[This post is courtesy of Brian Weinstein, Host of the Attendance Bias podcast. -Ed.]

Regardless of whether time heals all wounds, it certainly adds perspective. Twenty years after an event–a movie, a championship win, an album, or a monumental concert– it’s customary to look back and think about What It All Meant, both at the time, and with the benefit of hindsight. Two decades seem to be the right amount of time to revisit even the worst experiences with a fresh set of eyes. With the approach of Mondegreen, Phish’s 11th large-scale festival since 1996, now seemed like a good time to reflect on Phish’s “final shows” that took place exactly 20 years ago: Coventry. What would it be like to look back mindfully, focusing on the positives? (After all, there’s nothing that could be 100% negative, right?)

A few weeks ago, I put out a call for listeners of the Attendance Bias podcast to share a short message detailing ONE positive memory from Coventry. There were no guidelines other than that: it could have been something as concrete as the “Split Open and Melt” jam, or something more abstract, like the sense of community that a person felt after witnessing hundreds or thousands of fans abandoning their cars and hiking into the festival.

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[We would like to thank Landon Schoenefeld (@nomidwestlove) aka @_colonel_mustard (Instagram) for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]

From the moment the announcement was made, I knew I was all in for Mondegreen, Phish’s first festival in nearly nine years (Curveball notwithstanding), but of course I wanted more. Summer tour has traditionally been tough for me as I usually have my hands full with work stuff, but I also knew as a rabid fan of this band for the last twenty-five years, that four shows would leave me unsatiated. So, when a friend casually floated the possibility of adding Bethel to our roster, I reluctantly agreed.

I have visited sheds north and south and east to west with a collect-them-all sort of zeal. I have always heard good things about Bethel but had never made the trip to these hallowed grounds near Yasgur’s Farm in upstate New York. Of course, as a card carrying hippy, I had to make the pilgrimage to ground zero of the most famous festival in American history. Yes, this is where Woodstock happened in August of 1969, but risking my mind becoming mired in a claustrophobic clutch of clichés, I will try my best to spare this recap from being drenched in a rainbow collage of psychedelic prose.

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[This post is courtesy of Christy Articola of STTF, thank you Christy! -Ed.]

The digital edition of the Surrender to the Flow Mondegreen issue, No. 84, is now available here!

We think you're really going to love this issue!

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[We would like to thank Elizabeth L. Woods (@tweezeher) aka @organic.music.society for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]

It’s been a quiet life for me here in Catskills since my family moved here in 1968. My father, a rare dog breeder, decided that the city was no place to raise a family (or a dozen or so chow-chow’s at any given time). I was only 15 when I took the trip to Yasugur’s Farm. I had smoked a little pot with some friends back in Brooklyn, but who knew it would take me leaving the metropolis my father feared would change me to blow the hinges clean off my doors of perception, leaving me born again in a field with 400,000 muddy psychonauts.

The world has changed a lot since then, and whatever good-fight we thought we had won after three days of peace, love, and music has been forfeited in exchange for a world less tethered to reality than I was at 15 years old on 200µg of what I was told was called “liquid sunshine in a bottle,” which I had later learned to be LSD-25, trying to sell wet dogs to the strangers in the rain.

This Phish show was nothing like that though…Other than some mud & psychonauts.

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[We would like to thank @andrewrose aka @andrewjrose for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]

The Gods made themselves known yesterday in and around the grounds of the original Woodstock festival—and beyond, for that matter—as Tropical Storm Debby landed in the North East, pummeling the region with heavy rain and wind, and had some speculating about potential cancellations or aborted sets. None of that came to be in the end; Debby did not Do Bethel … but the Gods did Make Love. What kind of Love and Thunder are we talking about here? What went down as Phish kicked off their three-night stand in New York ahead of the Mondergreen festival in Dover? Read on, My Friend, and we’ll dig in.

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We are closing in on the largest phish.net architectural redesign since the site's relaunch in 2009. A testament to the popularity of the band, the site's traffic continues to grow, but unfortunately, faster than our team can complete the next phase to accommodate it.

During shows, we'll be redirecting the site to a stripped down version of the setlist and the gap chart at live.phish.net. You may occasionally see an issue outside of this time–please note we are aware, and our volunteers are working as fast as they can. Thank you for your patience!

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[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.

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[We would like to thank Megan Glionna (@meganglionna) aka @the_megan_dance for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]

“I went to my first Phish show last night! It was so killer! It was amazing, indescribable. I’ve never seen a band so into their audience. Phish cannot even be judged until you see them in concert. They’re alive, electric, young, energetic. It was so tripped out to see downtown Grand Rapids full of hippies, like a Dead show! I felt uplifted, amazed and full of energy! They played so many killer tunes, I mean they jammed SO hard!”

Those are a few lines from my journal entry the day after I saw Phish for the first time when I was 17 years old. Take out the word “young” and it could accurately, if not eloquently, describe my feelings after last night’s show.

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[We would like to thank Daniel B.Simon (@sleeping_llama) for this piece. -Ed.]

Please give Phish a warm welcome back to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Jovi hosted Trey on his most recent visit, June 20, 2022. Trey brought his acoustic guitar, and sat in with her on the Grand Rapids "Bug." Kindness is magic, y'all! Without it, the rest doesn't even begin to matter.

On the heels of Trey's epic guest appearance with Jovi, he's bringing Mike, Jon, and Page along for The's fifth and sixth shows in Grand Rapids on August 6th and 7th. After 8/11/93 at Eastbrook Theatre, and 11/14/94 at DeVos Hall, it's their third trip to Van Andel. (In case there've been times when you wondered…ever heard of Amway? Jay Van Andel was a co-founder.) First came 11/11/96, and then came the two-year anniversary show of the aforementioned show, on 11/11/98. All-time most common opener "Chalk Dust Torture" (97x) kicked off the former, and PYITE the latter. Double treatment for "Contact," "Gumbo" and "Theme from the Bottom." Will any of those go 3-for-3? We've got two nights to find out. There's a lot of chatter in the build up to Mondegreen.** What is Phish holding back? What's in high gear? There's some serious spending, and also, paradoxically, some serious saving. Talk ain't cheap and neither is tour, but so as long as they destroy, it doesn't matter. (Still, I dare anyone to knock a Grand Rapids "Windora Bug.")

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[We would like to thank David Grossman (@first_tube_screamer) for recapping Sunday's show. -Ed.]

When ring leader @c_wallob's clarion call for the elect to assemble at Deer Creek (ermmm, Ruoff Music Center) went out shortly after the tour announcement, I waffled for a few months. There were closer venues, unvisited venues, and venues I would have preferred for various reasons. Only having caught one night at the Creek in ‘22 and nothing prior, c_wallob insisted I needed the full experience. Disaster struck a month prior to the shows when I was involved in a motor vehicle accident. Although frequent hospital trips and impaired mobility fettered me to either a couch or a gurney, I made the seemingly rash decision to take my flight out to corn-fed country. Let me tell you folks, St. Ernest rewards his faithful.

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[We would like to thank Matt (@coolyguy) for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]

I have to agree with @c_wallob's introductory remarks on Deer Creek from his review of Friday's show–Deer Creek is special. Besides the history, the convenient location, and everything else aforementioned, I would add that the plentiful nearby camping is a major manifester of the venue's signature vibe. The concertgoers here–or at least a large part of them–have been soaking up the Midwestern sun, rain, and all the elements, which contributes to a greater sense of community, and shared experience.

Which is to say, by Saturday it was hot outside. Humid, too, after the rain the night prior. My crew (The Lizards), all in from Chicago, sat on the lawn, awaiting the show's start, sweating, hoping the sun would go down, too (it usually does). Besides a frankly superhuman and very cool group of college-aged youngsters behind us, the crowd too seemed to be feeling the heat. People moved slowly, gripping their beverages caked with humidity.

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[We would like to thank Brad Strode (@c_wallob) for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]

What makes Deer Creek–an otherwise non-descript Live Nation mega-shed in the middle of strip malls that used to be cornfields–a can’t miss venue on a Summer Phish Tour? Maybe it’s the midwest location, enabling phans to come from East and West to gather for our favorite band. Maybe it’s the history of absurdly great Phish shows, not to mention the (significantly darker) history the venue holds in Grateful Dead lore.

Or maybe it’s because of the overall “vibe,” with its vibrant lot scene, plentiful tickets, and friendly staff. No matter the reason, when Summer Tour was announced for 2024, mrs_wallob and I encouraged our touring crew from all over the USA to join us on our pilgrimage, and the crew happily complied, in spite of the fact that we will all see each other in Delaware ten days after the final note rings out in the humid summer sky on Sunday.

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[Thanks to Mike (@yhgtbfkm) for the recap. -Ed.]

Writing recaps is hard. On top of trying to translate music into words (you try describing “Lawn Boy” in more than two sentences), it’s especially hard when the show you’re writing the recap for takes place the day after a show that contained, for lack of a better phrase, a jam for the ages. I had the privilege of attending NYE this past year, and as my friend and I were walking back to the hotel after the show, I rhetorically asked him “How do you top THAT?” and the answer is…you don’t. Phish learned that lesson years ago, Trey has said they make it a point to not talk about shows afterwards. Fans, however, have missed that part of the book. I started hearing about “Tweezer” while it was still happening. After two epic jams over the course of four shows, everyone was buzzing with anticipation about what tonight would hold. Would we get an epic "YEM" to compliment the tour so far? Maybe Gin as a throwback to the best "Gin" of all time (sorry not sorry)? Maybe they’ll play “Gloria” again! (Dear god I hope not.)

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[We would like to thank user @mikh2wg aka Rob for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]

I’ll start off by answering the question you all must be asking yourselves, “Did our reviewer go to the St. Louis Zoo before the show?” Yes. Yes I did. @lomein and I got into town at 9am and we needed something to do and somewhere to be. So after a killer vegan lunch at Seedz, we walked over to see some animals. Highlights included grizzly bear antics, getting splashed by puffins, and watching a hippo mom and calf take a nap underwater. As far as omens presaging songs that could be played tonight, we saw a big group of Vultures and lots of parents and kids who needed to Get Back on the (zoo) Train. I called No Men for the opener and Lomein called Glide. We checked into our hotel in the afternoon, had some dinner, and hopped on the Metro to the show.

So neither of us predicted the opener, but I'm not gonna complain about "Cars Trucks Buses." The sound was a little muddy across the board at first. Not a lot of clarity in the bottom end. Nonetheless, Trey gave us a patient solo with some good space for Mike to attack and Page tore it right up.

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[We would like to thank Ryan Mannix (@thewatchfulhosemaker), a musician and performer from Chicago who plays with Lunar Ticks and Beat The Meatles and runs Indie Park Music Festival in Irving Park. -Ed.]

You’ve heard it a million times, seen it on shirts, and probably uttered it earnestly and ironically, but Sunday night at Alpine Valley Music Theater was one not to be missed. The setup shows of Friday - killer songlist and inspired playing from start to finish, as well as Saturday with a once in a lifetime, historic jam in “Simple” - set the energy and expectations high for Sunday.

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