Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA Gets Birthday Shout Out From Phish At Folsom Field Finale

The throngs in the beer lines finally erupted just after 7:50 p.m. on Saturday night. “The inclement weather has passed,” a voice boomed over Folsom Field’s loudspeakers. “The concert will resume.”

After starting their first night in their new Colorado home at 8 p.m., Phish had let its fans know that the second night (and, subsequently, the third and last) would start precisely at 7:30 p.m., to keep “in the spirit of being good neighbors to the community,” an email read. But on Saturday night, people were still pressing through security lines at that time, kept out by dark clouds (if no rain) that had sidled up to the Flatirons and by massive outdoor video screens that announced the weather delay. The voice transformed complacency and confusion about when the show might start into an urgency — get your goods and find your seats, because the time was near.

In a yellow muumuu emblazoned with blue donuts, Jon Fishman and his cowbell snapped the band into “Buried Alive,” their traditional rain-delay mea culpa and preferred party-starter, at 8 p.m. There was no wait for “46 Days,” as Trey Anastasio kicked a series of pedals and drove headlong into its opening riff. A hint of unpacked restlessness radiated from the band, as if “Buried Alive” had just been the requisite preamble. The crowd responded accordingly — triumphant shout-alongs for the refrain, entire pockets of the bleachers doing some variation of the wave, a lot of floor dancing.

That pent-up feeling coursed through “Birds Of A Feather,” too, and the band started to sort through it during the second half of “Sigma Oasis,” as they tried to chart where it might lead. Early high runs from Mike Gordon suggested they wanted to open it up, but the quartet kept backing themselves into separate corners that split the stage in half, Anastasio and Page McConnell staking out a separate space from Fishman and Gordon.

Fishman aimed directly for the hi-hat snap of a mid-set “David Bowie,” as Anastasio reached for a drink and Gordon stared into the crowd, now disappearing into the dusk. McConnell commanded the song’s second half, his off-kilter piano chords like fingers into the ribs of the band, encouraging them to open up more. He pushed the song toward its finale, heavy playing perfectly balanced in both hands.

Momentum emerged, surprisingly, during “Evolve,” its straight-ahead start countered by a back half where Fishman and Anastasio locked into a balletic exchange. Still, it was Fishman and McConnell that confirmed their place as the standouts of the first set with “Blaze On.” Fishman kept pulling the rhythm a little wider, as if opening up pools in which McConnell might splash around — a mercurial organ line that rose and dove, an electric piano march that seemed like the very air beneath Anastasio’s solo. The entire band relished the “Blaze on” refrain at the end, a shared acknowledgement that a fine first set had now begun to coalesce, a sense they rode through “The Lizards.”

The headline, though, was the exit, “A Day In The Life.” Rather than indulge jingoistic holiday tropes, Phish used this particularly acerbic time in American history to cover two of Britain’s most famous bands — Led Zeppelin on the Fourth, The Beatles on the Fifth. It began as another McConnell showcase, of course, as he delivered the stark headlines of suicide and war that frame the song. But the real revelation came through the dissonant instrumentals, which Phish extended just long enough for teasing, less as outsized jams and more for their underserved reputation as a supreme noise band. McConnell anchored them to Earth as everything else sailed into the void, layers of dissonance clashing like sheet metal beneath Chris Kuroda’s spinning shapes and lines.

They kept the break short, knowing that threatening weather had pushed the start time and that the neighbors still might like to sleep at a reasonable hour. “Wilson” was the energetic shot in the arm, five minutes of playful crowd participation meant to pull everyone back into the fold. And if the goofy delirium of “Fuego” first suggested the same, its grander ambitions soon became clear. The band seesawed between languid psychedelic states and gnarled clavinet funk, with Gordon and Fishman dancing through the melodic structures that Anastasio and McConnell built.

If the shift into “My Friend, My Friend” felt natural, the shift back into “Fuego” was a complicated surprise, with the former song’s riff cutting against its successor’s refrain like a taunt. They pushed the return to “Fuego” far and wide, a deep-space scramble giving way to roadhouse heroics, with plenty of stops in far-flung borderlands, too. The segue into the night’s second cover, “Crosseyed And Painless,” was so patient that it didn’t first appear like a transition but rather perhaps the exploration of some novel facet of “Fuego.”

Fishman nailed the lead vocals, but Phish seemed to sprint through the song itself, as if they wanted to return as quickly as possible to the rapport they’d finally found. And they did, shuttling into an expansive instrumental that suggested taking Motorik for a ride on some bumpy Western highway. And yes, that was a bit of “Happy Birthday” early in “Crosseyed,” too, a gift for The RZA, who came to see the band on his birthday after Wu-Tang’s show in Denver on July 4.

“Happy birthday Rizz,” Fishman, the one member who didn’t get to pose for photos with him before the gig, exclaimed. Anastasio played the musical present, then added “Wu-Tang forever.”

The improvisational gates remained open for “Everything’s Right,” which soon drifted into a circular kosmische flutter before descending toward a miasmic roar. Kuroda’s blue lights suggested a high alpine storm closing in, as if the wind were blowing snow across a mountain. Why not lift, then, into another bit of happiness?

It’s become cliché to tease “More” and its positivity platitudes since its debut a decade ago, but the song’s radiance felt hard-won and real coming out of those unruly fields of drone and din, chopped rhythms and vocal whoops and coming into this moment of weird history. If “A Day In the Life” held up an old mirror to the present, “More” demanded we at least try to imagine a future.

“Slave to the Traffic Light” delivered a roar for the end, its sustained coda giving Anastasio the chance to express three days and three decades of gratitude for Boulder. “Thank y’all so much for having us. Let’s not wait so long,” he said. “Last time we were here was 1993. Can we come back sooner, please? Thank you.”

The exit before the encore was brief, too, out of ostensible concern for the curfew. “Buffalo Bill” was an apt if unforeseen start, not only because the Wild West celebrity is buried 25 miles due south but also because it offers so many options forward. It could go, for instance, into “Weekapaug Groove,” “Twist,” or “Mike’s Song,” none of which had been played during this debut Folsom stand. They rode instead into a triumphant and frenetic “Harry Hood,” a total eruption of joy enhanced by the rhythmic tension Phish progressively ratcheted as they catapulted toward the end.

For months, questions loomed about how Folsom would handle Phish, how the football field would replace Dick’s after so many strong runs there. Would its size be overwhelming? Would it be strange to skip a Sunday show, since there wouldn’t be one? Without that massive Commerce City parking lot, how would the scene feel? The third and final night at Folsom was Phish’s least magnetic performance there this year, as they poured distant and recent past into a funnel and struggled for a second to find a flow. But by the time the house lights went up for the last time after six unexpected and often-revelatory sets, it felt clear that Phish might just have found a new Rocky Mountain home.

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Livestream Phish’s Summer Tour 2025 concerts via LivePhish.com.

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