This was either my 28th show or my 23rd, depending on whether The Great Went, Lemonwheel, Coventry and Magnaball each count as one show or several.

Magnaball in 2015 (especially Day 2) was my all-time favorite show musically. After that, my next three shows (over the next 4 years) were not the greatest – I inhaled so much fucking cigarette smoke from the crowd on 6/29/2019 that I couldn’t even make it to 6/30 – and then the pandemic hit.

12/28/2024 was my first Phish show in over 5 years, my longest gap since I started seeing them in 1994.

A lot of things about this show struck me as very odd! I don’t know if that’s because a lot of things have changed since 2019, or if things haven’t changed and my memory just sucks. I’m pretty locked in on the performance at shows so I’m inclined to trust my memory, but I’m curious to hear takes from other fans who’ve been around for a while, to see if any of my thoughts seem off base.

So here we go!

My friend and I drove down from Ithaca, about five hours away, and got into Manhattan plenty early to stash his car in a parking garage near MSG. Once we got to the garage, we learned that our 5:00-12:00 reservation was not actually good till 12, since the garage closed at 11:30. Immediately, we started hoping really, really hard that the band would start relatively on time.

As it turned out, they came on nearly an hour late. We knew we were fucked. Unless the band played a weirdly short show, we were going to miss the encore at the very least.

When they opened with Simple, I immediately got fully into it, happy to be back seeing Phish, hearing the sound, singing along, watching the lights do their thing, watching the crowd dance. Song selection didn’t really matter, I would have been happy with almost anything. As Simple launched into the jam portion, I suppose I must have been expecting something less ambitious, because I was pleasantly surprised by a 13-minute rager! This was the best show opener I’ve ever seen live. Just a fantastic version, intense and interesting but easy to follow and dance to. This was my second big rock show since ACL reconstruction, and the first one where I could really thrash like I used to before the injury. I even grew my hair out for the occasion. It was fucking great. I rocked out as hard as I possibly could in front of my seat (Section 107, Row 7) sandwiched between two other people, and when the song ended I told myself that that alone was worth it.

(My ticket was $162. So much more than my last show! Fortunately I have way more money now than I did back when tickets were cheap.)

Next up was Free. Not played particularly well, but good enough, and holy shit Kuroda did some absolutely amazing stuff with the lights! The lights were great during Simple too, in a very familiar Phish way. Free was different. A lot of red and some white shooting out of the darkness in rapidly changing patterns. It kind of felt like being under attack by aliens, in a very very cool way. This sort of vibe continued through the jam, and when the song ended I was very happy and excited to see what would come next. Yeah, it was a weak Free musically with a forgettable jam, but after that amazing Simple and thanks to the great lights, I was still completely immersed and having an awesome time.

And then Farmhouse completely killed the momentum. It was weird. I like Farmhouse! I’ve seen some very soulful performances of Farmhouse. I’ve seen Farmhouse be a perfect part of an amazing set, many times. But this version was awkward as hell. First, the lights. The song started with a mix of pale purple, green, white and yellow lights on the band and the crowd… and just stayed there for the whole song. It was like Kuroda just left. I can’t remember whether that was for the full song or just most of it… but it happened again for Driver, and that was definitely for the full song. Hey, I understand if Chris needs a break at times, like after the virtuoso performance on Free, but can another lighting person fill in, to keep the dynamics going? I started wondering if there was an illness going around the group, since Trey’s vocals sounded very hoarse. Was Kuroda out puking somewhere? Regardless, it would have been nice to have an understudy.

The second awkward thing about Farmhouse was that the crowd tried to sing along but Trey completely changed how the chorus vocals end, and the old and new versions did not go well together, and the crowd didn’t catch on in time to join Trey in singing it a different way. It wasn’t until one of the last reps that it was clear to me that Trey was doing this deliberately rather than screwing up. I think the new vocal part might actually be quite nice, if he were singing it with a healthy voice and not fighting the crowd. But that’s not how it went down.

Finally, Farmhouse had a longer than usual solo, but I found the jam to be mostly a tease. Each time I thought the intensity was starting to pick up, it just stayed where it was. I do not need every Phish jam to churn out a classic climax, but this one needed to go somewhere and it really didn’t.

After Farmhouse, whatever the band was going to do, they were going to have to start back up from scratch. Which I had full confidence that they could do, after that amazing Simple! But it did feel weird.

Poor Heart was fine, a punchy tune as always, great soloing from Page, but still no contribution from Kuroda. Fortunately the lights came back to do their usual awesome thing with Tube, and the show was back on. Whew! A strong Tube, followed by Kill Devil Falls with a particularly strong jam for that tune. I got my thrash back on and all was well.

Then they repeated the strange thing with Farmhouse again, where the lights didn’t move for the entirety of Driver, and the band played with little energy. I have always been opposed to some fans’ characterization of Phish’s short, quiet, or predictable songs as “bathroom break” songs, but this version of Driver really felt like being told “go pee.”

(It’s always baffled me that Phish started dropping jazzy numbers like All Things Reconsidered back when they began playing arenas, claiming those songs didn’t work in that setting… but they’ll still play quiet tunes like Driver? Bring back ATR! And Magilla! And many more I could name! Nothing against Driver, but I prefer the jazzy stuff.)

Their break over, the band played a perfectly solid Reba, and then launched into the first “new tune” (to me) of the show, Oblivion. I had just gotten my hands on Evolve (2024 album) a few weeks before so I could recognize the new tunes, and Oblivion was one of my favorites. This performance was a little muddy in places, but did cohere in a satisfying fashion, and launched a fantastic, rocking, short jam which led quickly into a balls-to-the-wall Antelope. Oblivion + Antelope was a truly excellent way to close the set.

(I have enough experience with Antelope live at this point that I didn’t fall for any of the first 6 or 7 peaks Trey hit and exhaust my dancing batteries early. Nope! I stayed with the band all the way to the end – I didn’t go 100% and use up all my energy until they finally finished the jam. Good thing, because I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Phish sustain climax-style intensity without a lull for as long as they did here.)

So that was Set 1. Plenty of great moments, and I totally got what I came for, but at the same time I felt almost insulted that the band and Kuroda didn’t appear to even really attempt to put together a full, beginning-to-end set of the kind I’m used to. And no, I’m not talking about pre-scripted sets from the early ‘90s with no pauses. That’s not my point of comparison. I’m just talking about a persistent flow to the energy, where the lulls or rests feel like part of the arc of the set rather than just awkward stops.

I have many fewer thoughts on Set 2. I had a bit less energy, and without getting lost in moving my body to the music, I was a little more distracted by an idle thought here or an annoying fan there. The first four songs of the set were fine. I Always Wanted It This Way was neat and strange and tantalized me with being a potential lights-and-keyboards tour de force in the future. This was my first time hearing this song, and it reminded me of a Disco Biscuits jam, which is not a bad addition to Phish’s arsenal. Twist was solid, Mango Song was messy (did Mike forget how it goes?), and Blaze On was fantastic, with an energetic jam that climaxed in a yell-along conclusion.

Then it was time to head back to that lying parking garage. If their website had told the truth about being open till midnight, I would have gotten to see Cavern, Bowie, and an encore starting with Mountains in the Mist, which was the perfect choice. On the drive from Ithaca, the white mist had been so striking that I had taken dozens of photos out the window, trying to capture it. I had even speculated that Phish should play Mist or Taste (with the Fog That Surrounds lyric). And they did! But alas, I wasn’t there for it.

Overall a strange Phish experience for me. I got to enjoy the sorts of spectacular highlights that the band almost always delivers, but I also had some head-scratching lackluster moments. In the end, I think it will be the Simple, Blaze On, and Oblivion/Antelope combo that stick with me. I may want to update my expectations before my next show, though, depending on whether the weak spots were a one-time outlier or a new normal.