Phish Tour 2022: Bethel Night 2 – Recap, Setlist & The Skinny

Coming into last night’s second of two shows at Bethel Woods, Phish continued to show there’s no shake-off-the-rust in this tour, which has featured gem after gem within imperfect, but full-figured sets rich with interesting turns and delectable flows. Saturday’s concert moved at a curious pace showcasing the many faces of Phish, from a mellow, leisurely first set to a balls-out second frame and bonkers encore segment.

What still gets me, every time for at least the past few years of this golden current era of Phish, is the unfaked joy in what they’re doing. The boyos want to be here. And, no, not just in a sense of obligation; you hear them tackle a set in 2022, you fully believe, no matter how far back you go on the Phish continuum, that they can find new riches in much-explored music, create new pathways in and out of their classic ideas, write and deliver new stuff that moves the whole thing they have forward, and continue to scale new peaks long after they’ve accomplished more, and become more influential, than 99% of musicians that have or will ever pick up an instrument. They’ve been a going concern for almost 40 years now, and they’re still doing this? Like this? That’s a heavy legacy to follow a band around, but Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Jon Fishman, and Page McConnell play — and on some nights, absolutely crush — like the end of these riches will never come.

The first set moved right into a smooth-edged, folksy summer night tone with “Evening Song,” easing in with understated melodies and a smudgy solo from Trey. “Turtle in the Clouds” came next, with the band milking its jittery pace and free-associative lyrics, Trey and Mike doing a choreographed dance as Page pecked away on synths, then giving way to a more introspective solo from the guitarist. “Vultures” turned up the dial some — how about those “potato to the throat” lyric variations! — and Fishman got the nod to bring it home as the rest of the band grooved alongside him.

A quick, unremarkable “My Sweet One” romp led next into “Undermind,” which is the kind of Phish song that can lilt or plod depending entirely on the mood of the evening and how the band chooses to approach it. This one was a plodder, though not without its charms, and as Fish gave it some extra “pow” and sound effects, it jammed a bit, including with apparent “Mountain Jam” riffing, though the band never quite left the territory of “do we feel like jamming this out, so let’s light-jam it a bit til we decide what kind of shape it’ll take.”

The quartet instead committed to a classic, old-school Phish ballad, “Fast Enough For You,” whose elegant, unhurried pacing permeated the “Divided Sky” to follow—not un-energetic, more a slow, shimmery, “we’ll get there when we get there” version that held close to the night’s thus-far undramatic, warm-air-and-mellow-moods kind of approach. “Suzy Greenberg” followed, and had its moments in an eased-into way, with Page’s nimble piano dancing helping spark the energy and steer the band toward “Ghost,” which grooved itself along into a syrupy jam segment that suddenly sprouted wings and snapped itself skyward toward a screaming, guitar-driven peak.

Read on after The Skinny for the rest of the recap and more.

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Set two began with a strolling “Prince Caspian” true to the night’s thus-far mellow/steady balance, but soon picked things up with a rippling, jiggly “Crosseyed and Painless.” The Talking Heads cover shoved into exploration an intention-packed set of jams that soon shifted keys, becoming the tender “Miss You.”

From there? Whew, from there! The band shifted into a hall-of-mirrors “Set Your Soul Free” that became 20+ minutes of movement, energy, and musical cartwheels, returning to the “Crosseyed” theme a few times, and, as it licked “Prince Caspian” once more and eventually turned (from there!) into “Twist,” toed the line between lovably gnarly and distractedly eclectic — a mindblowing kaleidoscope from a band so well versed in how to turn one.

What’ll be missed in some of the discussion about the epicness of this “Twist” was how economic its delivery actually was: 12-or-so minutes that felt like triple that. It wasn’t all, either; the band dropped like a rollercoaster high-dive from that shapeshifting “Twist” into a cathartic “Carini.” I can’t recall when the song’s “evil” energy last married so perfectly with an end-of-show-I-wanna-boogie moment of purge. They let the beast out and it was ferocious.

Seizing the energy of a thoroughly exhausted crowd that felt like it had seen the many faces of Phish in a three-hour arc, the band returned for a five-song encore that somehow recreated the whole pacing of the evening before it, from the mellow-’n’-tender (a classic “The Horse” > “Silent in the Morning” pairing) to a Gordon-led radical tonal shift (hello, “Fuck Your Face!”) to Fishman-driven carnival rock (“Buffalo Bill”) and finally (near the site of the 1969 Woodstock Festival) the band dove into Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire,” in which Trey used his skronky solo to play the entirety of “The Star Spangled Banner” and dial up the joyful crazy for a few more tingling minutes. (The notes bracket around the “Bill” / “Fire” segment on my pad reads a scribble that I think says “wild circus shit”—inscrutable to most, but what it felt like.)

Phish arrives in Hartford tonight and once again, livestreams are available via LivePhish.com. You know what they say about Sunday shows, but seven in already, they’ve all been un-missable on this tour.

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