Tonight (Tuesday, June 30th), Phish will webcast their Saturday, August 7th, 2010 performance at the William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley, CA as the fourteenth 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 8/7/10 Stream Companion.
Phish ‘Dinner and a Movie’ Episode 14 – 8/7/10 – Full Show
The fourteenth episode of Dinner and a Movie follows the 8/31/12 “F— Your Face” show, the 7/27/14 Merriweather “Tweezerfest”, the 7/25/17’s Baker’s Dozen “Jam-Filled” night, Magnaball night two (8/22/15), last year’s first night at Mohegan Sun (7/19/19), the first night of the band’s 2016 Halloween run in Las Vegas (10/28/16), the final night of 2017’s Mexican destination event (1/15/17), the band’s first of three nights in Alpharetta, GA in 2018 (8/3/18), the out-there 1997 U.S. tour opener featuring a guest appearance by LeRoi Moore of Dave Matthews Band (7/21/97), and the improv-heavy second night of their 2018 Madison Square Garden New Year’s run (12/29/18), 2013’s Friday night at The Gorge (7/26/13), the band’s 1995 debut at Deer Creek Music Center (6/19/95), and the fiery Wednesday night at The Mann in 2015 (8/12/15).
In a new interview with Relix, Trey Anastasio explained why Phish has been holding off on the real-time, live-streamed concerts that so many musicians are adopting as the pandemic continues to preclude safe mass gatherings. As Trey explained,
So much of what I do is informed by the close proximity of the people in the front row—in the front 10 rows—and even by the person in the back row. We don’t have a song list because that connection is a big part of who we are as a band and who I am. … I don’t know if I want to play without our community with me. It’s a bridge I haven’t been able to cross.
I have been asked by many people: “Let’s do this Zoom concert” or “Let’s do it Brady Bunch style.” Maybe it’s my spiritual belief system, but I feel like this is where we are today and this is where I am— “I’m home. The concert isn’t happening right now.”
I almost don’t want to go halfway. If it’s possible, I want to celebrate that resurgence of live music with our family, which is our audience. And it doesn’t even feel like an audience—it feels to me, like a community.
I’d like to connect with that community, but I’ve found a way to do it because I’ve put out those 14 songs from my bedroom. I like being in contact but I might just wait [for a show]. I’m trying to follow my heart through this.
I’ll tell you another thing: We had to stop Phish once before. We went many years and then we paused and the pause was from 2004 through 2008, while I was getting my health together. Then, we did end up making an album and maybe that’s something we’ll do. I don’t know. But we didn’t do any shows and we didn’t do any kind of half-shows. We waited.
Then, we came back to Hampton Coliseum in 2009 and our community was there. Not everyone was there but it was a large group of people. I’ll never forget that moment as long as I live, which was the opening song in Hampton when everybody was back. When I think of that moment, it can make me cry.
So that was five years. I really hope we don’t have to wait another five years. But I would prefer to gather with everyone. I want to gather with Page and Mike and Fish and everyone, if it’s possible.
It sucks that we won’t see a “new” live Phish concert in the foreseeable future, but we couldn’t agree more with Trey’s sentiment here. Thankfully, we have Dinner and a Movie to help keep us going until the fateful day of the first post-COVID Phish show.
This week’s episode of Dinner and a Movie will benefit Music Health Alliance, an organization that seeks to “Heal the Music by providing access to healthcare through services that PROTECT, DIRECT & CONNECT music professionals with medical and financial solutions.” This week, Phish fans won’t be the only ones donating, either—Spotify has pledged to match all donations up to $10M via its COVID-19 Music Relief project. In keeping with the “Greek” theme of the evening, this week’s dinner is a Greek feast courtesy of Betty Frost at Phish HQ. You can read the full recipe here.
This week’s show takes us back to the final concert of Phish’s three-night run at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre in the summer of 2010. The run kicked off the late-summer leg of the band’s 2010 summer schedule following a month off an 18-show, early-summer jaunt.
Built in 1903 with financial backing from newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, the Greek Theatre was eventually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Over the decades, the monumental amphitheater has hosted performances and lectures from some of the most notable figures in the world, from Teddy Roosevelt to the Dalai Lama to the Grateful Dead. This run marked Phish’s second visit to the famous venue, ending a 17-year gap since their one-off debut in 1993.
Phish was still getting their bearings in 2010 after reforming the previous year, so one might call their output during this period to be “inconsistent.” This show, however, showcased a band ready to retain and expand upon their former mojo for years to come.
The show began with an old-school vibe as “AC/DC Bag” gave way to “Foam”. “Gotta Jibboo” and “Reba” continued to tilt the odds for this show in the audience’s favor. After quick runs through “Sleep Again”, “Army of One”, and “Poor Heart”, the water truly began to boil with a raging “46 Days”. High-energy renditions of “Tube” and “Character Zero” closed out set one and managed to pack enough of a punch to carry the momentum through setbreak and into set two.
As the band returned for set two with the echoing call-and-response chants of “Wilson”, the energy picked right back up to the heights where they had left it before the break. When “Wilson” flowed smoothly into an outstanding, extended “Light”, the show quickly rocketed toward the top of many fans’ “Best of 2010” lists—and there were still plenty more fireworks to come.
From the must-hear, 17-minute “Light” jam to the gorgeous, mid-set “Harry Hood” to the excellent “Theme From The Bottom” and the “2001” dance party, the hits never stopped coming on 8/7/10. Even the “Suzy Greenberg” featured some extra jamming before flowing into a towering, set-closing “Slave To The Traffic Light”. The nearly 20-minute, two-song encore of “The Lizards” and “First Tube” simply affirmed the fact that on this night at The Greek, the Phish left it all on the stage.
Check out a gallery of photos from the performance courtesy of photographer Jay Blakesberg.
Setlist: Phish | William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre | Berkeley, CA | 8/7/10
Set One: AC/DC Bag > Foam, Gotta Jibboo, Reba[1], Sleep Again, Army of One > Poor Heart > 46 Days > Tube > Character Zero
Set Two: Wilson -> Light > Twenty Years Later > Harry Hood > Theme From the Bottom, Also Sprach Zarathustra > Suzy Greenberg > Slave to the Traffic Light
Encore: The Lizards, First Tube
[1] No whistling.
Reba did not have the whistling ending. Trey teased Streets of Cairo in 46 Days and Dreaming (Blondie) in Light.
