Tonight (Tuesday, August 18th), Phish will air their August 19th, 2012 show at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium as the 21st episode of their ongoing archival webcast/cooking series, Dinner and a Movie. Tune in below at 8:30 p.m. ET and scroll down to follow along with our 8/19/12 Stream Companion.
Phish Dinner and a Movie Episode 21: 8/19/12, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
Previous Dinner and a Movie Stream Companions have included a little paragraph here about the past episodes, but it’s stopped being so little after 21 weeks. Now, it’s a list instead, so you can check out the past episodes and revisit their respective Stream Companions:
Ahead of tonight’s stream, fans can tune in to SiriusXM Phish Radio for a conversation between Ari Fink and actor/Phish fan Joseph Gordon-Levitt before Gordon-Levitt hosts this week’s edition of fan-curated program, “Crowd Control.” Check out a clip from the new “Crowd Control” below and tune in starting at 6 p.m. here.
Which artist(s) have you discovered through @phish? For Joseph Gordon-Levitt it was the Velvet Underground. Hear our conversation at 6pm ET before @hitRECordJoe hosts Crowd Control on @PhishRadioSXM. pic.twitter.com/r9elu8rkKa
— Ari Fink (@Finkerton) August 18, 2020
This week’s 21st episode of Dinner and a Movie takes us back 8 years (nearly to the day) to the band’s two-leg 2012 summer tour. 2012 marked the last year that Phish split their U.S. summeer tour into two separate sections, a trend that had begun in 2004 ahead of the band’s breakup and persisted once Phish reunited in 2009. 2012 was also back in the days of tour “announcement videos” posted by the band. Each of the two 2012 summer tour legs got its own announcement video, and each of them is as strange and amusing as you’d expect from this band. Watch Jon Fishman get his Rocky on, pig out on junk food, and take in some ads for the high-class “Gordeaux” (starring Mike Gordon) in preparation for the two-part 2012 summer Phish tour below:
Phish 2012 Summer Tour Leg 1 Announcement Video
Phish 2012 Summer Tour Leg 2 Announcement Video
Tonight’s Dinner And A Movie will feature a full replay of the third and final night of Phish’s first-ever run at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, a venue that would become a regular tour stop for the band in the ensuing years. The intimate, 8,500-cap room offered one of the summer’s only indoor shows as well as one of its smallest venues. Since the 2012 summer campaign was somewhat inconsistent and notably short on long jams, the 8/19/12 performance instantly rocketed to the top of many fans’ “Best of 2012” lists due to its improvisational depth.
Related: Mike Gordon & Leo Kottke Announce First Album In 15 Years, Share Two Tracks [Listen]
The first set on 8/19/12 was relatively standard 2012 fare, featuring a number of heavy-rotation tunes like “Crowd Control”, “Party Time”, “Axilla”, “Reba”, “Free”, “Mound”, “Walk Away” and “NICU”. Things began to get a little more interesting with a lightly-improvised “Back On The Train”, “Gotta Jibboo” > a soaring “Roggae”, and a thrilling though somewhat compositionally fumbled set-closing “David Bowie”.
The main event here, however, is set two. The band returned to the stage for the second frame and launched into Talking Heads‘ “Crosseyed and Painless”. Behind deft playing by Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon, this “Crosseyed” rose to unusual heights throughout its nearly 17-minute runtime—which unseated the version from 6/21/09 at Alpine as the longest jam on the song since before the breakup.
The band was far from finished with their improvisational ambitions, as “Crosseyed” moved into a fantastic rendition of “Light”, which truly began to come into its own as a jam vehicle in the summer of 2012. Just before the 15-minute mark (and after an amusing tease of Beyonce‘s “Single Ladies”), the band executed a smooth segue into “Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley”. With Gordon and Fishman laying the foundation, “Sally” picked up right where the ripping “Light” jam left off, accounting for another 10+ minutes of electrifying playing. Both “Light” and “Sally” were infused with teases of “Crosseyed”, and the building went berserk as the band moved back into “Crosseyed and Painless” in earnest for a brief reprise. Those first 45(ish) minutes of set two are prime live Phish, no matter what era they might have come from.
“Theme From The Bottom”, “Rocky Top”, “Boogie On Reggae Woman”, “Meatstick”, and “Bug” all felt like a victory lap after the “Crosseyed” sandwich that started the frame, but the “You Enjoy Myself” that closed it out was the true exclamation mark on a stellar set. Finally, the band returned to the stage for a “Ride Captain Ride” encore (with extra cheers for the appropriate “San Francisco Bay” lyrics) followed by the “Tweezer Reprise” still owed after the “Tweezer” on the run’s first night.
This is a fun one, folks. Enjoy! As always, the party begins at 8:30 E.T. You can check out some photos from the show captured by photographer Dave Vann below:
Setlist: Phish | Bill Graham Civic Auditorium | San Francisco, CA | 8/19/12
Set One: Crowd Control, Party Time, Axilla, Reba, Free > Mound > Walk Away, NICU > Back on the Train, Gotta Jibboo > Roggae, David Bowie
Set Two: Crosseyed and Painless > Light -> Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley -> Crosseyed and Painless > Theme From the Bottom > Rocky Top, Boogie On Reggae Woman > Meatstick, Bug, You Enjoy Myself
Encore: Ride Captain Ride > Tweezer Reprise
Trey teased Nellie Kane in Crowd Control. Reba included a DEG tease. Bowie contained a Reba tease from Trey. Eleanor Rigby was teased prior to the start of the second set. Crosseyed contained a tease of The Cave. Light and Sneakin’ Sally both included Crosseyed teases. Light also included a Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) tease. Mike teased China Cat Sunflower before Bug.