PHISH archivist Kevin Shapiro recently---and graciously---tweeted HAPPY 34th BIRTHDAY to PhishNet, because for a very long time we believed PhishNet began thirty-four years ago in March 1990, as indicated in the old dot net "timeline," this News item, and this Jambands article from 2008 when Phish received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Jammys.
But a few years ago, PhishNet's founder Matt Laurence found his first email to the new PhishNet email list and sent it to us:
SET 1: Cosmic Charlie, They Love Each Other, Friend of the Devil, Bird Song, Jack-A-Roe, Brokedown Palace
SET 2: Promised Land, Box of Rain, Viola Lee Blues > Bertha > Viola Lee Blues, Eyes of the World
ENCORE: Estimated Prophet [1], Let It Grow[1], Sugar Magnolia[1]
[Text courtesy of Alex of the Divided Sky Foundation. -Ed.]
For the third year, the Divided Sky Foundation has partnered with the Antelope Running Club to host a charity 5K run in Ludlow, Vermont. This event will occur on May 18th and will help raise awareness about addiction recovery and treatment, and support the recently opened Divided Sky Recovery Center, as well as the Turning Point Centers of Rutland and Springfield, Vermont. We're also excited this year to partner with The Phoenix to organize a post-run Mountain Music Festival, featuring Anders Osbourne, Dogs in a Pile and Saints & Liars.
SET 1: Mountains of the Moon, Good Times, Althea [1], Dark Hollow [2], Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo, Queen Jane Approximately, Stop That Train, (I'm a) Roadrunner [3], Señor (Tales of Yankee Power) [4], Lonesome and a Long Way From Home [5], Ripple[5], Day Tripper [6], And We Bid You Goodnight [7]
In case you've missed it, the Attendance Bias podcast with host Brian Weinstein, for the previous two weeks and episodes, has been reminiscing about and revisiting Phish history during the 2000 pre-hiatus and 2001-2002 hiatus period, and the 2.0 and break-up period, with members of Phish.net and The Mockingbird Foundation, Scott Marks and Charlie Dirksen.
REPRISE is a band that formed to reprise the Phish experience. At each of their shows, a concert from Phish’s history will be played in its entirety. The band is made up of Cal Kehoe (Pink Talking Fish), Adrian Tramontano (Twiddle, Kung Fu and The Breakfast), Chris DeAngelis (The Machine, Kung Fu and The Breakfast), and Scott Chasolen (The Machine). This weekend they'll be playing at Nectar's in Burlington, and both shows will be streamed live from Volume.
PHISH has announced a summer tour that begins with three shows at Great Woods on July 19, 20 and 21, and then continues at the Mohegun Sun on July 23 and 24, Alpine Valley on July 26, 27 and 28, St. Louis on July 30 and 31, Deer Creek on August 2, 3, and 4, the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids on August 6 and 7, Bethel Woods on August 9, 10, and 11, the previously announced Mondegreen festival in Delaware August 15th through the 18th, and finally four shows at Dicks from August 29th through September 1st. Tickets through the Phish Tickets lottery process for everything except Mondegreen are available now through Monday, March 11th, at noon e.t. Public onsale begins Friday, March 15th, at 10am e.t. For more information, visit Phish's website.
[We would like to thank user @Scissortail (Matt) for this recap. -Ed.]
“If you’re gonna take a risk, sometimes you’re gonna play shit. … But I don’t think our fans do happily lap it up. I think what happens is they get on the internet and talk about how it was a bad show.” – Trey Anastasio, circa 1996
Trey said the above in the documentary “Bittersweet Motel,” in response to a review that said he could urinate in our ears and call it music, and we would be there happily with tape recorders to capture the moment. I bring it up here because I take some exception to the general premise of Trey’s response.
I think the majority of Phish fans can be quite forgiving of a risk gone bad. What we don’t easily forgive is when Phish isn’t taking any risks at all.
[We would like to thank user @Laudanum (Jon Allison) for this recap. -Ed.]
The normal mix of anxiousness and anticipation surrounding a Phish show gets dialed up a notch or two when you know you’re going to be recapping it. Moreso when it’s your first time. Will I get a dud and be forced to trash my favorite band? A middling show with nothing much to say about it either way? Or a good to great show, easy to write about, but carrying some small measure of responsibility to capture it for the ages?
[We would like to thank John Montague (.net @mazegue) for providing this recap. -Ed.]
How did I get here? I like my Phish a little grimy. I like it indoors, because I like the energy bouncing off the walls. If I could, I’d get teleported to The Colonial Theater in the early '90s, or perhaps pick up some broke and dirty hitchhikers en route to Dane County Coliseum. I want the full Phish experience. I want the parking lot. I want Shakedown Street. I want my dose of American culture at its very best. That said, I am here in Mexico for whatever Gamehendge has in store. Two of my best friends are turning 50 this week, and this is how they want to celebrate. I can’t think of a better reason to be here.
I just saw a good dark and stormy, grimy Phish show in Mexico, in the least grimy of venues. It was a deep show, layered with complexity, light dancing with dark on Black and White night.
[We would like to thank Kelly Wilson (.net @kellynicu) for providing this recap. -Ed.]
Night one of Phish at Riveria Maya began with a mild yet refreshing mist of rain before the band took the stage at 9:15 to a sea of eager fans. They kicked off with an upbeat “Back On The Train” to get the party started while Kuroda’s purple and blue lights made even the palm trees dance and glow. After an extended jam, Trey, as always, graciously welcomed us before breaking into “Moma Dance,” which included three random samples of the words “three orange whips.”
[We would like to thank user Jasn1001 (Jason Carlson) for his work and this post! -Ed.]
One of the best things about Phish.net and Phish.in is the free API access to the relational database. It allows any member to request a key and query the database of songs, shows, setlists, and more.
As a long time Phish fan and having recently gained some data manipulation skills, I started a personal project to make a visualization dashboard. Plots that I always wanted to see. To help summarize all of the data the volunteers at The Mockingbird Foundation, Phish.net, and Phish.in have collected over the years.
I had already been working on the dashboard before seeing the recent post about show ratings being disabled because of a surge in activity skewing ratings of historical shows. This motivated me to finally finish the dashboard and share it. The idea of increasing access to the data and helping individuals find a reason to rate shows on Phish.net is what the project is about. Whether it is a highly rated show, average, or low. If a listener had been there the night of, streamed it from home, or listened to it on phish.in a few years later. I think the dashboard can help to navigate the data around the year, tour, or show and help to justify a rating of what your ears just heard. A law of large numbers type of idea that the larger the sample size of ratings becomes the closer we get to the true rating of the show. Here is the link https://www.philletofphish.com/. It is best viewed on an iPad or larger.
Here is a quick rundown on the site.
First, select the show date from the searchable dropdown box, which by default is set at the most recent show.
What is Wordsmith?
By popular demand, Wordsmith is back! Once again, Tom wrote a verse of what might be a song someday, and he’s stuck with a bad case of writer’s block. Please help Tom by contributing the next verse.
PHISH's next festival, MONDEGREEN, will involve four days of shows (so perhaps more than four shows) on August 15-18, 2024, at The Woodlands in Dover, Delaware. For more information about the event, please click here. Although passes for the festival go on sale this Friday, January 19, at 11am e.t., through AXS (create a fan account, or update your current AXS info (perhaps with a New Device) for a smooth purchase experience), travel packages go on sale this Thursday, January 18, at 11am e.t. For more information about mondegreens, there's a YouTube video here, an entertaining New Yorker piece from nearly a decade ago "The Science of Misheard Lyrics" here, and, of course, lest one e'er forget, heaven's just a funky moose.
PHISH released video today of its performance of Gamehendge on December 31, 2023, which spanned two of the show's three sets. This video not only contains footage that was broadcast to viewers of the webcast on New Year's Eve, but also previously unseen footage.
In celebration of Phish’s four-show New Year's Eve run at Madison Square Garden (Dec 28, 29, 30, & 31), the all-volunteer and fan-run Mockingbird Foundation has announced that it is sending an unsolicited $1,000 Tour Grant to four music education programs nearby:
This is the 26th round of unsolicited Tour Grants, an effort that now totals over $268,000, which is 11% of all disbursements made by the foundation. These grants are part of a long-standing effort to help support music education in the local communities that Phish touches. They follow Mockingbird's largest competitive grant round ever, and a total of 66 grants this past summer alone! Mockingbird has now made 661 grants in all 50 states, totaling more than $2.3M.
PHISH will perform at Madison Square Garden on December 28, 29, 30 and 31. The ticket request period for the phoi pholloi is underway at tickets.phish.com and will conclude on Monday, September 25th, at Noon eastern time. The public onsale begins Friday, September 29th, at Noon eastern time. A limited number of travel packages (hotel + tickets) will go on sale Wednesday, September 27th at Noon ET here.
The next Phish festival will be at The Woodlands in Dover, Delaware, from August 15-18, 2024. More information will be published soon. Join the Phish Update to hear about it first (email + shiny new SMS list): phish.com/update.
We're excited about the upcoming First Annual Wingsuit Open, a charity disc golf tournament for Phish fans organized by Matt James. The event will be September 2nd in Aurora, CO, and benefits music education for children through the all-volunteer Mockingbird Foundation. Complete rules, registration info, and a course map are at www.peacejames.co/wingsuitopen. There will also be a mini disc golf competition and a putting competition on site, as well as other contests, prizes, and limited edition gift items TBA.
Matt's hoping to grow the event to 180 players; you'll want to say that you were an OG, at the inaugural event. Also, the event is currently in the "middle registration" period, and the donation request jumps in 5 days to "late registration". (Those unable to attend can also register to get a player's pack shipped to them.) So, sign up soon, and start working out those throwing arms!
Note that this is the same day as the Eighth Annual Runaway Open charity golf tournament, for which there are still openings and which will now also include a virtual component. Three kinds of golf, to accomodate your preference and location, and bring us all together for some fun and fundraising. Register for one, or all three, today!
Phish.net is a non-commercial project run by Phish fans and for Phish fans under the auspices of the all-volunteer, non-profit Mockingbird Foundation.
This project serves to compile, preserve, and protect encyclopedic information about Phish and their music.
Credits | Terms Of Use | Legal | DMCA
The Mockingbird Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Phish fans in 1996 to generate charitable proceeds from the Phish community.
And since we're entirely volunteer – with no office, salaries, or paid staff – administrative costs are less than 2% of revenues! So far, we've distributed over $2 million to support music education for children – hundreds of grants in all 50 states, with more on the way.