“I think the band is back on,” I heard the guy in the bar line say as the intermission of Tuesday’s sold-out Phish show at Philadelphia, PA’s TD Pavilion at The Mann was drawing to a close. “We gotta go.”
Spirits in the audience had been as high as the Philly humidity during set break. Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Jon Fishman, and Page McConnell were red-hot, and the songs they had picked so far had formed the foundation of a well-above-average first frame: A “Punch You In The Eye” opener has never hurt anybody (beyond a good shiner). An engaging “Everything’s Right” jam had primed the band to improvise. The first “Camel Walk” since 2021 had gotten the audience to strut its stuff. A gorgeous trio of aquatic tunes—”Theme From the Bottom” (pulsing, unique), “Prince Caspian” (cleansing, explosive), and “It’s Ice” (smooth and slick, like it just got Zamboni’d)—had contrasted perfectly with the snarling “About to Run” that followed. A big, bold, beautiful “Bowie” (complete with “Jessica”-like piano teases from Page and a brief reprise of “Caspian”) had served as a technicolor exclamation point. And they were just getting started.
I could hear the faint sounds of Phish diving back in for set two, but I couldn’t quite make out what song they were playing. Bar line guy was right. It was time to go…
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By the time I had bought my beer and weaved through the pavilion back to my seat, however, the band had already departed the atmosphere of whatever “song” this was in pursuit of the unknown. My first instinct was to turn to and ask my neighbor. My second instinct was to just check my phone—the internet is a thing, after all. My third instinct was, thankfully, to ignore the first two.
My lateness had set up an unusual experiment: We’ve all had to ask ourselves “What song is this again?” when the starting point of a jam is ancient history and new ground is being broken before our eyes. This band’s fans love to label improv in terms of “songs” and “times”—a 30-minute “Tweezer” or a 42-minute “What’s Going Through Your Mind” or a 30-minute “Ruby Waves”—but those are just handles to grab onto. Those few fleeting moments when you genuinely can’t remember—and it genuinely doesn’t matter—are as exciting as they are disorienting, even if the answer is always floating around somewhere in the blank space where your mind should be. But how often do we actually not know what song this is?
Does the song actually matter to the improv it spawns? Does knowing the starting point affect how we experience the ride? Does it change how we remember it? Maybe this was my chance to find out.
As I resolved to experience this improv session without a song as a mental net, Phish continued to lay out one of its most fluid, creative, and riveting jams in recent memory. The mystery jam oozed and surged and convulsed. It went beautiful, then whimsical, then triumphant, though always with traces of contrasting intensity—blissful, with a razor’s edge. It swelled and contracted, submerged itself in a whirlpool of synths, dove deeper, deeper…
Phish had already pulled thirty minutes of breathtaking music out of thin air when my phone buzzed with a text from a friend in a different section. He had an empty seat next to him. I could come snag it if I wanted.
“After this song,” I told him, already committed to the experiment. “Good luck,” he responded as the “?” jam morphed into ’80s mall rock, then droning oblivion, then dissonant insanity, then peaceful meditation, then, somehow, all of them at once.
I didn’t know that I had been listening to “Sand” all this time until the song’s main riff finally resurfaced—nearly 40 minutes after the set began.
[Text screenshot from 7/15/25 at The Mann]
As the band finally slipped into “My Friend, My Friend”, I imagine at least a few fans dove for their phones to see just how long this version was, or to confirm that this was, indeed, the longest “Sand” ever (it was). On another night, that’s probably what I would have done, too.
But on Tuesday at the Mann, it felt like the set was just starting—like those 40 minutes of unattached exhilaration had been a (very effective) warmup. The aggression and dexterity and humor with which they executed “My Friend, My Friend”—complete with the “myfe,” which Trey promised they definitely did not forget about—fell neatly in line with that notion. Watch a pro-shot video of the full, 40-minute “Sand” jam below.
Phish – “Sand” [Pro-Shot] – 7/15/25
The potent pairing of Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie On Reggae Woman” and “Blaze On” that followed still smoldered with the heat of the preceding jams, and the set-closing “Carini” doused those embers in gasoline for a trip down one of Phish’s most sinister paths (complete with tone-appropriate “he’s got a knife!” quotes borrowed from “My Friend, My Friend).
Any encore would have sufficed after a show like that, but Tuesday’s top-notch performance in Philly got a curtain call that fit the bill: After a gorgeous take on “Shade”, one of Phish’s few conventional love songs, the excitement of the night turned into mischievous shenanigans as Fishman (a.k.a. “a permanent resident of Fishtown,” a.k.a. “Mr. Moses Heaps,” a.k.a. “Mr. Moses DeWitt,” a.k.a. “Mr. Moses Vincent”) readied his Electrolux and strode to center stage for a vacuum solo during “I Didn’t Know”. Then, a powerful “Wilson” (shoutout to King of Prussia, PA). Then, a rousing ride through mountain passes on “Possum”.
Phish – “I Didn’t Know”, “Wilson”, “Possum” – 7/15/25
[Video: elias8040]
So, did not knowing “what song this is” change my experience with that jam, of this show? Without question.
On other nights, in other recaps, I might have noted the five-song second set or the four-song encore with more excitement. I might have leaned harder into the fact that two songs made up more than an hour of creation. The headline of this article definitely would have featured the phrase “40-minute Sand,” and more people might have clicked on it because of that fact.
But having experienced that second set the way I did, such numbers and stats and designations feel hollow—certainly true, but somehow unimportant. Numbers are just numbers, names are just names, songs are just starting points. Great Phish is great Phish—you know it when you hear it—and Tuesday night’s show in Philly was some truly great Phish… whether or not you knew what song the band was playing.
Below, check out the setlist and a gallery of photos via Andrew Blackstein from night one of Phish at the Mann.
You can stream or download audio of this show—and every Phish show dating back to 2003—via LivePhish here. LivePhish is also offering nightly pay-per-view webcasts of Phish’s ongoing summer tour, which is set to return to the Mann tonight, Wednesday, July 16th. Order your LivePhish webcasts for night two in Philly here.
[Editor’s note: Live For Live Music is a LivePhish affiliate. Ordering a webcast/download or subscribing to LivePhish+ via the links on this page helps support our work covering Phish and the rest of the live music world. Thanks for reading!]
Setlist [via phish.net]: Phish | TD Pavilion at The Mann | Philadelphia, PA | 7/16/25
Set One: Punch You in the Eye > Everything’s Right, Camel Walk, Theme From the Bottom > Prince Caspian > It’s Ice, About to Run, David Bowie
Set Two: Sand, My Friend, My Friend, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Blaze On > Carini
Encore: Shade, I Didn’t Know[1], Wilson > Possum
Notes: [1] With alternate lyrics. Trey teased the Theme from S.W.A.T. in Punch You in the Eye and Prince Caspian during David Bowie. Following the My Friend, My Friend jam, which featured the band singing “Myfe” at both the beginning and end, Trey commented, “We heard some of you thought we forgot the ‘Myfe.’ We did not.” Trey then quoted My, Friend, My Friend at the end of Carini. During I Didn’t Know, Trey introduced Fish as “he’s dressed in green, he’s the baddest vacuum player you’ve ever seen, a permanent resident of Fish town, Mr. Moses Heaps, Mr. Moses DeWitt, and Mr. Moses Vincent.” Trey subsequently sang alternate lyrics about being “that far gone.” Wilson was introduced as being “about an area that you know very well if you live up here” with “the homeland” later mentioned in the song.
