IT appears that many of our site's users were angered by Trey's golden, flowing hair, no... Fish's fierce Lucha libre wrestling mask, no... by @SausageMahoney's recap of the December 29th MSG show. A comment from user @CoryRoc reads: "nothing annoys me more than these reviews, yet i keep reading them to remind myself to never become as jaded as the clowns who write them."

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An excerpt of The Phish Companion, 3rd Edition by Noah Cole

On the first night, Friday, the band soundchecked as a few hundred people waded in the ocean in front of the resort. The gates opened and we were greeted by waiters in tuxedos with trays of margaritas and beer and surprisingly decent food – the “all-inclusive” experience might not have included WiFi or room service at many places, but it did include food and drinks in the venue.

It was hot and humid as Phish took the stage, amidst elaborately decorated palm trees (Fish yarn bombs), sand sculptures, and “Page Side Rage Side” temporarily renamed “Page Side Wave Side” due to the proximity to the Caribbean. A predictable – but perfect choice given the setting – “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing” opened this first Mexico Phish show, and gave CK5 his first chance to show the extra lights that lit the ocean. Standard versions of “My Soul,” “Martian Monster,” and “Ya Mar” were followed by a sing-along “Halley’s Comet” and “Fuego.”

Early attempts were made at keeping fans out of the water, but eventually there were dozens of fans wading in the waters, so “The Wedge” was an appropriate choice as the band returned to the water motif established at the beginning of the set. “The Wedge” lyrics had been in my head all day, as many of us lazed away the afternoon bobbing on the surface of the warm and wonderful sea.

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Welcome to the 256th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the second easiest of January. The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of both mystery clips – these clips are connected by a theme, but the theme needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Answer: Congrats to @runlikecarini who keeps up his hot streak and snags his second MJM win in the past three weeks, and his fifth overall. On a night crew mission, he quickly identified the 7/7/99 Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley and (perhaps with some help from @metawhy's comment and Desert Sky '03 being the most recent show he's seen according to phish.net?) the 7/7/03 Wolfman's Brother. As a vague allusion to the perfect square reference I made last week, both clips were from 7/7. There are five Mondays in January, so MJM258 is supposed to be of 'medium' difficulty – but difficulty is all relative, right? *evil grin*

Welcome to the 255th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first of 2017 and easiest of January. I hope everyone had a great holiday, especially those who made the annual trek to MSG to see Phish play. 2016 was a down year in many ways, but I had a blast with all of you in my first full year as your host. I can't wait to see what you come up with as you try to crawl into my head 50+ times this year to figure out what I'm thinking / listening to – thankfully, Phish keeps delivering the goods, so I don't think there'll be any problem finding another 52 MJMs in an effort to stump you (emphasis on "effort": the Blog only won three times last year, though the MJM did make it to the hint more than a third of the time). The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Answer: Congrats to @PhreePhish who made quick work of the first puzzle of 2017, marking his sixth win overall and first in three-and-a-half years – one more and he's moving to Florida with the rest of the retirees! Yes, this week's MJM was simple, especially on the heels of NYE at MSG and last week's MSG-themed MJM: 12/31/98 Simple. Two of the last three MJMs have been won by multiple-MJM winners who hadn't won in years. Is the competition getting even stiffer with the new batch of savants duking it out with the resurgent MJM veterans? Check back in on Monday to find out, when they battle in the first perfect square MJM since MJM225.

[Editor's Note: We'd like to welcome back guest contributor Matt Burnham for this recap. - lbc]

New Year’s Eve is a strange holiday. It’s an event that holds special significance for many and can indicate a time for rebirth. But mostly it seems like a large to-do which, for the most part, can be a let down. The novelty of staying up until midnight really only holds until you're twelve. And unless you’re married or in a long term relationship, as time ticks closer to midnight, searching the room for that guy or girl you’re looking to meet up with at midnight doesn’t always work out in your favor either. Resolutions on a whole are made that everyone knows aren’t going to make it to Valentine’s Day. The event on a whole can outweigh the meaning behind it. A good way to avoid this, as most of you all probably know, is to go to see live music on New Year’s Eve. Less stress, less mess. For this reviewer, I didn’t get the chance to do this but I was able to couch tour New Year’s Eve, so although there is really no substitute for being there, this is about as close you can get. Plus, as LivePhish loves to indicate, I get to watch it back on demand after the show which seems like a strange selling point but helps in the writing of these reviews.

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12/30. Just four humble digits with a slash in the middle--but with so much history infused in them, and such a high standard implied.

You all know the sluggers. Big Cypress “Mike’s” makes your knees wobble. The Miami “L.A. Woman” stirs your loins. You know exactly when to punch out of the MSG “Hood” before it segues into “My Soul” and you never skip the encore. Some of these performances are legendary and by now part of most fans’ genetic makeup. The ability to give something extra the night before the big gig and still handle your biz for three sets on NYE is sort of one of Phish’s proven superpowers. Big fans expect big things on this big day.

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It's amazing to think that at the end of 2016, more than 27 years since I first saw Phish live, I have so much closer a connection with the band members than ever before. For instance, when Trey Anastasio took the stage with his bandmates ("the boys") Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, I saw instantly that I own the same hoodie Trey was wearing.

Phish's most recent concerts were a four-night run in Las Vegas, and they'd opened the first three of those shows with originals written for and debuted at their 2014 Haunted House performance. Tonight, another pattern emerged. For the second straight show of the current four-night run, they opened with an a cappella number: "Sweet Adeline," which Phish hadn't dusted off since needing it to make up the numbers at the S show at Dick's in 2011. If this trend continues ... aaayyyyyy. Here's hoping for a "Free Bird" tomorrow night.

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[Editor's Note: We'd like to welcome back guest contributor David Goldstein for this recap. - lbc]

Irrespective of your political affiliation, can we all agree that the two months since Phish last played a rock show have been, to put it neutrally, interesting? This goes double for New York City residents, most of whom are still coming to grips with the fact that Trump Tower, once synonymous with a lousy restaurant for unimaginative tourists, has since been transformed into an impenetrable fortress of intrigue. And in a case of unintended consequences only rivaled by Faith No More inadvertently enabling Limp Bizkit and Korn, Twitter, once used predominantly for celebrity gossip and ranking jambands into tiers, could now be partially responsible for launching a new nuclear arms race. The Chicago Cubs also won the World Series.

What I’m obliquely trying to say here is, more than any time in recent history, GOOD GOD could we all use a Phish show right about now. And few numbers in Phishstory spark the imagination as much as 12/28. Everything is on the table, anything feels possible, and we get to do THIS four nights in a row in a city in which Trey Anastasio can relax in his own bed. Expectations are rightfully though the roof given the stunning quality of the recent four night Las Vegas run, in addition to the fact that night one of the Garden holiday shows has resulted in some goodies in the recent past; in particular the “Little Drummer Boy” inflected “Wolfman’s Brother” from 12/28/12, the monstrous “Tweezer” that occurred forty minutes later, and on 12/28/13, the best version of “Steam” played to that date - a Fishman scream-fest anchoring an otherwise average show. The energy in the city was palpable within a five-block radius of Madison Square Garden; let’s see what the boys have in store.

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The Mockingbird Foundation will be having its year end special sale of The Phish Companion, 3d. Ed. and its associated poster art and merch at the PhanArt "Skyscraper is Grander" show on Thursday, December 29th from noon until 6. Admission is free. We will be among the 20 artists and craftspeople selling Phish-related art at the show in the Gold Room at the Hotel Pennsylvania at 401 7th Avenue (at W 33rd St, directly down the street from MSG).

Fans who have not yet picked up their copy of The Phish Companion may want to get to this show on the early side as we expect to sell out of our allotment of 50 books by mid-show as we have the several shows we've done earlier this year in Chicago and Las Vegas.

NOTE: THERE IS NOW A "LOW INVENTORY ALERT" ON THE PHISH COMPANION: WE HAVE FEWER THAN 1,000 COPIES LEFT AND EXPECT TO SELL OUT BY THE END OF JANUARY!

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Welcome to the 254th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the last of 2016 and the hardest of December. The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of each of the three mystery jam clips. These three mystery jam clips are connected by a theme, but this week, the theme needn't be part of the answer – it's only there to help you. Each person gets one guess – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck and Happy Holidays and New Year!

Answer: This may be the first time in MJM history that the blog post has only gotten one comment, and that comment contained the correct answer! Congrats to @runlikecarini who wins his fourth MJM, crossing the halfway mark to his forced retirement, by identifying the 7/23/96 Mike's Song, the 11/15/98 Scent of a Mule, and the 7/20/14 Ghost. Somewhere between finding the first and second clips, he realized that I might just be in a celebratory enough mood to spell "M-S-G" with the final MJM of 2016 – how the hell else could he have found that SOAMule on the first day? Tune in Monday, when MJM255 rings in "2017: There's no way it can be worse than 2016, right??" ::prays for west coast tour dates::

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Welcome to the 253rd edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the penultimate of December. Special thanks to @Dog_Faced_Boy for hosting last week's MJM in my stead – he's the real reason MJM 3.0 never takes a week off, even when yours truly is bouncing around the globe. The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of each of the three mystery jam clips. These three mystery jam clips are connected by a theme, but this week, the theme needn't be part of the answer – it's only there to help you. Each person gets one guess – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Hint (9:52 AM PT / 12:52 PM ET): If someone were to solve the first two clips first, they would likely be led astray by the obvious commonality between the two – the real theme was hinted at yesterday, but only one of you seemed to notice.

Answer: Congrats to @jerrytimber who wins his first MJM in 5+ years by identifying the 6/16/94 DWD, the 6/16/00 Theme, and the 11/18/98 Wolfman's Brother. @justino was well on his way to his way to his fourth win, having figured out the last two clips and the theme that they were both played in shows featuring performances of "Dog Faced Boy," but he gave up a lot of information right before the hint and @jerrytimber already had the first clip. Regarding the hint, which @HarborSeal correctly noticed I had provided as an Easter Egg in the initial blog post, I linked to the list of all DFB performances instead of to @DFB's user page in my thank you to Phil. The Easter Egg was to supposed to offset the red herring, where two of the clips shared the same date, but @jerrytimber was able to pick up the last couple bits from @justino and cruise to the win. I love the "connected by a Theme" connection that folks found, but I'd be lying if I said I meant to do that! Stay tuned for MJM 254 on Monday, December 26th, and have a great holiday!

Welcome to the 252nd edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the second MJM of December. The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the TWO mystery jam clips, and what these two versions share in common. Each person gets one guess – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck! Also thanks yet again to @ucpete for letting me sit in for him, big shoes to fill!

Answer: Congratulations to @FunkyCFunkyDo and @andrewrose, who share in this week's victory, the 4th MJM victory for each. In a unique and unexpected sitution, we had @FunkyCFunkyDo as the first to correctly identify the two tracks: the Ghost from 2/26/03 and the Boogie On Reggae Woman from 6/7/12. Meanwhile, @andrewrose was right on @FunkyCFunkyDo's heels in identifying the tracks, but he was the first to correctly identify the theme: the venue formerly known as the Worcester Centrum, now known as the DCU Center. It was a sticky situation - the theme proposed by @FunkyCFunkyDo is very close and works as a unifying theme. However for reasons I won't go into, I specifically had the Centrum/DCU Center in mind as the theme. Therefore, they are both right. I would like to thank both winners for their amenable and good-natured spirit in sharing this week's win. It really is a nice community when ambitious MJM Emeritus seekers can put aside legitimate claims of victory, and agree to share the spotlight as co-winners. Thanks guys - I'll have to come up with some cool way to thank you for your sense of fair play. Tune in next Monday when @ucpete takes the difficulty level up several notches with MJM 253.

Phish.net was delighted to have the chance recently to talk to the accomplished production designers and engineers at TAIT Towers, the team that designed and built the LED video screens that debuted in 2016 as part of Phish's new-look onstage setup. As you'll read, TAIT is a company with longstanding ties to and a love for Phish, who were only too thrilled to be asked to work with the band on the most dramatic revision to its stage presentation in its 33-year history.

You couldn't miss it. When Phish took their usual places onstage in St. Paul to kick off their 2016 summer tour they had some impressive new hardware at their disposal. First, behind them in a half-circle, stretching from stage right to stage left, was a five-and-a-half-foot tall wall of light-emitting diode (LED) video screens. Second, above their heads was another huge, rectangular screen, facing down and toward the audience. As the show started, colors and images began playing across both screens. For the entire first set, the overhead array stayed in a compact rectangle. But when things got cooking at the start of the second set—during the throbbing minor-key “Mike’s Song” jam—the big rectangle fragmented, spreading apart into a patterned array of smaller screens, a look reminiscent of the hordes of perpetually attacking spacecraft from classic arcade games like Space Invaders and Galaga.

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Welcome to the 251st edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first and easiest of December. The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Answer: Congrats to @dbertsch who quickly identified the 11/30/94 My Friend, My Friend outro jam and wins his fourth MJM – he's now more than halfway to Emeritus status. Will he get there next? Stop by on Monday for MJM252, when @Dog_Faced_Boy takes the reins.

[Editor's Note: The following is from user swittersdc of the Helping Friendly Podcast.]

We at the Helping Friendly Podcast had the privilege of interviewing Marco Walsh, Board President of The Mockingbird Foundation and a prominent member of the Phish.Net community, who's given countless hours of his time over the years. You can access the interview here.

This interview gave us the chance to talk in depth about the history of the site and the Foundation, while hearing about the incredible work that all the volunteers have done for 20+ years. We touch on the evolution of the website, the community’s relationship with the band, and of course, the Phish Companion. Hey, it's the holidays! Pick one up for a friend or loved one.

Marco also shares memories from his first show, 4.17.92 at the Warfield in San Francisco. We talk a bit about that tour and that show, and we play a few tracks from that night. A great memory for Marco and a good show to revisit.

If you haven’t listened to our podcast, we hope you give it a shot! We regularly combine the music of Phish with interesting guests from in and around the scene. You can find us on iTunes and Twitter. We’re looking forward to many more collaborations with this team.

Also, there's a contest! The Mockingbird Foundation donated one copy of the book as well as a really cool poster. All you have to do is share this post with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter using #MbirdHFPod, and we'll pick two random winners (one for the book and one for the poster) on Monday, December 5.

Thanks to Ellis and Charlie as well for helping us get this together. HF Pod is made up of me, Brad and Jonathan.

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