Sixteen years in and two shows away from riding off into the sunset, Dopapod is still breaking new ground. During the band’s Sunday sendoff at Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom & Tavern, Dopapod covered Phish for the first time in its entire career—two nights before the band goes on indefinite hiatus starting in 2025.

“This has been against the rules of Dopapod for 16 years, and I’m finally just letting myself do it,” guitarist Rob Compa—the band’s resident Phish fan—said as he cheerfully transitioned the Phish-y Dopapod original “Time is Funny” into “Possum” (after dropping a bevy of “Chalkdust Torture” teases in the jam). The sold-out, 500-capacity Beachland felt like Madison Square Garden as Compa laid into a roaring guitar solo that exhibited his Phish pedigree, as his bandmates hid their chagrin behind their musical professionalism—at least until the song was over.

“Now we have to end the band,” keyboardist Eli Winderman joked in his best Eeyore voice. “That was the one rule. He broke the rule.”

Compa laughed on, while bassist Chuck Jones was at his wits’ end. “Rob, I swear man, if you play fucking Phish two more times at two more shows I’m out of here,” Jones said, before bargaining, “If you did that, then I get to play ‘Dark Star’. It’s only fair, Rob.”

As the capacity crowd of Clevelanders shouted for “Dark Star”, the band held a quick conference. Jones stepped to the mic to say, “This is ‘Dark Star’. By the Grateful Dead,” as the band merged onto the on-ramp of Deep Purple‘s “Highway Star”, which only proved to be a joke on top of a joke as Dopapod took a last-second exit for its own “Mitochondria”.

This musical trickery abounded throughout Dopapod’s farewell to Cleveland. The band with albums all named after palindromes delighted the rabid Midwestern faithful with fakeouts on originals “Like a Ball” and “Vol. 3 #86”, keeping fans on their toes as the foursome cut through the underlying sentimentality and sadness of the evening with the ingenuity of their improvisation and the unmatched originality of their compositions—the lack of which will leave a gaping hole in the jam band community when they hang it up effective January 1st, 2025.

From the heavy prog riffs of the opening “French Bowling” to the video game music of the second set-closing “Sonic”, Sunday hit all the marks of what makes Dopapod what it is. Keyboardist Eli Winderman earned the evening’s gold star, dominating his trusty Moog Prodigy synth, B3 organ, melodica, and bongos as he played off Compa while the unparalleled rhythm section of Jones and drummer Neal “Fro” Evans kept things rock-solid. Midway through the first set, “Like A Ball” exemplified the culmination of the band’s diverse capabilities, beginning with its 8-bit instrumental song structure, moving to its prog breakdown, and smoothly transitioning into a funky, chunky jam full of choppy, repeated chords and highlighted by Eli working the B3.

Dopapod hit its stride on the first set-closing “My Elephant vs. Your Elephant”, the old-school instrumental culminating with raining triplets over syncopated drums in a dutiful resemblance of electronica. It was all gravy from there, picking right back up with the second set-opening “Vol. 3 #86” (following a “Turnin’ Knobs” fakeout), with another groove-laden jam seamlessly dialing into jamtronica, complete with Rob shooting echoed notes through the laser lights. Fro went hardcore on “Runny”, the normally stoic drummer throwing his full frame behind the kit and—in the Dopapod tradition of turning jams on their heads—the song went from head-banging to head-full with a trippy, psychedelic breakdown texturized by Rob’s reverse pedal. Following the uniquely Dopapod pop-grunge ode to cell structure “Mitochondria”, the second set closed with an exceedingly patient “Sonic” that traversed the band’s entire sonic palette.

Despite their impending exodus, the members of Dopapod have largely eschewed sentimentality during their final shows. Instead, they have focused on getting down to business and doing what they do best, a decision best personified by the band forgoing a Halloween themed set and instead opting to play their originals one more time in the Mile High City. Despite that avoidance of overt emotionalism, Chuck Jones did seem to thoroughly enjoy introducing his bandmates ahead of the encore—he even said so. As a whole, Sunday was indicative of Dopapod’s historic caliber of recent performances as the band continues its sprint across the finish line.

“This is our way of landing the plane and not crashing it,” Evans told Live For Live Music ahead of Sunday’s show, with Jones adding, “[When] other bands have found themselves in this situation where they know it’s coming to an end, people sometimes have been the worst, unhealthy versions of themselves. And I feel like this is the healthiest, best version I’ve seen of all us collectively.”

Check out a full-show stream of Dopapod in Cleveland, with the Phish “Possum” debut starting at 2:23:00. The band heads to Columbus today, December 30th, for its first of two final shows at Woodlands Tavern. Tickets are very sold out, but you can shoot your shot on CashOrTrade or Dopapod’s Facebook fan page. The band will stream the next two nights for free on its YouTube channel.

Dopapod — Beachland Ballroom & Tavern — Cleveland, OH — 12/29/24 — Full Video

Setlist: Dopapod | Beachland Ballroom & Tavern | Cleveland, OH | 12/29/24

Set One (9:14 – 10:16): French Bowling, Fannie, Live in the Dream -> Like A Ball [1], Plaese Haalp, My Elephant vs. Your Elephant
Set Two (10:42 – 11:59): Vol. 3 #86 [2], Runny -> Time Is Funny [3] -> Possum (Phish) [4] [5] > Time Is Funny, Mitochondria [6], Sonic
Encore: We Are Not Alone > Everybody is a Baby

[1] My Elephant vs. Your Elephant fakeout
[2] Turnin’ Knobs fakeout
[3] Chalkdust Torture (Phish) teases
[4] FTP
[5] Unfinished
[6] Chuck introduced the song as Dark Star followed by a Highway Star (Deep Purple) fakeout