In sports journalism, the worst thing that can happen to you is a late game comeback. It requires you to change your whole narrative and write past the deadline. You just couldn’t have seen it coming.

For Phish in the year 2024, this was a regular occurrence and a reminder of why we keep coming back over and over and over again. Because the possibilities are endless. The new year’s gag showed as such. What a refreshing change from last year where everyone knew what was coming, to this year no one even bothered to guess. It could’ve been anything.

And it really was anything. Literally lol. An EDM dance party at MSG after the countdown into 2025? Loops over loops over Mr. Completely? The band took what they learned from the Sphere and pushed it even further forward.

Because that’s what Phish is and what 2024 was about. After you’ve reached a logical conclusion, you wake up the next day and ask yourself, “What if this happened on top of that?”

All throughout this year, we heard different versions of Phish. People didn’t like hearing the same songs over and over again, but honestly I loved it because it meant the band got back to their headspace quicker. And that’s what we want anyways, right?

As a result, every song was open for a jam at anytime in a show. Fucking My Friend My Friend went from almost 20 mins tonight. While you kind of knew what to expect, this year you surrendered to the flow because what was the point? Being present and letting go of your day to day ego was far more important. You’ll be that person again in a few hours anyways.

2024 was an absolute banner year for Phish and probably their best year since 2015. If you said this was the best 3.0 year I might be inclined to agree with you.

The Mexico run gave us an all timer of a Chalk Dust. The Sphere reminded us that our band has no fear since they completely trust each other. Yeah there were limitations, but you gotta crack some eggs to make an omelette. And that was delivered to us on NYE at YEMSG. Oh right, and there was a whole ass festival?

I don’t want to go too far into each highlight. Just pointing them out to say it was a FUN year to be a Phish fan. In a day and age where everyone’s wondering if spending exorbitant prices on concerts is worth it, the band made it worth our while for a whole fucking year. And that’s why I love them for sure.

Happy new year, everyone! I hope you have a wonderful 2025.