Trey Anastasio Discusses ‘The Beacon Jams’ In New Interview

Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio talked about his The Beacon Jams weekly livestream series in a new interview published by Relix. Anastasio told Relix’s Dean Budnick what led him to take part in the series, gave background on how The Beacon Jams came together and discussed other topics as part of the feature.

Trey had previously told Relix the idea of performing without an audience didn’t appeal to him. “I was just so enmeshed in the live world and I loved it so much that I just wasn’t ready to accept a reality where that didn’t exist,” Anastasio said in response to a question about why he changed his mind. “Then I started thinking, ‘Well, here we are; this is the way the universe is turning at this point in time.’ What is is. I’ve learned this lesson before, but I had momentarily forgotten it. So instead of trying to push against the reality, I began trying to accept the moment and adjust my perspective,” the guitarist explained.

Anastasio revealed his “perspective began to change” during the summer. “All of this led me to revisit my earlier decision to not perform live. I realized that maybe I’d been wrong. It’s important to be open to that—after all, I’ve been wrong so many times before,” Trey said. “That’s when I started calling around and talking to all the great people that we work with and asking them, ‘What can we do?’ It didn’t do me any good to resist.”

Trey went on to explain he was looking for a space to perform at that was close to home. “At first, we were looking at some black-box theaters—just square rooms. Then, the people at Madison Square Garden heard about it and were just so cool. They were like, ‘We know a place that’s 10 blocks from your house. You could walk there every day,'” Anastasio explained about MSG’s offer to host livestream concerts at The Beacon Theatre in New York City.

Another topic hit upon was the decision for Anastasio to face the back wall of the venue. “I can’t play to an empty room; it’s just too depressing. We have to do something else,” Trey told his team. He started speaking with LD Marc Janowitz and upon inpection of The Beacon, realized switching the orientation would help on multiple accounts. “The back of the stage is really cool—it’s got these ropes and stuff,” Janowitz said to Trey, who added “And somehow that morphed into: ‘Wow, look at this point of view from here.’ So he decided to put lights in the seats and it ended up being the world’s greatest backdrop. It’s like a stadium light show in a theater because the lights are 300 feet above the stage.”

Trey also revealed how he’s able to see comments from some of those watching The Beacon Jams on Twitch:

The other great thing that happened is my daughter [Eliza] was funneling the chat to me on a screen. She had a very unique skill set for this because she’s been a theater stage manager and, in the last year or two, even worked as a PA and ASM on a couple of Broadway shows. So she had headphones on and a screen—she was pulling stuff out, along with a couple other people.

This was very special for me because it’s the first time I’ve ever worked with a family member. It just warmed my heart the whole time I was playing. There was my daughter right in front of me. Then, we drove home afterward. It was just great.

Additionally, Anastasio discussed how he’s putting setlists together, an exercise Phish did to avoid “tempo wars,” what it’s like performing without any response from the crowd, books he’s reading and more. Head to Relix for the complete interview. The Beacon Jams returns tonight and each Friday through November 27 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on the JamBase Livestreams Calendar via Twitch.