On Friday night, Phish opened the final weekend run of their summer tour‘s main leg, a three-night stand at the storied Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Elkhorn, WI.
Alpine 1 got off to a hot start with a trio of rock anthems. First, “Sand” delivered the goods in its first appearance as a show opener since 2018’s Saturday night at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, setting the energy bar high. Next, the band dropped into an always-welcome early-show “Tweezer”. Page McConnell and Mike Gordon were the stars here, keeping the train chugging forward for a fun but relatively brief run through the Phish classic. As “Tweezer” faded out, the band floated smoothly into “Free” behind shimmering guitar tones from Trey Anastasio, continuing the arena rock vibe established early in this performance.
After a pause for applause and deliberation, Phish broke out a well-placed “Turtle In The Clouds”. Marking the third rendition of the Kasvot Växt opener this summer, this song continues to cement its place as one of the strongest and most interesting of the 2018 Halloween debuts. The band clearly loves this one, too, as Trey and Gordon smiled widely while working through the tune’s playful choreography.
Another long pause for deliberation eventually concluded with “Set Your Soul Free”. The mostly-straightforward version begat some brief but fiery interplay between all four members, Trey asserting himself as the jam built to a nice peak. Yet another pause followed as Page seemed to address some sound issues on his keyboard rig. While the techs took a look, the band used the time to push the Chairman out from behind the boards to strut his stuff for a quick “Lawn Boy”.
Speaking of “strutting your stuff,” the second “Camel Walk” of the summer was up next. Subdued but characteristically funky, the band toyed with dynamics on this jaunt through the fan-favorite tune, though Mike’s levels seemed to be a little too low to fully appreciate as he took his bass solo. From there, the band launched into “Theme From The Bottom”, a song that always seems to thrive in this late-first position. Trey seemed to turn up the gas in the song’s excellent pre-bridge jam, painting red-hot, sustain-heavy riffs on top of Page’s billowing piano work and Jon Fishman‘s nimble backbeat. A thoroughly enjoyable version, this one is definitely worth a morning-after relisten.
Rather than leading back out into jam territory, “Theme”‘s a cappella breakdown flowed straight into the bluegrass twang of “Rift”. A few lyrical fumbles here, but all-around a solid version. Finally, the band moved into “Wolfman’s Brother”, taking a detour through sparse funk and watery “whale call” Trey segments before building up to a couple satisfying white-light peaks to cap set one.
“No Men In No Man’s Land” got the call to start set two. The song appeared to be heading off into exploratory territory, a notion seemingly corroborated by a prominent Trey tease of the Star Wars “May The Force Be With You” theme. However, before this “NMINML” could reach cosmic heights, Anastasio pulled the ripcord in favor of “Prince Caspian”. Oh, well… Page and Fishman led the charge here as Anastasio seemed to search for an entry point.
Before long, the band abandoned “Caspian” in favor of their new favorite 2019 jam vehicle, “Everything’s Right”. While fans still may debate the merit of this song (and the rest of the newer-vintage, ultra-positive, “love and light”-type Trey tunes) everything continues to be right when this song hits its improv section. The version on Alpine night 1 once again came through. Mike and Fishman were in control as they pushed the improv into some submerged, Baker’s Dozen-style space. The jam continued to push deeper into the sonic depths as jagged-edged Mike pops and watery Page swells kept things interesting and evolving throughout the course of the song’s twelve-minute runtime.
As “Everything’s Right” petered out, Trey jumped into the opening progression of “Roses Are Free”, the first 2019 rendition of the fan-favorite Ween cover. “Roses” has been played less and less frequently in recent years—appearing just once a year since 2016—and fans at Alpine Valley audibly relished catching what’s likely to be the only rendition of the song this summer.
From there, an airtight Fishman beat kicked off the countdown to blast-0ff that is “Also Sprach Zarathustra”, better known as “2001”. This slinky rendition thrived off excellent playing from both Fishman and Page. As with all “2001s”, this one served as a satisfying funk dance party, but didn’t manage to separate itself from the pack in any meaningful way.
Phish – “Roses Are Free” > “2001” > “The Wedge”
[Video: Keith Griner]
A business-as-usual “The Wedge” bobbed in from there before making the transition into “Light”. While this “Light”, much like the rest of this show, never managed to fully achieve liftoff, it did lead into one of the more interesting segments of the show as Gordon helped steer the jam into TAB crossover “Plasma” (featuring more dark, rippling, full-band interplay) and back out into “Light” for a satisfying second set sandwich.
View this post on Instagram
From there, the band flowed into “46 Days”. Trey’s superhuman sustain powers were in full effect on this one, providing the kind of cathartic, hair-raising moments that keep Phish fans coming back for more again and again. The whole “Light” > “Plasma” > “Light” > “46 Days” segment is worth revisiting—a nice high point in an otherwise mostly unremarkable show. The band opted for “The Squirming Coil” to close out the set, Page’s walk-off piano solo delivering the feels as always.
Phish returned to the stage for their encore with uplifting Ghosts of the Forest ballad “A Life Beyond The Dream” before offering up one last shot of energy with “Tube”. With time for one more brief number, the band converged on center stage to count their teeth and tell everyone how old they are with the barbershop quartet ditty, “Grind”.
All in all, Alpine night one had some interesting moments (“Sand”, “Turtle In The Clouds”, “Theme”, “Wolfman’s”, “Everything’s Right”, “Light” > “Plasma” > “Light” > “46 Days”) but will likely fade into the background when we look back at this tour. No matter—each member of the band played well, and there’s surely more excitement to come when Phish returns to Alpine tonight. On to the next one…
Below, you can peruse a beautiful gallery of photos from the performance courtesy of photographer Keith Griner.
For a full list of the band’s upcoming tour dates and ticketing information, head to Phish’s website.
Each show on Phish’s 2019 summer tour will be rebroadcast on SiriusXM Phish Radio (Ch. 29) at 12:00 ET the following day. Subscribe here.
Setlist: Phish | Alpine Valley Music Theatre | Elkhorn, WI | 7/12/19
SET 1: Sand, Tweezer > Free, Turtle in the Clouds, Set Your Soul Free, Lawn Boy, Camel Walk, Theme From the Bottom > Rift, Wolfman’s Brother
SET 2: No Men In No Man’s Land > Prince Caspian > Everything’s Right > Roses Are Free > Also Sprach Zarathustra > The Wedge > Light > Plasma > Light > 46 Days, The Squirming Coil
ENCORE: A Life Beyond The Dream, Tube, Grind
This show was webcast via Live Phish. Mike teased Do You Feel Like We Do before Lawn Boy. Trey teased May The Force Be With You in NMINML.
