Phish Revisits Past New Year’s Eve Gags At Madison Square Garden: Recap, Setlist & The Skinny

Phish closed the second set of their annual three-set New Year’s Eve concert at Madison Square Garden with “Backwards Down The Number Line,” a song about birthdays and shared histories and lifelong friendships. Featuring an inspired guitar solo from Trey Anastasio, it definitely was a fitting song to play: numbers are always an important part of any Phish show, but felt especially important as 2022 turned into 2023. Despite what the song says, those numbers don’t always fall neatly into a straight line, and the quartet celebrated the start of their 40th year bouncing this way and that around the numbers and years of their career.

Take the number 72. Saturday was the band’s somewhat-astounding 72nd show at Madison Square Garden. Earlier in the week, MSG staff confirmed that Phish has now tied none other than Sir Elton John for the second most concerts ever played at the storied venue (second only to Billy Joel). The audience walked out of the arena to John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” the words “when are you going to come down?” echoing around the hallowed round walls, a rhetorical question perhaps, considering what had just transpired.

What about the magic number 3? That was the number of times “Tweezer” reared its jam-ready head during the night, the show opening with the song to kick off the night and then going back to it two more times, using the well-worn riffs to tie together different sections of the setlist and ultimately kick off the final stanza of the show.

Before I go any further, if I may, a little bit about me, centered on the number 30. I saw my first Phish New Year’s Eve concert 30 years ago on 12/31/92. Earlier in the day, I reminisced by listening to the recording of the show (foreshadowing!). It was the first year they did any sort of “gag,” tour manager Brad Sands being dressed in a bird costume and hoisted up in a low-fi visual during “Fly Famous Mockingbird” to the audience’s delight. When the clock struck midnight on 12/31/1992, there was no balloon drop, instead confetti cannons filled the Matthews Arena in Boston with colored paper as Phish played “Auld Lang Syne.” At points during the first set on 12/31/2022, I felt like I was transported back to that night — I wrote the word “wormhole” in my notes, but I could have just as easily written “time machine.” The band played multiple songs in that first set that they also played on New Year’s 1992: “Rift” and “Cavern, “Mike’s Song” and “Weekapaug Groove.” Hearing those tunes played quite well in 2022 still transported me back 30 years as Phish songs can do. The “Weekapaug” stood out with a James-Brown-ian breakdown and a long sustained note from Anastasio that seemed to travel back in time to another era of Phish.

The centerpiece of last night’s second set was another number, that being “2001.” After a hot-flash rocking out with “Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S,” Phish’s version of “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” was more of a trip back 25 years ago, with 1997-style funk giving the band’s current-day focus a chance to go both groovy and experimental. “2001” is a time for the band to exert its boogie and for the crowd to turn the world’s most famous arena into a full-fledged dance party, but it’s also an opportunity for Chris Kuroda to really do his thing and he did not fail, kicking off a stretch of some of his most impressive work of the run that peaked during a lively “Kill Devil Falls.” Kuroda went into overdrive, matching the overhead LED’s with those ringing the upper concourse, a dizzying display of greens and blues while the band found their spark. To match the synchronized visuals, Anastasio and Page McConnell entered a nifty call and response, Jon Fishman joining in to create a this-is-what-space-sounds-like ambient texture that eventually coalesced on a major-key breakthrough that turned dark before Fishman delivered inventive rhythms, bringing them back to the “KDF” theme. It was a masterful bit of improvisation in a semi-surprising spot considering the rest of the setlist up to that point. It was a jam that was not too long and not too short, taking a focused arc and ending at just the right moment, one of many that characterized the entire MSG New Year’s Run. I have dubbed these 8-15ish minute Goldilocks songs as “mesojams,” not extended +20-minute macrojams and not quick-spurt microjams, but right in an in-between place that seemed to be a sweet spot for the foursome this holiday.

Read on after The Skinny for the rest of the recap and more.

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The setbreak between the second and third sets on New Year’s Eve may be the most electric of any in the Phish calendar and Saturday night was no different. “What are they going to do!?” was the question ringing in my ears as I roamed the concourse in anticipation. Someone randomly muttered “Did you see the Wilson volleyballs?” in my ear as he walked by without any further comment, adding to the surreality of the moment. The setbreak music played over the PA added more clues as well (find the tracklist!). As the rumors supported and contradicted each other, little did anyone realize that the band was taking the numbers of their 40 year career right off that line and scrambling them in ways few might have guessed.

The final set of 2022 started with a singing telegram delivered to the band as they entered their 40th year, the reminiscence of holidays past leading Trey to say “I wish I had a time machine!” From there, the band launched into a nearly-indescribable production that managed to combine nearly every single “gag” from New Year’s and Halloween from the last 30 years. Yes, there was a “mockingbird” hoisted above the crowd (was Brad Sands in the suit?), but also dancing hot dogs (from the 1994 New Year’s flying hot dog) and umbrellas (Petrichor) and aerialists (Steam) and stand-ins for the band representing their Halloween performances of Kasvot Vaxt and Sci-Fi Soldiers and more, so much more.

While these ghosts of Phish holidays past chaotically filled the stage, the band appropriately played “Ghost.” There’s no way to fully do the spectacle justice in words as Phish in-jokes intermingled in ways only true fans could probably fully appreciate, and even then, it was impossible to process every detail in real time. The “Ghost” theme of the set opened up to other musical throwbacks, a full gospel choir joining on stage to recreate the 1996 NYE performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Page and choir belting out the sing-along classic and transporting everyone back to Boston. Later “Ghost” transformed into “Jungle Boogie” with a brass band marching down the side of the floor and climbing on stage, the time machine now set for 2003. Are you following so far? The numbers went to 2002, 20 years in the past when the band returned from their hiatus and spoofed Tom Hanks in “Castaway,” “Wilson” making way to those aforementioned volleyballs being tossed into the crowd.

As the clock struck midnight, there was no balloon drop, instead confetti cannons filled Madison Square Garden with colored paper as Phish played “Auld Lang Syne,” just like back in 1992. That’s one powerful time machine! And then, because this is Phish we’re talking about, the bizarre, insider-baseball anarchy of the “gag” kicked up a notch, the band starting up “Carini” as the stage was filled with “naked dudes,” –- dancers in nude suits, swarming like pests, dancing along in pure dadaism, eventually forming a Rockette-style kickline as Page returned to New Year’s Eve 1997, singing “New York, New York,” just like he did on New Year’s Eve in the same room 25 years prior. Holy moly!

It seemed the only thing that could get them back to present day, now-2023 NYC was to go back to “Tweezer.” Let’s just say that if the NYE gag was in an episode of the TV show Lost, then “Tweezer” was the band’s Constant. I’m sure I was not the only one wondering what this Phish time machine could do as the set returned to “normal.” Had it gone back in time to the first set to find a missing extended “Tweezer” jam? As “Tweezer” morphed into “Prince Caspian,” had the time machine taken us back to Magnaball in August of 2015 with that magical “Tweezer” -> “Caspian” combo? Wherever we ended up on the number line, the night’s strongest section of playing came in the form of “Tweezer” > “Prince Caspian” > “Crosseyed And Painless” > “Piper.” This stretch featured multiple mesojams in the here-and-now. “Tweezer” number 3 feeling inspired, finding an ecstatic bliss jam with organ fills from McConnell, Anastasio major-keying happiest-place-on-earth vibes into the room. A stop-start count-off into “Crosseyed” built momentum, snapping the crowd to attention with sharp angular grooves and ferocious four-man playing. “Piper” featured a perfectly encapsulated mesojam, building to the best sustained peak of the night, a white-light white-knuckler that peaked once more at the right moment, just in case the first one didn’t take.

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And as I danced my first happy dances of the year, my mind taking in the songs and the jams and the energy of the room, I realized that every Phish song is a time machine of its own, transporting the listener to moments and places in their past and future, each song acting like a personalized wormhole. Each version, each jam connected to other versions across the time-space continuum, back to those played before and forward to those not yet conceived. It’s how each fan in the audience connects to their former and future selves.

Maybe “Crosseyed” takes you back to being in Atlanta on 10/31/96 or to the first time someone played you Remain In Light or a random road trip with friends. Maybe “Piper” transports to a show back in Europe 1997 or forward to some random weekend in New Orleans. Perhaps “Prince Caspian” momentarily reincarnates the Magnaball version of you or brings you back to the time when you fell in love with the “one.” Maybe “A Life Beyond A Dream” brings an old departed friend back to life for a few minutes, a shared laugh or tear, the lyrics “We share these moments/Till they melt away/To foggy memories/Of a distant day” resonating for you in different time-traveling ways than it does for the person next to you. A show closing “First Tube” might return you to that time years back when they ended an “Alaska”-containing New Year’s Eve third set with the same song in the same room and you remember how punchy it made you feel. Kinda amazing, eh?

I may be crazy, but I swear I heard Trey infuse the “First Tube” dance party with a couple riffs from “Down With Disease.” Did I imagine that? I am going to personally believe it happened, because it would be an especially clever throwback to New Year’s Eve 1993 when Phish debuted the “DWD” coda on an unsuspecting Worcester crowd at midnight.

Given the night’s rather epic proceedings, “Show of Life” felt like an appropriate encore and a perfect lead-in to the inevitable “Tweezer Reprise.” Personally, every single time I hear “Tweezer Reprise” I travel back to the first time I saw it played live, now more than 30 years ago. I remember it perfectly. I’m there. I’m 18 years old. I can feel my brain start to fuzz and my body wiggling with joy. Page is wailing on the organ as fog engulfs him, Mike Gordon‘s bass is booming off the gym walls, Trey is riffing unholy on his guitar, as Fishman, his feet so close I can literally touch them, drives relentlessly. The time machine has taken me there in the flesh and, for three minutes, as I smile and sweat and dance simultaneously in the New York City of 2023 and the Syracuse of 1992, the world is mine.

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