The Use of Keys to Every Door

Once upon a time some late October shows in upstate New York might have meant Fall Tour, or, maybe if you were lucky going back thirty years, a Halloween Run. There was plenty of precedent leading up to this single three-night run to inform what to expect, though maybe the most relevant is the more recent duo of benefit shows at SPAC last summer following the devastating floods in the region. In this case the ‘hometown’ shows were in support of the Divided Sky Foundation, the residential recovery center in Vermont founded by Trey to help support others struggling with addiction. And before I go any further, let me first encourage anyone reading this recap to make a donation to the foundation if you haven’t already. Maybe more importantly, if you or anyone you love is struggling with addiction, please know that help is out there. “All you have to do,” Trey offers, “is walk in the door.”

Whatever familiar precedent was hanging over these shows was completely thrown out the window yesterday afternoon when the news broke that Phil Lesh had passed away. Early in the day I had posted some ‘outrageous Albany asks’ on the Forum, enjoying some silly speculation and wishful thinking about what we might hear at these shows, including old Halloween throwbacks, Siket Disk rarities, and—the most outrageous of all—a version of the Dead’s “Wharf Rat” as a nod to the Divided Sky benefit. Mostly in jest. That is of course until the Phil news broke, and it became increasingly inconceivable that the band would open the run with anything other than “Box of Rain.” (For those that aren’t aware, “Box of Rain” was written by Phil with Robert Hunter at a time when his father was dying of cancer.) I had only planned to attend Saturday, a one-off coda to the Bethel run I had done with my friend in August—only this time we’d be bringing our teenaged sons along. I briefly entertained finding a ticket and white knuckling it down from Montreal in the four hours I had before showtime on Friday, but it was not in the cards—or the stars—so I was shedding my tears watching the webcast while our community did our part to see Phil through, thinking not just of him, but also my friend, Dead scholar, and notable long time Phish fan in his own right, Steve Silberman, who also passed away this year, at the end of August.

But by the time we had settled into our seats on Saturday there was a sense of Phishy familiarity and equilibrium in the air, in contrast to the heavy anticipation the night previous. I hadn’t been to Albany in fifteen years, when I caught the first show of a two night run in late November (if you’re keeping score, yeah, I missed the wrong night). My only other occasion at the venue was during the 20th anniversary mini-tour in 2003. My show buddy had a more impressive track record (of which he was only too happy to remind me), with the October 99 shows twenty-five years back his last visit, and the 12/9/95 classic, where he lucked into first-row mail order tickets, back when they still put seats on the floor.

Things certainly kicked off with an old school flavour, with a welcome and playful “Possum” warming up the room. “Sigma Oasis” and its “echo of home” followed and didn’t take long to offer the first exploration and highlight of the evening, settling effortlessly into a spacious and soulful interplay that felt like it could have really taken off and taken up some serious space in the set. Alas Trey and the band seemed content to tie a bow on it and bring it back to the “Sigma Oasis” theme just after 10 minutes, maybe not quite ready for take-off. Still, it’s worth checking out, especially for signs of a new sound possibly emerging as 2025 approaches. Instead the bluesy dance theme initiated with the “Possum” came back through the station with “Back on the Train,” a first set staple in the abbreviated songbook that the band has been playing from for most of the year. Indeed If I had any complaints about this otherwise strong year, it would be the dominance in setlists of a smaller rotation of songs, which can sometimes rob them of their immediate emotional impact. Tonight was as good (or as bad, depending on your point of view) an example as any of this trend. Still, that also means the band continues to sound tight and well rehearsed, Trey especially showing a kind of poise in composed classics that he hasn’t displayed with so much consistency in a very long time. This sixty-year-old guy is clearly still practicing a ton. The “Back on the Train” was easily an above-average version, with some variations on a theme at one point that the official setlist currently has tagged as a “Rainy Day Women #12 and 25” tease. I’m not convinced that what we heard here is anything other than basic and similar sounding riff—and not just because it might have been an odd choice to suggest “everybody must get stoned” at the recovery benefit show (whatever Dylan’s original intent of the lyric).

As if to undermine my short songlist point, the Undermind rarity “Nothing” appeared for only the ninth time, the last performance having sprung from a five-year void in Charleston in June 2022. There’s something about this Anastasio/Marshall Amfibian original lyrically that captures the broader spirit of this show to me. The suggestion that “nothing’s ensconced, nothing’s entrenched,” is an interesting frame for the dark, deconstructed jamming that would highlight about half the night’s jams. The contrast of being in “one instance not quite alone,” but in the next left behind, with “you like my thoughts .. borne off by the wind” brings impermanence to the fore. Impermanence is hard, it asks us to look at loss as the companion of love and attachment. ‘Nothing’ doesn’t mean nihilism, though. Impermanence is also the seat of possibility and recovery, and the promise, that if we’re able to face it with courage, that change is possible. Indeed, change is inevitable. Might as well lean in.

“When I die,” Steve Silberman said, “please don’t say that I’ve crossed over into the spirit realm, gone to the Other Side, moved on to a better place, rejoined my ancestors, or any other of those comforting fables. Just selfishly or selflessly use my own impermanence to wake up to your own.”

So “Stash” gave the band an opportunity to embrace it all and lean back into darker tones. We had revisited the excellent, unique version from 10/10/99 in Albany on the way down in the car, and while this one didn’t come close to that kind of exploration, it had some fiery bite and precision to it following a brief ‘woo!’-filled breakdown. “Bouncing Around the Room” followed in a decidedly 1.0 fashion, now countering darkness with light. Trey looked particularly happy as he effortlessly nailed the song’s signature trills in a more than satisfying fashion.

Speaking of which, don’t skip this “Tube.” The stupendous service to science was even funkier and more satisfying than usual, concocting a chemical reaction that effectively blew the top off the experiment in the room in short order. The crowd was loud and appreciative all night, and I had a great view of the energy on the floor from the first couple rows in Section 119 right next to Mike (where some band family members were also in attendance). Mike led the way in this jam, dropping some unique and dare I say Phil-inspired bombs and melodic lines. My only complaint about the room unfortunately had to do with the sound in that particular spot, which was a little muddy and suffered from sound bouncing off the back of the venue. This made it harder to fully parse and appreciate some of the gnarlier dissonant explorations of the night.

Case in point was the “Bathtub Gin” that followed, which seemed to want to make the case that it can just as easily play the role of noisy deconstructed evil set closer as its Lawn Boy studio companion “Split Open and Melt.” This was an aggressive and strange “Gin.” Not all of it was to my taste—certainly not up to the vintage recently imbibed on 8/11/24 at Bethel, but worth a listen all the same for the change brewing therein. It also wasn’t the actual set closer. “More” sprinkled a little love and light (and a more than fine Trey solo) back in for good measure, promising another set to come.

“Prince Caspian” opened the second frame on a similar, if slightly more melancholic tone; six minutes of another Trey favourite with the opportunity for a soulful solo, before Mike laid down the familiar gurgle of a “Down with Disease” that I had a feeling was coming. Trey seemed to be struggling a bit with his rig at the start of the song, and while there were some interesting moments of patience and space, the band never seemed to really lock in in a meaningful way. Trey looked over at Mike a few times suggesting a quick transition, without getting much of an acknowledgment. So they lingered a little longer in somewhat awkward fashion, flirting ever so briefly with some ‘Can’t Turn You Loose’-esque notes before making their way into the recovery of “Ruby Waves.” I was a bit concerned about the show’s trajectory at this point, as if they had inadvertently taken a wrong turn and couldn’t figure out how to regroup, and that we would be treated with some more formulaic crowd-pleasing up and down play. I can’t say that the rest of the show was knocked out of the park with highlights to rival some of this year’s high-water marks (the 2/22 “A Wave of Hope” and 8/11 “AC DC Bag” come to mind). But whereas the setlist stayed a familiar course for the rest of the night, the jamming style and exploration that began to emerge in “Ruby Waves” was decidedly experimental, unafraid to get weird and try the handles on a myriad of doors, like so many stars in the song.

If the “Ruby Waves” bravely navigated the darkness between those celestial bodies, the “Fuego” did it one better, drilling (in Mike’s case at one point literally) to the depths of the planet’s fiery core. Indeed if you’re looking for the show’s centerpiece, look no further. As much as I have to admit I’ve tired a little by how much “Fuego” seems to follow me around (maybe it’s because this Dad keeps taking his son to shows?), I can’t find fault with anything that emerged here, even if it might not have been the most accessible stuff for a couple of teens. At some point the molten dissonance of the jam melted everything in its wake and Mike was dropping Fikus-infused sonic bombs again, the rest of the band swirling and piercing the threat of nothingness with meaning and delicious, horrible purpose. There’s a point in this jam at which it’s hard to tell who, other than Fish, is responsible for what gnarly sound.

It only made sense then that “What’s the Use?” would emerge from this space, coming up explicitly against the threat of nihilism with that familiar, mournful wail. I’ve often wondered— especially in these years that we’ve been blessed with as a result of Trey’s recovery, in the company of so many songs of hope and redemption—what use “What’s the Use?” serves. As the song progressed beautifully and slowed to a long and fully silent halt, the lights on stage and in the room completely darkened, and the cheers too yielded to silence, it began to dawn on me. It’s precisely the ability to come up against the whole spectrum of darkness and face it, fully, without resistance, that makes the long hard climb to redemption possible. And boy is there some powerful redemption on display here in the final string of notes Trey pulls out of the darkness. A box of rain to ease the pain straight from the heart.

The “Golden Age” (which happened to debut in Albany on 11/27/09) that followed makes even more sense here in that context, as a celebration of having made it through the wringer, a promise of better days ahead, and an encouragement not to falter. Lest you get too comfortable and assume smooth sailing from here out though, the jam goes from in-the-box positivity right back into deconstructed absurdity before drifting into the uncertain waters of “Lonely Trip,” echoing the themes visited in the first set’s “Nothing.” Some very nice work by Page on this one as we’re again presented with impermanence “when water turns to sand,” and the alternating paradox of sailing alone, with “doors closed tightly” and of chance encounters with other vessels along the way, and words as keys.

“Sink like a stone, or float like feather.”

“Thank you Mr. Miner. Thank you Mr. Hood.”

“Harry Hood” took us home fittingly then—washing the dissonance and darkness of the show in a shower of praise, and the conviction that yes, you can feel good about what’s behind all these doors. It was a very strong version of the peak-laden classic that would foreshadow an even stronger “Slave to the Traffic Light” in the encore, following everyone’s favourite song by a bunch of 8th graders, “Golgi Apparatus.” Yes, it was maybe a little odd to get a “Hood” and a “Slave” in such proximity, but such is the state of a Phish setlist in 2024. Hardly something to resist, especially with performances as strong as these.

And it’s that resistance to reality, isn’t it, that ultimately does harm? That withdrawal into ourselves to not face whatever might come, whether it be light or dark. Not every show is going to offer a masterpiece jam, rarities, or a cathartic rope to passing generational ships. But if you’ve brave enough to go deep, and weather the tides of impermanence and change, and November and more, you might find that there’s an anchor there, at the end of an unbroken chain, holding it all down. It doesn’t promise safe shores anymore than it promises stormy seas. Just the ongoing secret of searching for sound, and maybe, if you’re lucky, direction around some corner, where it’s been waiting to meet you. All you have to do is walk in the door…