Phish Turns 3rd Manchester Show Into ‘Tweezer’ Fest

The old saying of never miss a Sunday show reared its head last night, as Phish closed out the first weekend of their 2025 Summer Tour with their third straight show at SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. Temperatures were hot all weekend and Sunday was no different, but at least before the show started you could cool off inside the arena, which many took advantage of, and would need, since as soon as the show started it was hot inside all night as well.

“Runaway Jim” kicked off the first set with short jam before giving way to “Oblivion” that saw keyboardist Page McConnell come in with some wild Moog fills during the first verse, eventually taking charge of the first small jam. The whole band was pretty patient during the second jam, almost giving the music a floating quality, and almost left the confines of a Type I jam with some excellent playing by guitarist Trey Anastasio.

Most of the rest of the set saw all four firing on all cylinders through a number of their more complex songs, showing mid-tour form just three days in. The crowd showed them as much love as they could, acknowledging the effort the quartet was putting in. It felt as if the band wanted to show the crowd how rehearsed they are for the tour.

“The Curtain (With)” was the first test with the opening portion played flawlessly and Trey’s vocals sounding fantastic. Jon Fishman, in what would be a reoccurring theme all night, was all over his drum kit throwing in wild fill after wild fill. Once the “(With)” portion hit, the crowd roared in approval.

“Llama” was brought out next, at breakneck speed, and it felt like a nod to tours of New England’s past with two older songs being played in a small older Minor League Hockey arena. The only major breather of the night, “Fast Enough For You,” came next, followed by “The Wedge,” which had some more great soaring Trey licks and wonderful work by bassist Mike Gordon, who seemed to be turned up in the mix a bit, which is never a bad thing.

“Pebbles and Marbles,” the only 2.0 song of the night, was up next and the high octane jam took off quickly, but unfortunately didn’t last very long, but it was a fantastic version considering they don’t play it that often.

The highlight of the first frame was the “My Friend, My Friend” into “Egg In A Hole” that came after “Pebbles.” It seemed as if it was going to be a short version, but once Trey kept repeating the word “knife” they switched to a Type II jam before you could blink. They toyed with what kind of jam they wanted to present and lighting designer Chris Kuroda pushed his rig between dark and light as they decided, before going full rainbow as the band settled on bliss momentarily.

Fishman drove this jam all over the place, eventually leading to a collective peak around the nine-minute mark, but then quickly turn left and ooze into pure sludge. What came out of the sludge was an unexpected “Egg In A Hole” that showed off the pure evil type of jam that is usually reserved for the second set. “Fluffhead,” one of the most complex songs of the catalog, came next and brought the 90-minute set to a close.

“Axilla II” stormed out of the gates to open the second frame, but there wasn’t much of a jam as Trey wanted to get into “Tweezer” quickly. After the song portion was finished the jam began with a brightly textured hue. It never reached true bliss, but it was on it’s way there with some excellent interplay between Mike and Trey. At the five-minute mark there was a big turn as it began to get more rocking, before Page took over and had some wonderful Moog and Wurlitzer back and forths with Trey pushing the jam to the next section.

Kuroda during all of this was moving all of the tresses wildly above the band creating a kaleidoscope of color throughout the venue. Phish began to build toward a peak around the 14-minute mark, but held it back as Trey began a riff that the others eventually latched onto and it was as though they created a song within a song right there in front of the crowd as they vamped for a few minutes. Another peak began around minute 17, causing the crowd to erupt, as Kuroda moved the lights in such a way that it looked like there was colorful streaks of lightning happening all around the musicians on stage. Mike added to the effect by dropping a few bass bombs.

Before the group hit a full peak though they pulled it back again and slowly drew the jam into murkiness behind Page’s playing and Fishman slowing the tempo to a crawl. It felt as if we might get a “No Quarter” as they broke the 20 minute barrier, but instead “Mercury” came out of the jam. After the marimba lumina portion, the foursome found a pure bliss jam together with some excellent soloing by Trey that Fishman synched up to perfectly around the 14-minute mark.

Out of nowhere, a minute or so later the “Tweezer” riff came back and the screams from the crowd were wild. Page went to work immediately on the Nord as Fishman dropped out and simply nodded at him before annihilating his kit. Page continued to lead into the outer reaches of space for a few minutes until Mike made took over about three minutes in with some wild work up and down the bass. This pushed toward the peak they never truly hit the first time around, but once again they veered left and wound up at “Pillow Jets.”

The jam stayed in the song’s structure but was incredibly dark and murky. Page once again pushed the jam to a peak, but the lyrics returned soon after. Instead of ending the song, everyone pushed through and once again we were hit with “Tweezer” and it was safe to say we were finally festing here. This third time came out of the gates with an uplifting jam before diving straight back into the murky waters of the “Pillow Jets” jam. Once down there, Mike and Trey used a lot of effect pedals and the jam became spacious with room for each member to add little fills or odd noises and was by far the weirdest of the three “Tweezer” jams.

The energy built quickly once they reached the farthest reaches of space, feeling very reminiscent of the SuperBall IX “Storage Jam.” Trey brought it back to the ground with the “Tweezer” riff around the seven-minute mark that the band latched on to. Once there they finally built to and hit the peak that the whole set was based around, giving the SNHU Arena the release it had been looking for, before going back to the riff and slowing it down, like many 1990s versions.

“Golgi Apparatus” closed the set before a quick one-two punch of “Bug” and “Tweezer Reprise” finished the in the encore. The crowd let the band have it after the encore with a deafening roar.

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The quartet returns to Pittsburgh’s Petersen Events Center on Tuesday, June 24. Livestreams of the one-off in Pittsburgh and the rest of Phish’s Summer Tour 2025 concerts are available through LivePhish.com.

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