From A College Thesis To Phish Spectacle At MSG: The Long Journey Of Trey Anastasio’s Gamehendge Saga

On New Year’s Eve, Phish pulled off a spectacular Broadway-scale production of their rock opera commonly known among fans as Gamehendge. The impressive performance at Madison Square Garden was based on guitarist Trey Anastasio’s college thesis “The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday,” which he submitted to Goddard College in July 1988.

The hour-long recording and accompanying essay for the project Anastasio titled The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday served as the basis for the memorable Gamehendge performance on New Year’s Eve at MSG. Anastasio quoted directly from the 1988 essay for parts of the narration on New Year’s Eve, while also heavily expanding beyond the original text.

The large-scale production of Gamehendge was something Anastasio always envisioned for the project. In author Richard Gehr’s The Phish Book, which was published in 1998, Trey talked about his initial concept for the rock opera, stating:

“The original idea was to have a really old narrator, possibly an elderly woman, and compose fully orchestrated segues between songs sung by vocalists other than ourselves, with different instrumentation.”

Annie Golden, the 72-year-old actress and vocalist for 1970s New York City punk band The Shirts, played the role of narrator during the Gamehendge performance at MSG, which also incorporated costumed dancers, actors, backing vocalists and elaborate stage design into the memorable presentation that spanned two sets.

Also expanded on New Year’s Eve was the tracklist, as several songs featuring Gamehendge characters were performed as part of the expansive production but were not part of the original thesis’ suite. Originally, The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday thesis began with Trey narrating over the song “The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday,” followed sequentially by “The Lizards,” “Tela” (sung by Phish keyboardist Page McConnell and featuring a later scrapped segment), “Wilson,” “AC/DC Bag,” “Col. Forbin’s Ascent,” “Fly Famous Mockingbird” (also featuring Page), “The Sloth” and “Possum” (sung by Phish bassist Mike Gordon).

Trey described recording The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday to Gehr, telling the author:

“We learned The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday and recorded it in our living room as quickly as possible. We recorded it onto one cassette, bounced it to another, and added the lyrics on top so the words come out of one speaker and the music out of the other. I’ve always felt as though it were an unfinished project in a way, because we decided to record what became [Phish’s debut album] Junta rather than develop Gamehendge fully. What you don’t get when it’s performed live is all the scored music performed underneath the narration, although some of it, like those little descending bass lines, got recycled in tunes like ‘Esther.’”

When Phish first performed Gamehendge live, on March 12, 1988, “TMWSIY” was not performed to start the narration, in its place the band began with “McGrupp And The Watchful Hosemasters.” As noted in Trey’s thesis, a poem he received in 1986 from his songwriting partner Tom Marshall was the initial seed that would grow into The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday. The poem referenced Col. Forbin, the Famous Mockingbird, Rutherford The Brave, Tela and a multi-beast, all characters that play significant roles in the Gamehendge saga.

Marshall’s poem became the basis for the lyrics to the “McGrupp And The Watchful Hosemasters,” which has been played each time Phish has performed Gamehendge, including to start the third set on New Year’s Eve. Additionally, live performances of Gamehendge have used an instrumental portion of “McGrupp” as backing music during narrations, which could be heard at MSG, such as during the transition between “TMWSIY” and “The Lizards.”

None of Phish’s six live performances of Gamehendge have been presented with the same collection of songs. Indeed, the concept of what constitutes a Gamehendge song has been debated for as long fans have known of the “Helping Friendly Book.”

“‘Axilla’ might be the last Gamehendge song ever written,” McConnell speculated in The Phish Book.

Notably, the song “Icculus,” about one of the main characters in the Gamehendge saga, has not been incorporated into any live performance, while songs like “Llama” and “Divided Sky” were brought in for the three most recent attempts, including MSG.

New Year’s Eve’s expansive production of Gamehendge saw “Punch You In The Eye” brought into the live presentation for the first time. MSG’s song order also deviated the most from both Trey’s original thesis sequence and any other previous live performance, such as ending the rock opera with “Col. Forbin’s” into “Mockingbird,” which typically comes earlier in the sequence.

Listen to the original cassette tape recording of The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday and read Trey’s process paper submitted to Goddard College in 1988 below: