Phish Keeps New Year’s Run 2023 Rolling At Madison Square Garden

Sometimes, your December 30th Phish show will have a 30-minute jam — and sometimes it won’t.

While last night was the latter, the band still delivered two energetic sets at Madison Square Garden in New York City filled with dense pockets of improv for the final two-set show of 2023, only continuing to build hype for tonight’s New Year’s Eve gag.

The band took the stage just after 8 p.m. and opened with “Backwards Down the Number Line” for just the second time ever and first since 2009, letting guitarist Trey Anastasio flex his well-practiced guitar chops early through a pleasant solo.

A standard first set “Wolfman’s Brother” came next and delivered a nice dosage of funk jamming, the jam’s slow and goopy pace getting a workout by Anastasio and bassist Mike Gordon‘s envelope filter and synth effects. “Turtle in the Clouds” kept the energy moving with the usual choreography routine before a bouncy “Undermind” — a song Anastasio seems to particularly enjoy playing.

“Kill Devil Falls” seemed poised to be our first big jam of the night, but was quickly abandoned in favour of a rare first-set “Fuego.” This song had an absolutely massive 2023, and the final version of the year did not disappoint, resulting in my personal jamming highlight of the show.

Moving from the song proper, keyboardist Page McConnell‘s Moog One synthesizer coupled with Anastasio’s dissonant soloing to sculpt a darker-toned Type II space while drummer Jon Fishman pushed a funky beat along. Things developed into some serious industrial funk tones with Anastasio’s ring modulator as McConnell continued to excel with weird bent synth lines. This psychedelia landed forcefully back to earth in a propulsive “Tweezer”-like zone led by Fish’s exemplary playing. McConnell worked the Wurlitzer electric piano underneath Anastasio’s insistent and growly rhythm guitar work. Momentum continued to build through more incredible funk jamming before a brief spell of a more ambient theme – a really amazing ambient theme – was bailed on in favor of “Train Song.”

“It’s Ice” and its difficult composition were executed cleanly by Anastasio, yet the jam was abandoned before it could even take off — a recent trend with this song that continues to puzzle me.

“Life Saving Gun” crashed in as the first-set closer — and it was AMAZING. Ever since the debut on July 30th of this year, it has shown excellent potential due to its aggressive groove and high energy – Fish’s fills throughout the song proper were on point. McConnell attacked his Clavinet as the jam began to take off, then switching to Moog as Fishman broke into a tighter funk vibe. Continuing the space-age sounds from the earlier “Fuego” through the charging jam, every band member locked in and flew through a series of massive peaks akin to a “First Tube” closer. “Life Saving Gun” was performed three times in 2023 and has only begun to show its potential — look for massive versions in 2024!

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

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I’m usually one for finding the good in any show, but I must be honest here — I was pretty disappointed in last night’s second set. Having high expectations at any Phish show is a bad idea since they’re so unpredictable but based on the previous five sets of the run so far, I was sure we were poised for at least one more monster jam, especially since it was December 30th. While the energy was great throughout the second frame (and I have absolutely seen worse sets), I found myself questioning several setlist choices and ripcords out of promising jams.

“The Well” led off the set, a promising enough pick for the “amuse bouche,” if you will, before the song we were all waiting for began – “Tweezer.”

The improv began promising enough, with a mellow McConnell-led section that soon began to lift off into a pretty major-key zone. Anastasio flew through an awesome peak and we began gearing up for the next segment of the jam before an abrupt — albeit smooth — segue into “Twist.” The band continued to play well through the Type I version, working in a smooth tease of “The Well” before wrapping up and heading into “Piper.”

This shorter jam packed a punch — more great envelope filter guitar among flirts with “Moby Dick” and “Tweezer” without fully teasing either song. Moving into “Golden Age” next, the jukeboxy second set dropped the funk of “2001,” eliciting spontaneous cheers from the crowd at numerous points in the song. This was much needed, at least for me — it reminded me that while my expectations for big jams weren’t met, the energy and vibe was enough to have an awesome time for the remainder of the show.

The second set closed with an energetic “Sigma Oasis” and a really well-played “David Bowie,” the cleanest version in recent memory.

For the encore, Phish teed up an emotional “Slave to the Traffic Light” and a “More” of epic energetic proportions. For so many people who claim to dislike this song, it was pretty great to see hands in the air and 20,000 voices singing along to the chorus.

While last night may not have met the high standards many of us have come to expect from 12/30 Phish shows, it was still a Phish show — and at the end of the day, that’s a hell of a lot better than pretty much anything else.

Tonight, we close out the run and 2023 with a three-set show – likely to include a very hyped gag that I can’t wait to witness. If you can’t make it tonight, grab a webcast from LivePhish, because I have a feeling you will not want to miss this!

Not a single Gamehendge song has been played yet …

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Livestreams for tonight’s Phish New Year’s Eve concert are available via LivePhish.com.

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