December 31st, 2013 found me waking up in Manhattan, ready to take on the final night of Phish’s nearly-annual New Year’s run at Madison Square Garden. This would be my third show of the band's four-night engagement, as family Christmasing (and financial prudence, I suppose) had kept m’lady and I busy out east until the 29th (my birthday is my trump card).

And not only were we taking in a pile of great music surrounded by good friends in one of the world’s more highfalutin’ cities, we’d also opted against couch-surfing for a change and had booked ourselves into the relative swank of the rather famous Hotel Chelsea, a 130-year-old inn just eight blocks from the venue. After tromping through the door two slices of pizza after the bars had closed the night before (and with much more of the same in store for the evening) I suspect we slept in. You’ll forgive me for not actually remembering.

We might have slept for most of the day for all I recall, but I sure do remember the concert, so let’s get right there shall we?

Phish’s New Year’s Eve concerts are always three-set shows and they always include some sort of grand, over-the-top gag. This one was no different, except that it was the band’s best NYE gag ever [sic], and not only that, this gag lasted the entirety of the second set.

And so the first set of PHNYE is generally one of anticipation, curiosity, and New Year’s-style celebratory hijinks as opposed to one of musical gold, but the band did their level best to keep us entertained throughout the set anyway, from the opening AC/DC Bag right through to the awesome Fluffhead closer (with a wicked Wilson>Divided Sky somewhere in the middle). Looking at it out of context one could only say, “Wow, nice looking set. Bet that was great!” but in context (and especially in retrospect) it was just the opening act for the main event which, as I alluded to earlier, was the entire second set.

Curiously the gag (for me, anyways) actually began during the setbreak. It was really just the setup but to my shocked eyes I was witnessing something that I would have thought was quite impossible. To me nothing short of a miracle unfolded on the boarded hockey rink below me, and it left me astounded.

The floor of Madison Square Garden was packed, of course. It was a sold-out show full of savvy fans that know how to get where they want to be so there must have been five, maybe six thousand people crammed onto the floor. They played a funny video on the big screens in which drummer Jon Fishman restores the band’s old JEMP tour van and then whattya know, the truck appeared beside the stage in real life. Roadies went to work setting up equipment on the roof and then - astoundingly - they somehow cleared a wide lane through the floor of the arena and DROVE THE TRUCK TO CENTRE ICE OF MADISON SQUARE GARDEN. It was basically an amped-up version of when I watched a team of security guards cut a swath through a packed concert field in Golden Gate Park four months earlier so they could drive Willie Nelson to the stage at Outside Lands Festival. I had never seen anything like it before and I sure didn’t think I was going to see anything like it again, and yet here I was, seeing it again.

Oh, did I mention that this was all in celebration of Phish’s 30th anniversary? It was! (Though the band’s first gig was actually on December 2nd, 1983.)

When everything was in place the band members came out, crawled through the cab of the truck and onto the roof from which they played an entire set of old Phish material using their old, stripped-down gear. Tiny drum kit, just a single keyboard, heck, they were even using hockey sticks in lieu of mic stands just like they did at their first gig. During Icculus Trey mentioned how they used to play the “ridiculous” song every week during their regular gigs at Nectar’s in Burlington, Vermont and how back then he never imagined that, “…some day I’ll be playing this at Madison Square Garden.”

As cool as the whole shebang was, the main reason why I think this was Phish’s best NYE gag ever is because it was musical. Sure, big blow-up dolls, Cirque du Soleil acrobatics, golf carts and hot dogs are fun (and tasty), but it’s not like I’d buy the album. This, on the other hand, was a different story. There was a ton of love in the room as the band revisited epic early mainstays like Glide, The Lizards, Colonel Forbin’s Ascent, Fly Famous Mockingbird and more.

When the set ended with (Split Open and Melt) the truck went away (another, lesser miracle) and the band was back onstage for the third set, which included the countdown to midnight and Auld Land Sine which was, of course, accompanied by an extravagant never-ending balloon drop.

And so it was that 20,000 like-minded friends rang in the first hour of 2014 together grooving to Fuego, Light, Twenty Years Later, Bouncing Around the Room, and a purging, liberating, happy new yeary You Enjoy Myself to close the set, if not the night.

No, the night would be closed - or at least the live musical chapter of the night anyways - with a few more mini-gags. Phish began the encore with one of their barbershop numbers - Grind - but instead of using the middle break to list off how many days each band member has lived so far* they gave the number of days they will have lived when the group’s 60th Anniversary comes around. And then after closing things down legit with the very-appropriate Show of Life the band bid us goodnight while the big screen flashed a save-the-date image for the pending anniversary show: MSG NYE 2043.

It’s no easy road
This struggle and strife

We find ourselves in the show of life

What’s on the schedule?

What’s on your plan?

Do you ever ignore

What you don’t understand?

Don’t ask me ’cause I don’t know

I just fasten my seat belt wherever I go

Happy New Year everybody.

(With no memories to the contrary I’m quite confident that the bread of this Phish sandwich would have been the Tempest Bar kitty-corner across the street from MSG. The place has a semi-secret back room which myself and m’lady [and virtually all of her numerous ‘merican friends] somehow commandeered for the pre and post hours of all[?] the shows. I don’t know if it is/was pre-arranged or official or what, but I can think of very, very few Phish MSG concerts I’ve attended that didn’t start and end in that back room.)

*As of this writing I am personally just under two weeks away from my 20,000th day (October 1st, 2022). It was Phish’s Grind that inspired me to start keeping track of such things**.

**As of this proofreading*** (yes, I prrof read) I am something like 20,018 days old or something. To be honest, I’ve already lost track. Grind isn’t my favourite of their songs.

***And finally, as of this final-edit-before-I-post (which is happening mere hours before yet another PHNYE gag is scheduled to unfold) I must heartily admit that this was not in fact the best PHNYE gag ever. For it is written: Phish way, way, way outdid themselves ten years after this concert when they staged an elaborate production of Trey's Gamehendge saga at Madison Square Garden on 12/31/23, complete with huge props and actors and all kinds of amazing hoopla. Phish fans around the world fell to their knees and started speaking in tongues.

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