Photo: René Huemer
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Welcome to Mondegreen, Phish’s first festival in nearly a decade and 11th overall. Nothing sums up the band’s mission for its festivals more than the phrase “our intent is all for your delight,” a variation of a quote from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that was featured on an arched sign at It in 2003 and was reused for a sign at the last Phish festival: 2015’s Magnaball.
This weekend fans will have the rare chance to enter a fantasy world of Phish’s creation. Not only will there be eight scheduled sets from the quartet, but attendees can enjoy themselves to curated art installations, immersive fan experiences, carefully selected regional food and drink options and many other elements created by the band and its team “all for your delight.” Take your time to stroll around and visit a site that was years in the making.
Why Mondegreen? A better question is how did it take the band this long to name one of its festivals Mondegreen? The official website for the event defines Mondegreen as “a misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of the lyrics of a song.” The most famous example is music lovers substituting “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” for “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” in Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” a song Phish has teased 21 times but never covered in full.
Phish loves mondegreens as displayed by usage in titles and lyrics to such classic songs as “The Moma Dance,” “Glide,” “Halley’s Comet,” “Icculus,” “Mr. Completely” and “In A Hole.” The beloved “Weekapaug Groove” is a mondegreen itself that developed from the band’s interpretation of the lyrics to The Four Seasons’ 1976 hit “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night).” Furthermore, when it comes to misinterpretations, fans are still unclear where the comma fits in for the “please me have no regrets” lyric in “The Curtain,” a placement that changes the intent of the phrase.
The most important mondegreen in Phish history is “WATSIYEM” which poses the question “What Are They Saying In ‘You Enjoy Myself?,” a reference to the few lyrics in the signature Phish song. “[‘You Enjoy Myself’] sums up our first five years,” Trey Anastasio told the New York Post on New Year’s Day 1999, about the song the band has played more than any other.
The question was asked by fans many a time in the ‘90s and Mike Gordon took delight in providing several different answers in the “Letters” section of the Phish Update/Doniac Schvice newsletters including “Water you team, in a bee hive, I’m a sent you” in the February 1993 edition. The band sang those words on February 3, 1993 in Portland, Maine.
The lore of “WATSIYEM” is so great that there’s an entry for the phrase on the Acronym Finder website. Gordon finally revealed what they are saying in “YEM” is “Washa Uffizi and drive me to Firenze” in the Spring ‘94 Doniac Schvice and used the same column to throw in the “Llama” mondegreen of “Leave it on a fart. Leave it on a fart butt-face.”
Phish selected the Triadic team as the creative directors of the festival. The team used the name of the festival to tie into elements of the site design.
“We did tap into the mondegreen theme a lot, so there’s a lot of wordplay, there’s a lot of quirky hidden messages,” Triadic co-founder Mafalda Millies told The Daily Greens’ Dean Budnick in an interview that will run in a subsequent edition. “We are playing a lot and integrating a lot of the spectacular names of Phish songs into venues and menus and performances. A lot of it can be found in our surreal speakeasy, given that it’s the 100th anniversary of surrealism. So at The Cerealist Bowl you’ll find a lot of surprising Phish-themed and mondegreen-inspired performances and surprises.”
Surprises have been a theme of the summer and the Triadic team played into the band’s passion for keeping fans on their toes. “I think the beauty of Phish and their audience and their music is it’s so eclectic and ever-changing,” Triadic’s Roya Sachs added. “You never see the same show twice and so much of performance art, and so much of art is based off of that.”
Phish let the members of the Triadic team’s imaginations run wild. “I think the most special thing about the support that we’ve had from Phish is that the sort of wackiest, weirdest, most wonderful, crazy ideas that we could think of are the things that they want to do,” explained Elizabeth Edelman of Triadic.
The summer of surprises started with the placement of “Character Zero” as the second song on opening night in Mansfield, Massachusetts and the highly unusual version befitting the early slot. Clever placements continued throughout the run (the first “Runaway Jim” encore and second set opening “Squirming Coil” in 25 years, a “Tweezer Reprise” separate from “Tweezer” on the second night of a three-night stand), and surprises extended to both song choices and timings. “Fikus” returned in Bethel after over 800 shows on the shelf to join a list of summer bustouts that also includes “The Connection,” “Thread,” “A Day In The Life,” “Billy Breathes,” “Knuckle Bone Broth Avenue,” “Peaches En Regalia,” “Nellie Kane” and “Ginseng Sullivan.” Plus, we almost got Fish to tell the first “Prison Joke” since 1991!
Jams such as the St. Louis “Tweezer,” Alpine “Simple,” Noblesville “Ghost,” and Bethel “AC/DC Bag” scored high both in terms of quality and quantity of improvisation. Twenty minutes used to be the gold standard for jam length, but now it’s 30 minutes. The 3.0 era from 2009 through 2020 had just six songs that exceeded 30 minutes. Phish has matched that figure already this year alone, as pointed out by The Mockingbird Foundation’s Scott Marks.
While the above nomenclature of pairing venues/cities with song titles used to mean the same thing to the bulk of fans, the time has come to be more careful of such usage. Phish has been around so long they’ve played multiple top-tier versions of songs at the same venue. So saying the “Bethel Bathtub” can just as easily refer to the wild “Gin” that incorporated “Manteca” in 2011 or the otherworldly “Gin” played near Yasgur’s Farm earlier this summer.
The length of songs hasn’t been the only surprise when it comes to timing this summer, as intermissions have been shorter than usual several times. Even the most seasoned fans have missed the beginning of the second set because Phish deviated from the typical 30-minute setbreak.
Then there’s Evolve. Phish has never been a band focused on promoting their new album but there’s arguably been too few songs from the recently released album played over the first three weeks of tour. How many bands touring behind a new album have three shows where they don’t play anything from the record and four is the most songs from said LP they’ve played at one show? Phish averaged a mere 1.44 Evolve songs per show through Bethel. Thankfully in multiple cases, the band made it count with the versions of “Pillow Jets” and “Life Saving Gun” at Bethel Woods living up to the potential of each song to develop into bona fide jam vehicles.
And we can’t discuss the summer tour without bringing up the biggest surprise of them all: Billy Strings. The jamgrass phenom joined the band for extended collaborations at Van Andel Arena in his home state of Michigan on August 6 and 7. Strings became the first musician to guest with Phish at two shows in a row since Warren Haynes in 1999. The quartet and their guest defied any expectations by making out-of-the-box song selections including the Phish debut of “What’s Going Through Your Mind,” the only new Trey song of the summer.
Another surprise was the return of Trey Anastasio’s Mesa Boogie Mark III Long Head amp in Connecticut on July 23, 2024 which hadn’t appeared on stage with the guitarist in eight years. Trey has gained greater tonal impact leaning into organic sounds and utilizing a clean tone more often this summer. Page has been more judicious in his use of synth, also embracing the organic. Anastasio and McConnell’s interplay has been especially strong this summer and the benefits of Phish’s long history together have been showcased each night.
The surprises kept coming on “Day Zero” of Mondegreen. Phish took the stage around 3:45 p.m. local time on Wednesday for their soundcheck. The action began with a free-flowing jam and then Trey threw a “Frankenstein” tease into the mix before Mike hinted at The Simpsons theme song. A “Hold Your Head Up” jam ensued, but instead of Fish breaking out the vacuum, Phish went into jukebox mode.
The soundcheck resembled a Vampire Weekend encore with the band delivering fun partial attempts at covers of The Pretenders’ “Mystery Achievement,” The Knacks’ “My Sharona” and “Slow Ride” by Foghat. Next up was a version of The Beatles’ 1965 hit “Day Tripper” that brought to mind the old Saturday Night Live commercial “10 Beatles Classics You Kind Of Know The Words To.”
Phish went on to reengage the jam and offer more ethereal exploration, spanning light bliss spaces and dark minor-key improvisation. After hinting at The Allman Brothers Band songs all summer long, Phish finally lit into one. Trey handled lead vocals with Mike and Page chiming in with harmonies on a gorgeous “Midnight Rider.” Anastasio used the theme as a platform for fretboard fireworks. The group last toyed with “Midnight Rider” back on June 22, 1994 at Columbus’ Veterans Memorial Auditorium.
The band wasn’t done yet as they mashed up the “Würm” portion of Yes’ “Starship Trooper” with Phish originals “Wilson” and “Big Black Furry Creatures From Mars.” Out of the madness came the last bit of “Stairway To Heaven.” Anastasio used his highest register vocally to sing the beloved Led Zeppelin song and shouted “Mondegreen!” to bring the 50-minute soundcheck to a close.
If Wednesday’s soundcheck was an example of what’s in store this weekend, buckle up and get comfortable for an incredibly fun ride. Remember, it’s a golf cart marathon, not a sprint. There are four full days and at least eight sets to go. You enjoy yourself.
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Scott “ScottyB” Bernstein is the longtime Editorial Director of JamBase. ScottyB had his life changed the first time he saw Phish on April 15, 1994 and has attended over 300 shows since. The New York City resident also curates Phish-related content for YEMblog and loves to share #geekery and flip desks on social media.
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