Watch Phish At Boston's Paradise In Newly Restored Footage From 1989

Concert footage restoration extraordinare Christopher Hazard recently blessed fans with remastered video of Phish at The Paradise (now Paradise Rock Club) in Boston on June 23rd, 1989. Though partial footage of the show has existed on YouTube for years, the 4K restoration is a major upgrade.

The new-old video captures most of the first set, coming in hot right at the “Man” of a particularly wild “You Enjoy Myself”. The setlist is full of The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday classics from guitarist Trey Anastasio‘s senior thesis project for Goddard College, where he graduated the previous summer. While the first set doesn’t hold much in the way of long-chased songs of yesteryear, it’s loaded with the workhorses that would define the band’s shows for decades. Though it does have jazz standard “Donna Lee“, which was a staple of 1989/1990 but disappeared completely after 1993.

With the band out of college, Phish went to work slogging it out in bars and clubs throughout the Northeast, including this Friday night at the then 650-ish-capacity Paradise. The band’s energy in this first set has no parallel to any shows from this century, wild and ferocious, like Anastasio’s animated vocal deliveries.

Trey and bassist Mike Gordon bunny hop throughout the performance, while keyboardist Page McConnell‘s relatively simple keyboard setup (at least compared to his modern-day bastion) nonetheless maintains his inherent elegance. Drummer Jon Fishman‘s limbic playing is more straightforward than his contemporary polyrhythms, as the entire band’s sound continues molding into the form that would take them to arenas in only a matter of a few years.

This show marked Phish’s third of five performances at The Paradise that year. According to Phish.net, the venue originally refused to book the band, doubting it could fill the room, so Phish’s management rented out the venue and heavily promoted the band’s Paradise debut on January 26th, 1989. Tickets were $5, with some fans taking the Greyhound from Burlington, and it ultimately sold out, with another 200 reportedly shut out of the show.

Watch Phish perform at The Paradise on June 23rd, 1989, in newly remastered footage from Christopher Hazard.

Phish — The Paradise — Boston, MA — 6/23/89 — First Set

[Video: Christopher Hazard]

Setlist: Phish | The Paradise | Boston, MA | 6/23/89

Set One: AC/DC Bag, You Enjoy Myself > Wilson, Peaches en Regalia (Frank Zappa), Donna Lee (Miles Davis), Fee > Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, The Lizards, Run Like an Antelope
Set Two: The Sloth, Fluffhead, Harry Hood, Ya Mar (Cyril Ferguson), Split Open and Melt, Possum, David Bowie
Encore: Contact > Good Times Bad Times (Led Zeppelin)

Notes: Antelope contained Sailor’s Hornpipe and Jeopardy! theme teases.