “Piper.” Phish went right back to full band jam mode as they blew through the composed part of “Piper” with Mike led the charge on the improv. The quartet explored vast terrain over the course of just ten minutes before making a move towards the debut of a song titled “Thread.”

Anastasio sang lead on “Thread,” which much more so than any other original debuted this summer had a proggy feel. “Thread” had multiple distinct segments and as @MikeHamad pointed out, featured “a 4/4 groove with a chopped off 16th note.” Up next was a “Bathtub Gin” that didn’t quite reach the heights of standout “Type I” versions of recent years. “Also Sprach Zarathrustra,” aka “2001,” contained a bit of start-stop jamming and even saw drummer Jon Fishman throw in a few vocal teases of James Brown’s “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine.” Fans used the opportunities between starts and stops to “woo!” to the band’s delight.

Phish brought Sunday’s second set to a close with a straight-forward rendition of rocker “Cavern.” The evening’s encore saw the Vermonters’ pull “Wilson” from Trey Anastasio’s The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday suite and send fans on their way with the Billy Breathes rocker “Character Zero.” Next up for the band on Tuesday is their first concert at Dayton, Ohio’s Ervin J. Nutter Center since the foursome’s epic December 7, 1997 performance at the venue.

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