A Football, A Telephone Pole & The Painful Incident From Phish Tour Memorialized In A Trey Anastasio Song

On April 18, 1992, Phish played a concert in Palo Alto, California at Stanford University’s Wilbur Field. According to the phish.com notes for the show, an incident from a football game played that afternoon would later be memorialized in a song written by guitarist Trey Anastasio.

The band’s official website states:

[April 18, 1992] was an all-ages, free, daytime “Rincadelt Party” show in an open field at Stanford … Monitor Engineer Pete Schall cracked his head open when he ran into a pole playing Band vs. Crew Football at this show, inspiring the line “Pete threw a bomb and he rang the pole” from Trey’s 2001 solo composition “Push On ‘Til The Day.”

“Push On ‘Til The Day” was debuted by the Trey Anastasio Band at a concert held on February 21, 2001. The band played the song again the next night of the tour and then on February 23, 2001, TAB appeared as the musical guest on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. The performance that occurred 22 years ago today was the third live offering of “Push On ‘Til The Day.”

The song became a staple of Anastasio’s solo career and appeared on his 2002 self-titled solo album. In 2018, at one of his solo acoustic shows, Anastasio elaborated on the history of the song and its real-life-event-referencing lyrics, honing in on the line, “Pete threw a bomb and he rang the pole.”

During the encore of the show held on February 8, 2018, Trey interrupted a performance of “Push On ‘Til The Day” to tell the audience about the inspiration behind the painful verse. Verifying that an incident with a football and Pete Schall led to the lyric, Anastasio clarified to some degree who in fact “rang the pole” that fateful day on Phish tour in 1992.

With a slightly different recollection of events from the official show notes, here’s what Anastasio told the audience at Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, New Jersey:

So according to Trey, it was a local crew member who cracked his head open while trying to catch a pass from Pete Schall, and not the former monitor engineer who “rang the pole.” Here’s hoping whoever that unfortunate wide receiver was that afternoon recovered from the pole ringing and made sure look downfield before running another deep route.

Phish: Riviera Maya 2023 begins today with the first of four destination event performances at Moon Palace Cancún in Rivera Cancún, Mexico. Livestreams are available via LivePhish.com. Webcasts can be ordered individually or as a discounted four-show bundle. Listen to every Phish show since 2003 as well as exclusive archival releases, side projects and concert videos with a LivePhish+ subscription.

Phish will follow their Mexican destination event with West Coast Spring Tour and their recently announced 2023 Summer Tour. Phish Ticketing lottery registration is currently open through Monday, February 27 at 12 p.m. ET. Tickets go on sale to the general public via Ticketmaster and other outlets beginning on Friday, March 3. Scroll below for a list of dates.