Phish Orange Beach Amphitheater At The Wharf | Setlist & Skinny

By Scott Bernstein Aug 2, 2014 • 6:00 am PDT

Phish Orange Beach Amphitheater At The Wharf | Setlist & Skinny
Of the 14 venues Phish visits over the course of their current tour, only two are new to the band. The quartet played their first shows on Randall’s Island in New York City last month and on Friday night they made their debut at the 9,500-capacity Amphitheater at the Wharf in Orange Beach, AL. Friday’s show featured a handful of highlights including a well-jammed, multi-faceted “Down With Disease” and a spirited “Run Like An Antelope” that contained plenty of “Boogie On Reggae Woman” teases.

Phish’s first set in Orange Beach, like most on this tour, was a song-based affair without much in the way of jamming. The opening stanza’s career-spanning setlist included material from eight of the band’s 12 studio albums. Guitarist Trey Anastasio took an opportunity after “555” to mention how much of that song was recorded nearby in Muscle Shoals and how much it meant for the band to perform in the area. He then implored local residents to come visit Vermont, adding “winter is nice, if you guys want to come for skiing.” The evening’s lone tour debut came in the form of a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “The Ballad of Curtis Loew,” which was last played on October 19, 2013 -a span of 36 shows.

The improvisational centerpiece of the show was a 20-minute “Down With Disease” that opened the second set. Drummer Jon Fishman didn’t alter the beat too wildly from the start of the jam through a transition into “Theme From The Bottom,” but his band mates still explored lots of terrain within that solid beat including plenty of the major-key blissful improvisation we’ve seen so much of this tour. Anastasio was mostly content to focus on rhythm work throughout “Disease,” though he did lead the jam’s lone climax with pretty trilling before returning to a more balls-out rock milieu to end the workout. “Theme” was followed by the first “Tweezer” since Sunday night’s “Tweezerfest”. Bassist Mike Gordon shined on the more subdued Orange Beach “Tweezer” as he prodded Anastasio and keyboardist Page McConnell to move beyond the song’s standard rock progression into a ethereal space for a few standout minutes of improv that gave way to “Prince Caspian.” Up next was a double-dose of Fuego material in “Waiting All Night” and the album’s title track, which continued a trend of Phish performing “Fuego” in every city they’ve visited this summer. Just as the “Fuego” jam was about to begin in earnest, Anastasio played the “Tweezer” riff and his band mates followed along for a return to the “Tweezer” jam with Fishman chanting “Rolling.” This fun little “Tweezer”/”Fuego” mashup didn’t last long and quickly gave way to “Slave To The Traffic Light” by way of a well-executed segue. From there, Phish treated fans to a string of two covers in a row for the first time this tour. An uneventful romp through “Also Sprach Zarathrustra,” aka “2001,” was followed by a cover of “Boogie On Reggae Woman” that was used to launch the set-closing “Run Like An Antelope.” The transition between the Stevie Wonder cover and the Lawn Boy track sprawled well into the set-closer as “Antelope” featured call backs to “Boogie On” at nearly every turn including in the “Marco Esquandolas” section. “Run Like An Antelope” also contained a Trey-led jam on the theme song to mid ’60s tv show The Munsters. A rote encore of “Bouncing Around The Room” and “Tweezer Reprise” brought the evening to a close. Phish heads to Oak Mountain in Pelham, AL for the penultimate show of the tour on Saturday night.

Setlist…

[via Phish.net]

  • Venue Type / Capacity: Outdoor Amphitheater / 9,500
  • Previous Shows at Venue: Tonight was the first Phish show at Amphitheater at the Wharf
  • Number Of Songs / Length – First Set: 12 / 7:47 p.m. -9:06 p.m. (79 Minutes)
  • Number Of Songs / Length – Second Set & Encore: 12 / 9:31 p.m. -11:06 p.m. (95 Minutes)
  • Total Number of Songs / Covers / Originals: 24 / 3 / 21
  • Biggest Bustout: The Ballad Of Curtis Loew -36 Shows (LTP – 10/19/2013)
  • Average Song Vintage: 1996
  • Debuts: N/A
  • Tour Debuts: The Ballad Of Curtis Loew
  • Total Number Of Different Songs Phish Has Played This Tour: 142
  • Weather: 80° and Mostly Cloudy at show time
  • Average Song Gap: 4.17
  • The Spread: Lawn Boy -2, Picture Of Nectar -3, Rift -1, Hoist -2, Billy Breathes -4, Story Of The Ghost -1, Farmhouse -1, Round Room -1, Fuego -4, Misc. -2, Covers -3
  • Longest LivePhish Track / Shortest LivePhish Track: Down With Disease 20:16 / Bouncing Around The Room 3:41
  • Audio: Live Phish

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