Tonight (May 26th), Phish will webcast their December 29th, 2018 performance at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden as the tenth episode of their ongoing archival webcast/cooking series, Dinner and a Movie. Scroll down to follow along with our 12/29/18 stream companion.
The tenth episode of Dinner and a Movie follows the 8/31/12 “F— You 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), and the out-there 1997 U.S. tour opener featuring a guest appearance by LeRoi Moore of Dave Matthews Band (7/21/97).
Much like they did when Phish selected a show from 2017’s Bakers Dozen for Episode Three of Dinner and a Movie, Madison Square Garden is prepping for tonight’s stream by sharing content from the 2018 performance on their social media accounts. Follow The Garden on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook to keep up with their Phish posts in the lead-up to tonight’s stream.
Round ✌️, @phish fans! Show us your favorite Phish NYE photos from The Garden as we prepare to relive their show from December 29, 2018 on tonight’s ‘Dinner and A Movie’ ⬇️⬇️⬇️ #PhishMSG pic.twitter.com/j3NUDUdyEG
— MSG (@TheGarden) May 26, 2020
While we don’t usually get into the band members’ weekly recipes in the Stream Companion, we felt it necessary to call a little attention to Mike Gordon‘s veggie ramen recipe from Gaku Ramen in Burlington, VT. As Mike noted in his explanation of his meal choice, “Personally, I take the noodles out to honor my low starch diet, but we’ll keep em in for y’alls’s recipe!” Hm. Yeah… I guess we shouldn’t be surprised about Mike Gordon being a little unusual in his preferences, but come on—ramen without noodles? That’s crazy talk.
TFW you find out @mike_gordon removes the noodles from his ramen noodles? 🍜 pic.twitter.com/V7a7iUKFLe
— Live For Live Music (@L4LM) May 25, 2020
Anyway, on with the show… Tonight’s Dinner and a Movie takes us back to the four-night 2018 Phish New Year’s Run at Madison Square Garden. Of particular note, this marked the first run of Phish shows after the band tricked audiences on Halloween in Las Vegas by devising a made-up Scandinavian band, Kasvot Växt, and “covering” their obscure album, i rokk, from 1981. Of course, we now know that “Kasvot Växt” was an elaborate prank and that the songs on the “covered album” were actually written “in character” by Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, Jon Fishman, and Mike Gordon following the cancellation of Curveball earlier that summer. You can read Trey’s remarks about how the Curveball cancellation directly inspired Kasvot Växt here.
So, why all the talk about Kasvot Växt? Well, with this new crop of songs now on the table, this run saw the band begin to insert the new material into their regular setlists. Of the ten new songs debuted on Halloween, nine of them (all but “Everything Is Hollow”) would go on to show up during the 2018 MSG run. Many of them were featured in key slots in the four 2018 YEMSG setlists, from the “We Are Come To Outlive Our Brains” that opened night one on 12/28 to the “Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S.” that lifted Trey and Mike to the rafters as part of the outer space-centric gag on 12/31.
Kasvot Växt material figured prominently into the 12/29 performance, as well. The first-set “Turtle In The Clouds” confirmed to fans that the associated Trey/Mike choreography was a permanent fixture of the song and not just a Halloween one-off, while the “Death Don’t Hurt Very Long” sandwiched between two slices of “Tweezer” jam during set two showed these songs’ potential for improvisational antics.
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12/29/18 The Garden, New York, NY . . 📸 @rene_huemer #phish #yemsg #phishnewyearsrun
The magic of 12/29/18, however, extends far beyond the incorporation of Kasvot Växt. Arguably the band’s best show of the year (though some fans will tell you that the following night or the summer’s Alpharetta run was better), 12/29/18 checked all the boxes of a great Phish show—from big jams to bust-out covers to surprising segues to inside jokes to all-around stellar playing from each of the band’s four members. When it comes to 12/29/18, what fans remember isn’t one particular segment—a strong first set, a tentpole jam—it’s the show as a whole, one of those rare performances that’s exciting and interesting and captivating from the first note to the last.
The show kicked off with tried-and-true fire-starter “Buried Alive” in the opening slot. The heat continued to rise as the quartet moved into “Blaze On”, with Mike Gordon laying down a rhythmic groove on which Fishman quickly joined in. Moving out of the compositional structure of “Blaze On”, Trey Anastasio took the reigns, carefully taking his time to allow Page McConnell to fill in the open space on his clavinet.
“Turtle In The Clouds” was up next, and while this marked only the second performance of the song, fans hollered along with the Fishman “house party” line as if they’d been re-listening to Halloween non-stop since November. Following a brief pause, Anastasio led his bandmates into a rare though a relatively standard version of Gamehendge classic, “The Sloth”, last played the year prior in the same room on the penultimate night of the Baker’s Dozen (8/5/17).
“The Sloth” moved quickly into a textured “46 Days”, beginning with Fishman having some fun hopping around between his cowbell and woodblocks. As Anastasio laid down some serious licks, McConnell got down to business unleashing an impressive melodic array of sound on his grand piano before passing the torch back to Anastasio to finish off “46 Days” on an aggressive and confident note. After a somewhat jarring segue into “Cities”, the foursome found its footing, allowing Gordon led the way on this particularly sparse, funky take on the fan-favorite Talking Heads cover.
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12/29/18 The Garden, New York, NY . . 📸 Jake Silco #phish #yemsg #phishnewyearsrun
Following a moment to confer, the band surprised the MSG crowd with a rendition of Taj Mahal‘s “Corinna”, which hadn’t been played since it appeared during the band’s 2016 MSG New Year’s Run. Of note, Phish has played “Corinna” three times since 2012, and all three renditions (12/28/16, 12/29/18, and 12/30/19) have taken place at Madison Square Garden. The spunky “Ya Mar” that followed kept the Garden on its toes until the set’s big conclusion.
The set-closing segment that followed would have been a highlight of any show, let alone any first set. It also wound up creating a fair share of post-show controversy among Phish statistic sticklers. As the band neared the seven-minute mark of a head-bobbing “Wolfman’s Brother” jam, Trey Anastasio began to pepper in the thematic riff of “Party Time”. He soon started singing the tune’s titular (an only) lyrics and the rest of the band followed suit. The band continued from there through the groove established during the “Wolfman’s” jam and toward another big Trey peak and, subsequently, another “Party Time” refrain. From there, the “Party Time” chants began to melt back into the “Wolfman’s” vocal jam, and the “Wolfman’s” was back off and running toward its final, set-closing climax.
The outcry over the segment that filled the Internet the following day is just about the most “Phish fans being Phish fans” conflict you can imagine. The Phish universe was instantly split—was it “Wolfman’s” > “Party Time” > “Wolfman’s”? Or was it “Wolfman’s” with “Party Time” quotes? Even the usual keepers of the setlists were split in their scoring: Phish.net has the segment logged as one long “Wolfman’s Brother” with “Party Time” quotes, while LivePhish has it separated as a “Wolfman’s”/”Party Time” sandwich. Discussion threads abounded. Memes poured in. Which one was it? Does it matter? Whatever the answer, you can expect tonight’s “movie” to throw some new fuel on the debate. For what it’s worth, we know where we stand…
The band returned from setbreak ready to capitalize on the momentum of the top-notch first frame with a “Carini” opener, which consistently sets the tone for memorable sets. The jam quickly moved from evil ambiance to layered major key ripples, but rather than taking this “Carini” the distance, Trey initiated a segue into “Tweezer”, which wound up blossoming into the centerpiece jam of the night. As this stellar “Tweezer” pushed toward the 20-minute mark, the second non-Halloween Kasvot debut of the night snuck through in the form of “Death Don’t Hurt Very Long”. When Fishman started to cackle and giggle along to the notably sparse funk groove, Trey leaned towards him, exclaiming, “Funk for the people Bob Weaver!”, a callback to the “Hold Your Head Up” shenanigans a couple of months prior in Vegas. Trey continued to makes his rounds as he headed over to Mike, goading him into a solo with a pronounced, “Cactus! Cactus! Cactus!”
After the band howled out the final chorus of the Kasvot tune, Anastasio re-introduced the “Tweezer” riff, prompting a full-band segue back into the freezer for an additional seven minutes of inspired improv—that’s 27 total minutes of “Tweezer” with a Kasvot interlude, for those keeping score. The band later shared a pro-shot video of the whole segment, which you can relive even after the full-show stream is taken off YouTube next week:
Phish – “Tweezer” -> “Death Don’t Hurt Very Long” -> “Tweezer” [Pro-Shot] – 12/29/18
[Video: Phish]
As “Tweezer” part two faded out, the submerged sounds of McConnell’s organ signaled a segue into a mesmerizing cover of Led Zeppelin‘s “No Quarter” featuring a scintillating solo from Trey. Out of the ashes of “No Quarter”, Fishman lit the engines on a “2001” dance party before a triumphant “First Tube” brought the set to a close. With time for a couple more, the band returned to begin the encore with a sing-along cover of The Rolling Stones‘ “Shine A Light” before the customary “Tweezer Reprise” (replete with “Death Don’t Hurt Very Long” teases) capped off the memorable performance.
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12/29/18 The Garden, New York, NY . . 📸 @rene_huemer #phish #yemsg #phishnewyearsrun
When exactly our next trip to YEMSG will take place is anyone’s guess, but a Dinner and a Movie from The World’s Most Famous Arena feels like just what the doctor ordered. Anyone know if the spicy chickens from Section 119 are on Seamless? Gonna need one after our noodle-less ramen. As always, thank you, Phish, for making Tuesdays a day to look forward to. Tune in at 8:30 p.m. for Phish Dinner and a Movie Episode 10.
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12/29/18 The Garden, New York, NY 👉🏼 . . 📸 @rene_huemer #phish #yemsg #phishnewyearsrun
Setlist: Phish | Madison Square Garden | New York, NY | 12/29/18
Set One: Buried Alive, Blaze On, Turtle in the Clouds, The Sloth, 46 Days > Cities, Corinna, Ya Mar, Wolfman’s Brother
Set Two: Carini -> Tweezer > Death Don’t Hurt Very Long -> Tweezer > No Quarter > Also Sprach Zarathustra > First Tube
Encore: Shine a Light, Tweezer Reprise
Wolfman’s Brother contained Party Time quotes. Trey teased Can’t Always Listen in the first Tweezer. Tweezer Reprise contained a Death Don’t Hurt Very Long quote.