Wildin’ Out In Washington: Phish Kicks Off Run At The Gorge – Recap, Setlist & The Skinny

After a rare, four-night mid-tour break Phish returned to action on Friday night. The foursome continued summer tour at one of the world’s most beautiful venues, The Gorge in George, Washington. Phish made their debut at The Gorge in 1997 and Friday marked the group’s 15th show at the majestic venue with the 14 past performances all featuring tons of highlights. Would Night One of the 2016 run of The Gorge continue that trend? Yes, a debut of a song Trey called “the greatest ever written” and a wild second set with teases around every corner made Friday’s show a winner.

Phish showed they weren’t fooling around by opening with “Tweezer” for the first time since May 27, 2011. The quartet patiently built to the jam to a rolling boil. Tons of arms of concertgoers thrust in the air as the band worked the fiery Type I “Tweezer” to its climax. A high-energy “Sample In A Jar” was followed by the evening’s first and only bust out, a cover of The Dillards’ “The Old Home Place.” The bluegrass favorite was last played on June 28, 2012 – a span of 155 shows. “Wolfman’s Brother” has been a staple of Phish performances at The Gorge as with tonight’s rendition the band has played the Hoist rocker at seven out of eight runs at the venue (1998 was the only exception). Friday’s “Wolfman’s” picked up where “Tweezer” left off, another smoking Type I rendition.

A fun and funky “Undermind” and “Kill Devil Falls” completed a one-two punch of songs debuted early in 2009 after an old school start to the first set. More frenetic shredding from Trey was found on both “Undermind” and “Kill Devil Falls.” Keyboardist Page McConnell took a moment to welcome everyone to The Gorge as he began belting “Lawn Boy.” Trey shouted out Jon Fishman saying he loves his drumming on “Lawn Boy” and then goaded him into debuting a new song. Anastasio called it “the greatest song ever written.” With that came a short original dubbed “Ass Handed” featuring the line “you get your ass handed to you everyday” sung pretty much over and over again by Fish a capella followed by the quartet jamming on a Led Zeppelin-esque riff for 30 seconds or so. The guitarist then announced it was time for another Jon Fishman song and out came “Party Time.” Despite Bernie Sanders endorsing Hillary Clinton this past week, Fish still wore his new frock with images of the Vermont Senator. The 14-song set, which featured tunes from eight different studio albums, concluded with “The Line,” the recently debuted “Tide Turns,” a well-played “Rift” and a typically powerful “Walls Of The Cave.”

Watch the Phish debut of Jon Fishman’s “Ass Handed”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRdyQRAefcc

Both sets on Friday had potent openers as Phish came out of the gates for the second set with a cover of Talking Heads’ “Crosseyed & Painless.” Fish was in a particularly frisky mood as he delivered the lyrics, while Trey strung together one powerful riff after another to start the jam. Both Page and bassist Mike Gordon led a move outside “Crosseyed’s” normal boundaries into a pretty major key which the quartet used to transition into “What’s The Use?” It was a beautiful scene at The Gorge as Phish delicately and patiently worked through the instrumental. “No Men In No Man’s Land” was up next and gave Anastasio a chance to use the MuTron effect he added to his rig starting with last summer’s Fare Thee Well shows. As the jam hit a peak, Trey started singing the “Still Waiting” refrain from “Crosseyed” with Mike and Page joining in. McConnell wailed away on clavinet, while Anastasio played one nasty lick after another as the foursome kept “No Man’s” at a fast tempo throughout the jam before the guitarist threw in the main “Stash” lick.

Phish eventually started “Stash” for real and it would be the first second set version of the song since Superball in 2011, which was the only other second set “Stash” of 3.0. As Trey began his solo he threw in teases of “Crosseyed” and “What’s The Use?” The guitarist was on fire and played with a number of dirty tones throughout the course of “Stash.” Up next was “Ghost” and it didn’t take long for Anastasio to work “Crosseyed” teases into the intro. He also threw in a few “What’s The Use?” and “No Men In No Man’s Land” teases for good measure. Trey then continued a trend seen throughout the tour when he headed to Fish’s rig to play Marimba Lumina. Page and Mike quickly followed and all four members of Phish pounded on the kit as the drummer sang choruses of “Crosseyed” and “No Men.” When the foursome returned to their regular positions they jammed on “No Men In No Man’s Land” for a few measures ahead of Trey initiating a segue into “Chalk Dust Torture.”

The tease-heavy second set saw more “No Men” teases in “Chalk Dust.” Trey also teased “Crosseyed” between verses and later played with “What’s The Use?” during a “Chalk Dust” jam that didn’t stray far from the song’s normal boundaries but was incredibly wild with all the teases thrown in. An interesting, dissonant end to “Chalk Dust” gave way to “Meatstick.” While “Meatstick” didn’t go Type II, Page and Trey used unusual tones to make for an abnormal version of the song. Up next was “Also Sprach Zarathrustra,” aka “2001.” Though “Meatstick” didn’t feature any teases, Phish fit “Crosseyed” and “No Men In No Man’s Land” teases into “2001.”

Page was the one to start singing “Crosseyed & Painless” during the “Cavern” that closed the set. All told six songs in the closing stanza featured “Crosseyed” teases which matches a record previously set on August 17, 2011 at UIC Pavilion in Chicago. At the end of “Cavern” Trey added another “What’s The use” tease to put an exclamation mark on the set. The quartet kicked off the encore with the tour debut of “Makisupa Policeman.” For the keyword Trey said “I like this song a lot…pot.” The encore continued with a rare “Wilson” as part of an encore, the first time that’s happened since June 17, 2011. “Wilson” may have been played in honor of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson (read here for more on Phish/Russell Wilson connection). The evening came to a close with a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times.” Phish returns to The Gorge on Saturday night. A webcast is available via LivePhish.com.

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