Phish Concludes Summer Tour 2018 At Dick’s Sporting Goods Park – Recap, Setlist & The Skinny

There’s always a tinge of melancholy as the waning notes of Phish‘s encore from Sunday’s show at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park vaporize into the late-night mountain air. As it has for the past eight years, the show marked not only the end of summer tour but also the symbolic end of summer. One can wistfully reflect on the shows from Summer 2018, summers past, the festival that might have been, and the passing of time with yet another summer gone by, but on this Labor Day Weekend, it is impossible not to also be optimistically thinking about the future.

Phish is in a good place. The band members are all seemingly happy and healthy and Fall Tour is already right around the corner. Without antics and without having to say a single word, the band collectively made one of the loudest statements they’ve made in a long time. Song after song, set after set, and now show after show, there were hardly any wasted notes and the band demonstratively shouted that they still love playing together and that Dick’s is truly a special place and event for them.

“Soul Planet” kicked off the first set much in the grain of how things Phish has played all weekend – both comfortable and confident yet loose and not meandering at the same time. It is a great place when Phish gets in that zone and they were there the entire run. While it was the first time the song has appeared in the first set, it didn’t take the band long to settle into a comfortable little groove particularly with keyboardist Page McConnell‘s funky keyboard fills that segued quite nicely into a rollicking “Possum.” It is not usually so early in a first set that the band so effortlessly and slickly segues into a new song with the proverbial “full arrow” but this is a band that has been communicating telepathically all weekend.

In the first big bust out of the run, the band played Bob Marley’s much loved “Mellow Mood” next for the first time since Lake Tahoe in 2011 – a gap of over 250 shows. Mike Gordon‘s bass was particularly beefy throughout and despite the lack of recent performances, the band absolutely nailed it from start to finish. The mood didn’t stay mellow for long though, as guitarist Trey Anastasio ripped into a smoking, tight version of “Tube” as drummer Jon Fishman‘s beat pushed the entire band to an energetic, albeit quick, climax. The quick clip continued as the band marched right into Son Seal’s bluesy-rocker, “Funky Bitch.” First set staple, “Ocelot” followed. While Anastasio never seems to want to take “Ocelot” too far out, as usual, his solo built to a nice peak.

Mike Gordon’s “Keepin’ it Real,” which debuted earlier in the summer at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, was a quick little ditty before a trifecta of cuts from the band’s 1993 album, Rift. The trio of songs started with “My Friend, My Friend” that segued into a nicely played “Horn” and finally a frenetic and energetic “Maze” capped the run of “Rift” tunes, but not the set. The band still had Big Boat’s melancholic “Miss You” and a fiery “Run Like an Antelope” to close the hour-and-a-half long first set that was chock full of nicely executed songs.

“46 Days” kicked off the second set and after a quick romp through the song and some interesting percussive grooves, cowbell and a key-change, the band slinkily crept into jam titan “Tweezer” making it impossible to know when “46 Days” ended and when, or if, “Tweezer” had actually began. A spacy, intricate and slow-paced “pre-jam” was a dose of awesome, magical playing and a highlight of the weekend before the band even got into the song proper. As it often is, “Tweezer” was inspiring. The happy, blissful, major jam slowly built into a gallop that was fiercely played and kicked the entire arena into high gear before another slick segue into “Golden Age” with hints of “Manteca” tossed in for good measure. The slow pace of “Golden Age” was a nice compliment to the slow and trippy beginning of the “Tweezer” and a “Manteca-ish” pace. A nice funk groove ensued in the “Golden Age” jam with Gordon shining the brightest and the band sounding like they were playing in a smoke-filled club next to a New Orleans swamp. Like the “Tweezer” that came before it, this was a unique sounding “Golden Age” and not a cookie-cutter jam in the remotest stretch of the imagination. Again, the band tightly connected and communicating effortlessly for the first 40 minutes of the set that raced by in a now foggy blur.

After noodling around with a couple of ideas, including hints of “NICU,” the band settled on “Steam” which, like the first part of the set, also sounded unique. A quick take on “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing” followed before giving way to “Gotta Jibboo” which Trey had seemingly tried to segue into previously in the set. Good things come to those that wait and Trey made the “Jibboo” worth the wait with his signature soaring guitar, and flipping the script from the “Tweezer” and “Golden Age,” kicked up the pace rather than slowed it down.

The always high energy, and old-school tune “Suzy Greenberg” (with extra flourishes and interesting licks from Trey) and the straight fire “Character Zero” were back-to-back rockers that closed the set.

And for those waiting for a “statement” from the band, well, Trey finally delivered it: “Thanks everybody, thank you so much.”

Another Rift classic in the duo of “The Horse” and “Silent In The Morning” started off the encore while everyone was on the tip of their toes for the imminent “Tweezer Reprise” that everyone figured would close the show, the run and the summer tour. It is impossible for any band to pack more of a potent punch into such a short song but Phish manages to do it every time. And with that explosion of energy bursting into the night, we can again, reflect on the past and very much look forward to the Fall.

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