[We would like to thank Rob Mitchum (@robmitchum) aka @robmitchum on Bluesky for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]

I’m gonna clue you in on a dirty music writer secret: when we’re assigned to review a concert, we hardly ever go in with a blank slate. Given the quick turnaround time that a live review demands, it’s useful to go into the show with a framing device already in mind, then adjust accordingly. One might even pre-write a few paragraphs before the show, making an educated guess about how the night would unfold. Come back home, fill in the details, and voila – you can make deadline and go back to hanging out with your friends.

I’ve certainly written enough about Phish to know better, but I still use this strategy when I draw the prestigious phish.net assignment. I’d been thinking a lot about my expectations for these shows and why I chose them from the surprising abundance of Midwestern options this year, so I wrote down a handful of paragraphs between nights one and two, naively thinking I could predict the general parameters of how the evening would unfold.

The gist of it was that, after my Sphere experience, I was craving a “normal” Phish show, and it seemed like a Tuesday and Wednesday night in Grand Rapids would be the ideal time and place to get it. The momentous Billy Strings sit-in of the first night even reassured me that the second night would be Phish in all its usual unusualness. After the scarcity of guest appearances in the last decade, there was surely zero chance of getting one in back-to-back nights. Right?

LOL. LMBO, even.

Instead of reassuring Midwestern normalcy, the headline narrative of this Grand Rapids run became Phish spending their longest spell as a two-guitar quintet since Jeff Holdsworth quit the band in 1986. Near as I can tell, it’s the first back-to-back sit-in since Warren Haynes played consecutive encores at Shoreline in 1999, though the second of those was in service to a higher profile visitor. You’ve got to go even farther back to match the length of the two Strings sit-ins this week, to when Bob Gullotti provided extra drums for two Texas shows in Summer ‘97, or when Karl Perazzo supplemented the band before and after Halloween ‘96.

These weren’t just cameos to play a favorite song or two with the boys, but extended collaborations that fundamentally changed the dynamics of the band. Yet even two-drummer Phish isn’t as significantly altered as adding in another melodic voice, for full-hour chunks of back-to-back shows. That is a bold choice, and one that required me to tear up the notes I had pre-written (they were great, you would have loved them. Alas.)

But for the first set at least, it was the Phish-as-usual I sought, albeit with Chekhov’s amp sitting under a black shroud in front of Fishman’s kit. As The Man Who Stepped Into 25 Years Ago, I was especially attentive to echoes of the band that last played Van Andel Arena in roughly that exact timeframe, and there were plenty to be found despite night two’s more recent vintage setlist. Groaning with my pals over a “My Soul” opener brought me right back to the late 90s, “Driver” and “Birds of a Feather” were both welcome Fall ‘98 staples, “It’s Ice” glided in like stumbling into an old friend you’ve lost touch with.

Newer songs were capable of triggering secondhand nostalgia as well. In the Summer ‘99 tour I just finished covering, one of the defining characteristics was Trey going deep into effects, and both his “555” and “Ether Edge” solos effectively folded classic combinations of backwards delay and oscillating loops into modern contexts. And in defiance of the previous night’s classics-heavy approach, the first set’s undisputed highlight was “Oblivion,” which featured a fascinating jam balancing dark and light better than most of this summer’s relentlessly cheery improvisations. It wouldn’t be “normal” Phish if there wasn’t a new song on the block pushing them into fresh spaces.

[Quick aside – as pleased as I am with the modern state of Phish, I’m extremely hesitant to say they’re “better than ever”...they were just so. damn. good. in the ‘90s, I’m sorry. But I have no qualms whatsoever about saying this light rig is the most impressive I’ve ever seen, from any band ever. Any fears I had about readjusting to a show without 256 million pixels of high-definition visualizations were quickly relieved once Chris Kuroda started making his LED racks undulate like a neon double helix over the band. “Oblivion” was the high water mark of his 1801st show, but it was consistently amazing.]

The first half of the second set was plagued by some of the same timing issues as the previous night – to leave room for the imminent sit-in, the band played a somewhat rushed mini-set, complete with its own closer in “Loving Cup.” The impatience was most jarringly felt in “A Wave of Hope,” which seemed destined for decadent length, with Trey and Page laying down a haze of atmosphere and then patiently sculpting a melodic theme instead of channel-flipping through key changes. But an intriguing swerve into nastier guitar tone and moody piano was suddenly and rudely interrupted by a clumsy segue into “Prince Caspian,” a reminder that when you wish Phish sounded “like they did in the 90s,” a monkey’s paw closes a finger backstage.

The forced brevity actually benefited “Light,” which got down to business unusually fast, finding an eerie theme that inspired more 1999-style bleep-bloop derangement. But with an eye on the clock, it wasn’t allowed to develop into further chapters – after a brief stretch of melodic resolution, it was time to wrap things up via the Stones and (Yoda meme) go back for more Strings.

Now, I’m not super familiar with the work of Wiliam Strings – the last two nights have increased my exposure to him about tenfold – but I was pleasantly surprised by his first round on Tuesday. After some initial awkwardness, largely thanks to Trey getting so excited he forgot how “The Moma Dance” goes – the kid settled right in and prodded the group out of their summer tour comfort zone. I was most impressed that they didn’t just reach for the bluegrass shelf to match his usual oeuvre, but threw a variety of material at him – cowfunk, Southern rock, heavy metal. He tackled all with grace, his chemistry with Trey was undeniable, and he didn’t push the rest of the band out to the margins like I feared.

That chemistry was still present on night two, but the sit-in was, overall, significantly stiffer. With the element of surprise removed, the crowd energy – euphoric for their hometown-ish hero Tuesday – was relatively subdued. The song selection remained eclectic, but not as well thought out. Using a guest to debut “What’s Going Through Your Mind,” the Trey solo song everyone tabbed (ahem) as a likely Phish crossover, was a truly bizarre decision, making a strong first impression but with the focus on a guitar duet that won’t be replicable on future versions.

“Wolfman’s Brother” and “Mountains in the Mist” provided more opportunities for Strings to tastefully complement Trey’s usual parts, but compared to the previous night it felt much more like the guitarists having an intimate conversation while the other three…participated. Even the lights reinforced this sensation, putting Trey and Billy in the white spotlight, while Page, Mike, and Fish inhabited darker colors around the periphery. A slow and sludgy “Death Don’t Hurt Very Long” and superfluous “Blaze On” failed to inspire them to move past the Allmans-esque harmonizing that was already starting to wear out its welcome the first night.

The encore lowered the stakes by giving Strings a second bite of Phish bluegrass staples – swiping another lead vocal from Mike, this time on “The Old Home Place,” in the process. Finishing up with “Frankenstein” also left a pleasant aftertaste on this temporary five-piece Phish, cleverly harmonizing its heavy riffs and drawing in Page and Mike to join the guitarists at center stage. Mike even made a joke!

Still, that only met the much lower standard of “standard guest appearance,” never returning to the heights of night one – a classic case of diminishing returns. The foursome of Phish has honed an exquisite balance over the last four decades, a delicate ecosystem can only tolerate an invasive species for so long before rejecting it. Usually they have the good sense to usher a guest in and out long before that occurs, but hitting the jackpot on night one led them to double down in Grand Rapids, perhaps unwisely. Instead of rushing him back for a repeat performance, Phish should’ve probably let their new quintet chemistry with Billy – wait for it – breathe.

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