Phish Tour 2021 – Setlist, Recap & The Skinny: Rogers, Arkansas

Phish tour started on Wednesday at Walmart Amphitheater in Rogers, Arkansas with a show heavy on setlist staples 521 days after the band’s last performance. The four-piece’s 2020 Summer Tour was postponed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the itinerary was rejiggered leaving Phish’s Arkansas debut as the tour opener after it was originally supposed to come 11 shows into the run.

Little did the group know when the rescheduled tour was announced that COVID-19 cases would surge once more with Wednesday’s show taking place in a county that is among the biggest hot spots for average daily cases in the U.S. Phish addressed the situation by issuing a statement just hours before taking the stage. “Being vaccinated AND wearing a mask at these shows is the best way you can show love and respect for our incredible community,” wrote the band as part of their note.

It was finally the music that became the story when Phish emerged to perform before a capacity crowd at 7:24 p.m. local time. LD Chris Kuroda has plenty of new toys in his rig for the tour and the powerful beams made the light show a bigger part of the presentation than usual during the daylight towards the start of the show.

The band opened with the fitting selection of “I Never Needed You Like Before.” Guitarist Trey Anastasio wrote the song with longtime collaborators Tom Marshall and Scott Herman. Anastasio included a version recorded at his New York City apartment on his quarantine album, 2020’s Lonely Trip. Trey debuted the song “live” with a performance featuring The Roots in August 2020, when he became the first artist since the pandemic began to perform for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon at its home of Rockefeller Center’s 30 Rock. Wednesday marked the Phish premiere of “I Never Needed You Like This Before” and included an inventive drum fill from Jon Fishman.

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

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“Tube” came next and though the band played it straight, the end solo from Anastasio featured one impassioned riff after another. While the quartet didn’t cover ZZ Top one night after bassist Dusty Hill died, the portion of “Tube” that follows the solo is as close to a ZZ Top song as a Phish original gets.

From there, Phish took “Free” for a spin and the huge crowd reaction to the lyric, “I feel the feeling I forgot” came through on the livestream. Anastasio utilized a swampy tone for a jam that saw standout interplay between the guitarist and keyboardist Page McConnell who was working over his Fender Rhodes electric piano for the majority of the “Free” improv. “Thank you, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having us here, thank you for saving our lives,” Trey told the crowd in his first banter of the evening.

Phish continued their focus on material from the 1990s with “Bouncing Around The Room” before dipping into the 2.0 era for “46 Days.” Once again, Page hopped on electric piano on the “46 Days” jam as he did on “Free.” A great moment of Trey taking control of the band happened at the beginning of the jam in the “Limb By Limb” that followed. The guitarist had a look about him through “46 Days” and the structured part of “Limb By Limb,” where it seemed Anastasio thought his mates were too tense and playing too fast. Trey appeared to calm Fish and bassist Mike Gordon way down and then he smiled for the first time in nearly 10 minutes, making for a nice moment.

The standout song from Phish’s first set back from the forced hiatus was “Wolfman’s Brother.” Anastasio landed on a repeating pattern his band mates quickly started to mirror. The groove was deep and funky and set the base for an intense peak in which the band was firing on all cylinders. “NICU” kept the parade of first set staples flowing before Phish capped the frame with “Drift While You’re Sleeping” from Trey’s Ghosts Of The Forest project. All nine songs played in the frame were written at least in part by Anastasio.

Many fans predicted “Down With Disease” would kick off the show but instead began the second set in Rogers. The members of Phish laughed off vocal harmony issues at the beginning of the song and quickly started the jam with an interlude featuring stellar give-and-take from Trey and Page. The incredibly cool LED bars in Kuroda’s rig were on full display as the band raged the “Disease” progression and seven minutes in Phish blew past said progression for the first “Type II” jam since COVID took down live music. Mike employed a synth’d out tone in leading the improv before Anastasio and McConnell asserted themselves. The keyboardist went with his Wurlitzer electric piano for the balls out jam. Also, of note, Trey used a new guitar Paul Languedoc built for him all night that Anastasio showed off on his social media feeds in January and dubbed his Koa 4 axe the “4.0” guitar in his caption.

The guitarist suddenly hit upon the riff that starts “Simple” following a brief tease of the Dead’s “Let It Grow” leading to the end of the impressive “Disease” jam. Wednesday’s “Simple” saw Phish modulate keys multiple times as the band patiently explored various soundscapes. Fishman provided a propulsive beat while Anastasio put new effects — including a reverse delay — to work, Page moved between keyboards and Mike used a particularly dirty tone. Eventually, Trey revved into “Fuego” in a much more organic way than the transition into “Simple” even though the former was played without its usual intro. Phish was having a blast with Trey all smiles and Fish randomly screaming pre-chorus. Mike continued to utilize the dirty tone throughout the wild “Fuego” jam. The bassist then picked up his drill and held it against the microphone as Anastasio hit upon the start of “Plasma.”

Phish didn’t take “Plasma” deep but did deliver a well-played version that gave way to “Runaway Jim.” Just when it appeared Phish was done with the weird and wild music they performed earlier in the set, the quartet inserted a bit of “Weekapaug Groove” within “Runaway Jim” out of nowhere and left the latter unfinished as a minute or two of ambience was followed by “Rift.” The ballad slot was then filled by just the fifth “If I Could” since 2012.

Wednesday’s second set continued with a standard “Rise/Come Together” before Phish launched into the beloved “Slave To The Traffic Light.” The “Slave” featured Anastasio holding a note for a few minutes as the lead-in to the song’s always potent climax. “Oh my god it’s good to play again,” Fishman said after the band returned to the stage for the encore. Trey then addressed the crowd:

This is the first time we’ve ever played Arkansas. This is so exciting for us. We’ve been wanting to come here for a long time and what a night. So thank you so much for having us. It lived up to every dream we had of coming here so please invite us back. Mike, your number is public, right? Don’t you have a number? Call Mike and invite us back.

Phish ended the tour opener with “Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S.” from their Kasvot Växt suite.

Phish resumes Summer Tour 2021 on Friday at Oak Mountain Amphitheatre in Pelham, Alabama. A webcast is available via LivePhish.com.

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