Phish returned to San Francisco, CA this weekend for their first non-festival performances in the city proper since 1998, when the Vermont quartet performed an intimate surprise show at The Fillmore. Taking place at the venue named after legendary San Francisco concert promoter Bill Graham—the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium—all three shows were webcast via LivePhish.com to audiences in both high-definition sound and audio.
While rumors of the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir and Phil Lesh joining the band were present over the course of the weekend, no guest appearances did, in fact, materialize (although Mike Gordon did join Lesh at Terrapin Crossroads). There were also few bust-outs, stage antics, or anything particularly out of the ordinary. Instead, the quartet delivered three shows of straight-forward Phish with numerous highlights strewn throughout.
Kicking off the run on Friday evening at the 7,000 person venue, Phish delivered two contrasting sets. Rarely venturing outside the box, the opening frame included heavy rotation songs like “AC/DC Bag,” “Possum,” and “Funky Bitch”, along with covers including the third version of “Corinna” in 2012, “Halley’s Comet” (read our feature on the song’s creator Richard “Nancy” Wright), and a brief jam on Ween’s “Roses Are Free.”
The second set, however, saw a different side of the band—one that displayed Phish’s willingness, and ability, to embark on extended, cosmic sound quests. From the outset, the group ventured off-course with an opening segment that reads, “Down with Disease” into “Birds of a Feather,” “Tweezer” into “Twist,” on paper. Both “Disease” and “Tweezer” emerged as highlights of the evening, both with very different, yet highly compelling jams. At the end of the show, the quartet made a rare move by exiting the stage before closing out “Tweezer” with the appropriate “Tweezer Reprise.”
Phish returned to the venue on Saturday, performing a very different show than the previous night. Whereas Friday’s show featured less songs and more extended jam segments, Saturday saw the group run through significantly more songs, with significantly less jamming. Once again, the first set featured little out of the ordinary, aside a single bust-out in the form of “Sugar Shack,” which had not been played since the 2010 Halloween run in Atlantic City. The second set failed to capture the previous night’s energy, but did produce a standout version of “Simple” amid a somewhat disjointed set. According to some sources, guitarist Trey Anastasio and drummer Jon Fishman were said to be suffering from the effects of the flu.
On Sunday, whatever sickness may or may not have been present simply did not matter. Phish delivered a show that saw the members tap into the spring of creativity that has existed throughout much of 2012 Summer Tour, producing a cohesive show with numerous highlights left in its wake. Kicking off with the seldom played Undermind tune Crowd Control, the group charged the set with high-energy versions of “Party Time,” “Axilla,” “Reba,” “Mound, and “Walk Away.” Whereas the previous two first sets saw few outside-the-box moments, Sunday’s first stanza included a standout segment containing “Gotta Jibbo” into “Roggae,” and a set-closing “David Bowie.”
But it was the second set was where the greatest moments of the San Francisco run materialized. At the outset of the set, Phish came out storming the crowd with a “Crosseyed and Painless” into “Light” segment that ranks up there with the highlights of the modern era. Following a take on Robert Palmer’s “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley” the group found their way back into “Crosseyed and Painless” for a reprise of the Talking Heads tune. To close out the show, Phish bookended the weekend with the missing “Tweezer Reprise” from Friday night’s show.
Phish performs next at the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, MO on Wednesday.
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