Phish Summer Tour 2019: Dick’s Night 1 – Setlist, Recap & The Skinny

On Friday night, the four members of Phish came together again to open up their ninth consecutive annual Labor Day weekend run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado. To celebrate the band’s “silver anniversary” here at Dick’s, many audience members decked themselves out in silver sparkles and shimmer to bring an even brighter shine to the already beaming crowd. With the most recent summer tour show over a month and a half ago, the excitement levels were incredibly high and folks wanted to get these shows on the road. While some feared this run had the potential of “getting Curveball’d” because of reports of the plague around the venue and others getting mild Fenway-PTSD as thunder boomed overhead and lightning lit up the sky preshow, the moment those lights went down, all worries melted away.

After taking the stage, guitarist Trey Anastasio made light of the whole “Black Death” situation by asking “You all still alive out there?” before opening the show in an interesting manner, busting out only the second ever version of “Can’t Always Listen,” which closed a 142 show gap. Perhaps alluding to the plague-ridden prairie dogs, Trey sang “Watch my dog bark at his own shadow on the ground” as the band played on. Next up, a Dick’s favorite — “Free” — showed up, packing a very solid, bass-heavy punch with our puntastic frontman coyly almost not being able to get through his clever lyric change (“flea” instead of “free”) without cracking up. It’s always a good sign when the band seems to be having fun right out of the gates.

“No Men in No Man’s Land” followed, similarly highlighting Mike Gordon on bass before a double header of train referential songs — “555” and “Back on The Train.” While the former was fairly standard, the latter featured a very funky, plinko-y jam with “No Men in No Man’s Land” teases and a decently shreddy peak to bring it all back together. “Rift” kept the energy high, despite some messiness from Trey while “Steam” created a dark and dirty groove for the guitarist to rip over. Sticking with the groovy theme, “Undermind” had folks bopping about before the third train song of the set, “Train Song,” which left a little to be desired. “Wingsuit” came next, peaking strongly yet surprisingly not ending the set, as “Blaze On” rang through, delivering several peaks before closing out the set.

Heavy hitter “Everything’s Right” stepped up to the plate to open up set two and clocking in at nearly 18 minutes, it rose to the challenge, as the second longest “Everything’s Right” to date. While at first dark and daunting, after not too long, a happier, lighter melody broke through, allowing Trey to bring about some peaks before handing off the spotlight to keyboardist Page McConnell for a keys-led jam with Mike adding a layer of skunk to the mix.

Following that greatness, a nearly 24-minute epic “Mercury” (also the second longest version ever played of that song) took us through multiple diverse sections with Page peppering in some crazy sounding synth to bring us to a funky, dancey, very Plasma-esque groove. After this 40+ minutes of jamming, “Shade” provided some much needed breathing space before “Light” took us out there, leaving us lost in space for a bit before morphing into a “Party Time” jam which then, inarguably, led us into “Party Time” proper. With a little extra sauce on it, the jam set us up nicely for a perfectly placed and sultry “Sand.” A somewhat oddly positioned “What’s The Use?” came next, with its massive and powerful yet simultaneously gentle and delicate nature filling the stadium with magic. And then, the most perfect choice to close out the second set — “Harry Hood.” This “Hood” covered lots of ground while staying on track and ultimately, saw Trey bring it back around for some extended, joyous peaks.

The fun, silly and stadium-appropriate anthem of “Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S.” finished out the evening on a high note and sent the crowd into the night, buzzing with a feverish energy, looking forward to what the next two nights will have in store. While a bit of a slow start, this first night’s second set more than made up for whatever the first set lacked, and left folks feeling hopeful and optimistic about the next two nights.

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