UPDATE – July 16th, 2018 – 10:30 pm Eastern: The Phish From The Road (@Phish_FTR) Twitter account has shared a number of photos from today’s rehearsals. Check them out below:
Final night of rehearsals in Nevada. Summer tour begins tomorrow in Tahoe 📷 @rene_huemer #phish #phishsummertour pic.twitter.com/MJ75m3IBrW
— Phish: From The Road (@Phish_FTR) July 17, 2018
Phish‘s 2018 summer tour kicks off tomorrow night, Tuesday, July 17th, at Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harvey’s in Stateline, Nevada. Yesterday, bassist Mike Gordon shared a selfie of the band rehearsing at an indoor arena with their full stage setup, as they customarily do prior to the start of tours. (Last year, the band rented out an arena in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the week ahead of their summer tour opener in Chicago). The picture was taken at the Reno Events Center in Reno, NV, roughly an hour’s drive north of Harvey’s up I-580.
While the first news of these indoor tech rehearsals was floated yesterday, the band has been preparing for this summer’s tour for some time. On June 29th, Gordon posted a photo to his Instagram page of himself and drummer Jon Fishman in a practice space with the caption, “Summah rehearsals.”
In addition to their Phish-specific rehearsals, the band members have been keeping busy with other projects in recent weeks. Trey Anastasio recently wrapped up a three-night run with his trio-turned-quartet including his first-ever performance in New York’s Central Park; Mike Gordon and his solo outfit headlined last weekend’s Breckenridge Brewery Hootenanny in Littleton, Colorado; and Page McConnell sat in with Russell Batiste in New Orleans in late June, where they confirmed onstage that a new Vida Blue album was in the works. Jon Fishman did some touring with the Mallett Brothers earlier this year, and recently spoke about his excitement for Phish’s upcoming tour on a local Maine late-night talk show.
During Fishman’s talk show appearance, host Danny Cashman asked the drummer if he still felt excitement about Phish’s upcoming tour, even after all these years. “Yeah, now more than ever,” Fish responded. “I’m 53 years old, and I feel like I’m actually starting to get good.” He continued, after pausing for laughs:
No, seriously, I’m starting to really break ground into areas of drumming that I haven’t heard from other people yet. And the band, I think, is starting to… We broke up from ’04–’09, and it took us some years to get back [to] where we left off. And I feel like we’re starting to get into new levels of listening and improvisational abilities and stuff that surpass where we left off in ’04, and it’s very exciting.
All things [re]considered, it seems as though Phish will be prepared to hit the ground running when they arrive at Harvey’s tomorrow. And that’s a good thing, too—after their most recent performance at the Stateline, Nevada venue in 2013 produced perhaps the most lauded jam of 3.0, the “Tahoe Tweezer“, expectations are high for the sold-out two-night run.
Have fun, and be safe out there, kids. Viva la Phish tour!