As we arrive at the midpoint of “Taboose” tour, certain trends have begun to emerge—some obvious, others more abstract.
Each night, Goose opens the show with a set of its own, then Trey Anastasio hops in to help elevate a few of the Connecticut outfit’s originals to new heights. Trey Anastasio Band plays next, with Goose’s Rick Mitarotonda (guitar) and Peter Anspach (keys) joining in on the last few tunes. By the end of the encore, all of Goose is on stage with TAB, completing the 13-piece, two-band consortium.
Locations have also been something of a theme throughout the tour’s first four shows. From the day of the tour’s announcement, fans have noted the similarities between the stops on the Trey Anastasio Band/Goose 2022 fall tour and Phish’s fall tours in the 1990s—an era when the jam icons were still on the rise—while the ghost of Goosemas past lingered over the Mohegan Sun date following Goose’s three-set home state celebration there back in February.
Several times throughout the run, Anastasio’s history in the evening’s locale has made its way into his setlist. On Friday in Lowell, Trey gave a nod to a notable 1995 Phish show in the Massachusetts city by playing acoustic renditions of a pair of songs debuted by the band that night, “Theme From The Bottom” and “Strange Design”. On Saturday in Connecticut, Goose upped the ante for the home-team casino crowd with a sit-in from the TAB horns—James Casey (saxophone), Jennifer Hartswick (trumpet), and Natalie Cressman (trombone)—on Fat Freddy’s Drop‘s “Fish In The Sea”, a reliable cover that Goose had yet to play with the horn parts heard on the original recording.
Geographical synchronicity notably came into play on Sunday in Glens Falls, NY, though in a more somber sense. “I love playing here, feels a little ‘hometown’ to me. I feel like I’m doing a hometown gig.” Trey said with an uneasy laugh following a rendition of “A Wave Of Hope” early in his set. “Right near my old humble abode, down the road. Where I used to lay my head, in Washington County Jail. Ah, those were the days. They don’t give you a pillow there, by the way. Okay, next subject… Thank you, happy to be here with Goose. Five nice guys who have never spent any time in that particular place, clearly, and hopefully never will. Somebody shut me up.”
Later in the show, Anastasio once again reflected on his time spent in the drug court system. This time, he followed the thread of that trying period to his current efforts to give back to those struggling as he once did. Following “Valentine”, another song he wrote “just miles from this building,” Trey offered up “Part B” of his Glens Falls-area recovery story: “That was one of the first songs I wrote right down the street. … Thank you for welcoming that music back home,” he said.
He went on to explain that fans could go stop by the Divided Sky Foundation table on the way out of the venue. There, they could meet Melanie Gulde, his own former drug court case manager, with whom the long-sober guitarist is opening a new treatment center in Ludlow, VT.
View this post on Instagram
While the novelty factor of the interwoven format alone was enough to spark excitement on the outing’s opening night in Portland, ME, the three shows this past weekend at Glens Falls, NY’s Cool Insuring Arena (Sunday), Uncasville, CT’s Mohegan Sun Arena (Saturday), and Lowell, MA’s Tsongas Center (Friday) have neutralized that initial level of unexpectedness. That said, learning the rules of the game only produces a new wave of questions: On which songs will the sit-ins come? In what ways will the collaborations elevate the tunes they play together? How will this exercise affect the two bands’ playing when their tour counterparts are not on stage with them?
Through four shows, Goose has yet to repeat a song. TAB has played a couple of staples twice, but has continued to rotate the setlists for the Goose-assisted portions.
The two nightly crossover segments (Goose with Trey, TAB with Goose) have consistently produced memorable highlights. Trey’s presence has added a noticeable jolt to Goose’s readings of “All I Need” and “Pancakes” (Portland), “Wysteria Lane” and “Arcadia” (Lowell), “Factory Fiction” (Mohegan), and “Red Bird” and “Hot Tea” (Glens Falls). On each one, the elder guitarist has served to throw gas on the proverbial fire, pushing the core quintet ever further outside its typical pocket.
Rick, Peter, and the rest of Goose have joined in with Trey’s group in various capacities on a number of TAB/Phish favorites, from Portland’s “Wolfman’s Brother”, “Llama”, and “First Tube” to Lowell’s “Back On The Train”, “Steam”, “Theme From The Bottom”, and “Strange Design” to Mohegan’s “No Men In No Man’s Land”, “46 Days”, and “Carini” to Glens Falls’ “Mr. Completely”, “Rise/Come Together”, and “Possum”. While they have often manned supporting roles with Trey’s band, as opposed to the way Trey has been prominently featured with Goose, their presence in the TAB mix has added some exciting oomph to the band’s already “big” sound, thanks in large part to the riff-matching and Allman Brothers Band-reminiscent lead guitar harmony provided by Mitarotonda.
It’s probably worth noting, as well, that all of Trey Anastasio Band’s selections featuring Goose sit-ins have been either Phish tunes or TAB songs that have since crossed over to Phish—and that’s likely by design. Many of the songs that reside solely in the Trey Anastasio Band universe lean into the more structured instrumentation of the eight-piece, while the songs that move freely between TAB and Phish are primed for the type of toe-to-toe collaborations he seems to be seeking with the younger half of the bill.
Fans have also watched TAB and Goose get increasingly comfortable with each other over the course of the first four shows. That much has been clear in the music as Trey and Rick have gotten more and more in sync, but it’s even clear in their demeanor on the stage.
In Portland, Trey simply welcomed “Goooose” to the stage for Rick and Peter’s first TAB appearance, a blanket nod to the other band on the tour. By Saturday night at Mohegan Sun, Trey was asking for Rick to join in on an acoustic “Strange Design” so that he could joke about the Goose guitarist missing its debut on account of his being four years old at the time.
On opening night, Anspach welcomed Trey to the stage with a formal note of gratitude and reverence. By Sunday, he had dropped the pretense: “We’re having so much fun out there with Trey,” Anspach said before a “Red Bird” featuring Anastasio on guitar and vocals. “This is a dream come true for us. Thank you all for being here… in this moment, you know? I don’t know…”
The individual dividends of this “moment,” this creative crucible, have already become apparent in the tour’s front half. Take the Glens Falls “Madhuvan”, for instance. While Goose fans were surely hoping to hear the jam vehicle with Anastasio’s assistance, the version the core five-piece delivered on Sunday night seemed to harness the intrepid qualities of the tour’s Trey-augmented explorations even without him on guitar. On Saturday at Mohegan Sun, Trey’s showings on “About to Run” and “Push On ‘Til The Day” threatened to steal the headlines from the evening’s collabs, as if to say, “I appreciate all of this new talent, I love all of this collective creativity, but let’s not forget that I’m still that guy.”
That cycle of connection, influence, motivation, and high-level execution is sure to continue throughout the tour’s second half and into the future. Remember how good the Phish shows got in 2015 when Trey spent the spring shredding Grateful Dead songs for Fare Thee Well? This intensive “Taboose” workout will inevitably figure into Anastasio’s other endeavors moving forward. For Goose, that inspiration response is already beginning; in Glens Falls on Sunday, Goose debuted a new song, “Thatch”, written two days prior while on tour with Trey. Its funky bounce and aggressive guitar tone are hardly subtle in the influence they take from Trey.
With all of this development in the first four shows and four shows still left to come, these trends promise to evolve and intensify. We can’t wait to see what’s in store as Trey Anastasio Band/Goose tour moves into its second half.
Scroll down to check out Goose and Trey Anastasio Band photos, videos, and setlists from Sunday night in Glens Falls, NY, or revisit our nightly coverage from the first three nights of the outing here: Portland, Lowell, Uncasville. Tune in to livestreams of the upcoming shows in Moon Township, PA (11/15), Fairfax, VA (11/17), Syracuse, NY (11/18), and Reading, PA (11/19) via nugs.net.
Setlist [via elgoose.net]: Goose | Cool Insuring Arena | Glens Falls, NY | 11/13/22
Set: So Ready, California Magic, Thatch[1], Don’t Do It[2], Madhuvan, Red Bird[3] > Hot Tea[4]
[1] FTP.
[2] The Band.
[3] With Trey Anastasio on guitar and vocals.
[4] With Trey Anastasio on guitar.
Setlist [via phish.net]: Trey Anastasio Band | Cool Insuring Arena | Glens Falls, NY | 11/13/22
Set One: Drifting, Set Your Soul Free, Ocelot > Magilla, A Wave of Hope, Shade, Burlap Sack and Pumps, Spin, Last Tube, Hey Stranger > Valentine, Mr. Completely [1], Rise/Come Together[1]
Encore: Possum [2]
[1] Peter Anspach on keys and Rick Mitarotonda on guitar.
[2] Peter Anspach on keys, Rick Mitarotonda on guitar, and Jeff Arevalo, Ben Atkind, and Trevor Weekz on percussion.
View this post on Instagram