The Phish 2009 Fall Tour Dates have been announced, and if you live in the east, you are psyched! Normally I’d be a little miffed at no west coast, but we are 3 weeks away from the big throw down in Indio, so no lost love there. Hope all my east coast buddies have a good time!
PHISH FALL TOUR 2009
11.18.09 Cobo Arena, Detroit, MI
11.20.09 U.S. Bank Arena, Cincinnati, OH
11.21.09 U.S. Bank Arena, Cincinnati, OH
11.22.09 War Memorial at Oncenter , Syracuse, NY
11.24.09 Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, PA
11.25.09 Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, PA
11.27.09 Times Union Center, Albany, NY
11.28.09 Times Union Center, Albany, NY
11.29.09 Cumberland County Civic Center, Portland, ME
12.02.09 Madison Square Garden , New York, NY
12.03.09 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
12.04.09 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
12.05.09 John Paul Jones Arena, Charlottesville, VA
Buy tickets online.
6.4.09 Jones Beach Amphitheater, Wantagh, NY
Set 1
Grind, The Divided Sky, Ocelot, The Squirming Coil, Punch You in the Eye, Dirt, NICU, Ghost, Run Like An Antelope
Set 2
Water in the Sky, Birds of a Feather, Drowned> Meatstick, Time Turns Elastic, Waste, You Enjoy Myself
Encore: Rock and Roll
Alright, I guess it’s time to dust off the cobwebs and get ready for the next big Phish adventure! Our only summer shows will be the Gorge in Washington, unless some Red Rocks tickets miraculously fall from the sky. It’s a bit frustrating to have some big Phish shows going down in your own state but be unable to attend since apparently no one in Colorado actually scored tickets. But I digress.
How great is it to have a summer full of Phish to look forward to? Just like the good old days. Even if you aren’t at the shows, there is the excitement of checking the setlists to see what they played, and waiting impatiently for LivePhish.com to put the show up so you can listen to it. Or if you are the kind of person that likes surprises, you can always check out the No Spoilers downloads from Mr Miner. Just like being at the show, minus all the stinkie hippies and drunk frat boys. Sounds kinda nice actually.
So here’s to the return of Phish in the summer time. Two of the best things life has to offer, back together again!
Now we’re talking!
7.30.09 Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO
7.31.09 Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO
8.01.09 Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO
8.02.09 Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO
8.05.09 Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA
8.07.09 The Gorge Amphitheatre, George, WA
8.08.09 The Gorge Amphitheatre, George, WA
8.11.09 Toyota Park, Chicago, IL
8.13.09 Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, Darien Center, NY
8.14.09 Meadows Music Theater, Hartford, CT
8.15.09 Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD
8.16.09 Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, NY
Visit Phish.com for more info.
We had an epic travel day after the show, which involved driving 3 hours after the show, hopping on a plane, then another plane, then driving 3 more hours. Needless to say I’m exhausted, but the show was incredible and Phish is indeed back. I was fully impressed at my 47th show, and super psyched for what the future holds.
In the meantime, the Hampton Selists are here.
Thanks to Hidden Track for the heads up about this great article in the New York Times about Phish and their return. Some really positive stuff in there from a fan perspective. Two things in particular really stood out to me. One, they are talking about how to make this a “a format to keep playing for a long time” according to Trey. That’s great, as I think everyone will agree that the big tours of the past may not be feasible, but there is no reason Phish can’t keep things going for years and years to come.
Another point that I really liked was how they have been practicing, and not just the simple songs. According to the article, Split Open & Melt and Foam were being practiced. Foam! When’s the last time they played that? It sounds like they are dedicated to really being on top of their game with this go round, which is really exciting. Part of the joy of Phish in ‘94 was knowing they’d hit 99% of the notes perfectly!
Lastly, there is a mention of a structured setlist for the weekend shows, and I think this is great. Just yesterday I was listening to a bunch of Fall 2000 shows, and thinking how great and varied the setlists were. Apparently at the time Trey didn’t like it though, as he vowed that tour would be the last where they used setlists. And while there is a cool creative element to the open slate of just playing whatever, I think with a planned setlist, you get better variety, at least from a fan perspective. And it’s not like they can’t deviate if they are feeling it too.
Definitely check the article out, it was a fantastic way to start the morning!
Just when I thought I couldn’t get any more excited about this weekend’s shows, Phish.com just announced they will be offering free MP3 downloads of the entire weekend! From the official site:
“Each show will be professionally multitracked and mixed onsite and within 24 hours, 256kbps MP3s will be made available for free for a limited time at LivePhish.com. Fans who wish to download higher quality versions may purchase FLAC downloads. The shows will also be available on CD. Both are available for pre-order now. You can register at LivePhish.com to receive an email when the free MP3s are available for download.”
Everyone had been wondering why there was no preorder on LivePhish yet, and I guess now we know why! So psyched I don’t think I am gonna be able to sleep the rest of the week!
Ok, I remember the first time Phish came back. It was hard to get tickets to MSG and Hampton, but the rest of the tour wasn’t a big deal from what I remember. There certainly wasn’t all this despair about not getting tickets and scalpers and such. I mean there are always scalpers, but I just don’t remember it being like this last time. So what’s changed?
Well, for one, last time we knew it was just a hiatus. They were expected to come back at some point, it was only a matter of when. This time, we thought they were done, finished, end of the road. Of course we all hoped and prayed, but really it was always a distant hope.
Back then we only had to wait a little over two years. This time it’s been over four years, so everybody is really jonesing for the Phish! I was honestly shocked at how quickly the summer tour sold out, especially the larger venues. I figured Alpine would stick around for awhile, but no such luck.
So what does it all mean? Is this how it’s gonna be for Phish 3.0? I sure hope not. The second time around, it was nice knowing you could slack on tickets and still see the shows you wanted to go to. I’m hoping once the first year of their return has passed, things will settle and we’ll get back to normal. Whenever the West Coast run is announced we’ll probably have to deal with the same crap, but we’ll see. Whenever you have limited supply and great demand, you get high prices. Damn economic theory is screwing us on this one!
I had resigned myself to not going to Hampton, and I was ok with it. Tickets sold out super fast, I did all I could, and I certainly wasn’t going to pay some scalping bastard. Yep, I had resigned myself to sitting this one out, but a chance conversation with a good friend rekindled the hope, and low and behold, we scored tickets for the Sunday night show.
We even found incredibly cheap plane tickets, which could have been a dealbreaker. So we’re going to the show, and we couldn’t be more excited. Each day brings the reality closer, and the energy levels continue to rise in anticipation of what we thought we’d never see again.
Not much going on these days. The new Phish Live at The Roxy album is coming soon, but other than that we are in that in between time, waiting for the next tour. As things get closer we’ll be ramping up here, but for now we’re on cruise control.