Phish returned Wednesday to the sun-kissed Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park to close out a midweek, two-day introductory run at the Wilmington, NC amphitheater. While the day’s musical forecast looked much brighter than the previous night’s, a coastal thunderstorm battered the venue and the sold-out, 7,200-person crowd throughout the second set. Still, the band played on—that is, until the powers that be pulled the plug midway through the set’s fourth song. In a cosmic coincidence, the show came on the ten-year anniversary of Phish’s 7/19/13 Northerly Island show in Chicago, which was similarly called off midway through due to inclement weather.
Coming out of what can be generously deemed an off night on Tuesday, the four men of Phish walked back into Live Oak with an undeniable chip on their shoulders. Following a jaunty “Cars Trucks Buses” opener, a considerable 20-minute “A Wave of Hope” seemed to immediately re-endear the band to its short-term memory-deprived fans. By the time Son Seals‘ “Funky Bitch” came strutting in, all of the past sins were forgotten and forgiven.
Riding this reinvigorated confidence, Page McConnell strolled out from behind his keyboard menagerie to get some facetime with the all-general admission crowd for “Lawn Boy”. As McConnell quipped, “We’re so happy to be playing on the lawn,” a sentiment fully embraced by the barefoot children enjoying the grass beneath and the spacious public park-like atmosphere.
Jumping right back in with a bouncy “Back on the Train”, Phish gleaned lessons from night one and, instead of turning in emotionally-wrought ballads one after the other, dropped a sublime “When the Circus Comes” just as the sun set, with Los Lobos tune aptly predicting that this would be, “The day I burn this whole place down.”
Phish – “When The Circus Comes” (Los Lobos) – 7/19/23
[Video: Reflector Detector]
Switching up the elements, Page dug back for the Rift gem “It’s Ice” as a clear wave of nostalgia washed over the sea of 1.0-ers in the crowd. Going from the ingeniously intricate mirrored composition to the lyrical monotony of “Blaze On” was a bit of a sobering switch-up, but the brief ensuing jam helped cheerfully resolve any bittersweet feelings on the passage of time and the aging perspective of the band to close set one.
During a longer-than-usual set break, hefty gobs of precipitation started dropping at an intermittent rate, though evidently not enough to deter the evening’s events. During a clear passage, Phish returned to the stage and fired up “Chalk Dust Torture”. As the rain ultimately started back in, lightly at first, the ensuing improvisation took on a push-pull feel reminiscent of a “Big Ball Jam” as Jon Fishman kept the beat driving along with the droplets—with every increase in intensity on both fronts eliciting uproarious applause from a progressively wetter audience.
It felt like the band was already playing on borrowed time as the jam developed, all four musicians grabbing what they could off the creative shelf before the store was inevitably shuttered for the evening. To everyone’s surprise and delight, the show raged on through stormy weather and on into “Oblivion”. Introduced in Alabama, the new Trey Anastasio composition was made for this exact moment, as the brooding jam bubbled up from Page’s Rhodes and Trey’s low octave took the plunge through shale for some subaquatic wanderings.
Phish – “Oblivion” [Pro-Shot] – 7/19/23
The rain had become an undeniable reality by the natural conclusion of the jam. Phish and its fans, equally soaked on the stage and the lawn, took it all in as the sky opened up on “The Wedge”. By the time the highway to the great divide met its end, it was clear to everyone among heaps of rain and circling thunderstorms that the show could not continue—clear to everyone, that is, except for Trey Anastasio.
As roadies rushed to cover Page’s grand piano and various other brick-a-brack, our fearless leader went down with the ship and started up a perfectly wobbly “Scents and Subtle Sounds”. Energized in the face of the elements, the oft-flubby frontman summoned the stamina to muster all the correct tongue-twisty words in between gusts of wind and rain that tried—in vain—to stray him from the microphone. As buckets of precipitation reflected Chris Kuroda‘s dazzling light show, the water-logged guitarist justly declared to his flock of drenched fanatics, “And the winds would lift you up / Into the sky above / And you’d be treated to a view / Of everything you love,” just before the plug was finally pulled.
Phish – “Scents And Subtle Sounds” (Unfinished) – 7/19/23
[Video: Gregory Marcus]
In the interest of his place in the history books, Trey unequivocally stated just before being given the hook, “I want it on my permanent record that I didn’t want to stop, they stopped me.” Someone, however, should have also probably stopped Jon Fishman, who stayed firmly planted on his drum riser making bad Taylor Swift dad jokes until he, too, was removed by the powers that be. That one is going on all of our permanent records.
Phish returns to the stage on Friday for what will hopefully be a drier and more complete affair at The Pavilion at Star Lake in Burgettstown, PA. Tickets and tour details are available here. Subscribe to LivePhish+ to listen to every show on the tour and browse an archive of live Phish recordings. To order your LivePhish webcasts for any of the band’s upcoming summer shows, head here.
Setlist: Phish | Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park | Wilmington, NC | 7/19/23
Set One: Cars Trucks Buses, A Wave of Hope, Funky Bitch, hey stranger, Lawn Boy, Back on the Train, When the Circus Comes, It’s Ice, Blaze On
Set Two: Chalk Dust Torture > Oblivion, The Wedge, Scents and Subtle Sounds[1]
[1] Stopped early due to severe weather in the area.
This show was stopped in the middle of Scents and Subtle Sounds due to severe weather in the area.