Phish opened up the vaults for a new archival release on Friday, sharing full-show audio from the band’s December 28th, 1990, show in New York City, featuring a sit-in by Blues Traveler frontman John Popper. The entire show at The Marquee is available now on LivePhish.

December 28th, 1990, at The Marquee was an interesting time and place for Phish. After making its NYC debut in the spring of 1988, the band bounced around various rooms—including eight shows at the legendary Wetlands Preserve—before making its debut at The Marquee for the band’s 13th career show in New York City. Phish would play The Marquee two more times in 1991, before continuing its climb up the ladder of NYC venues, to The Academy, Mariott Marquis, Roseland Ballroom, and Lonestar Roadhouse before making it to the Beacon Theatre in April ’94 and finally to Madison Square Garden later that year—almost four years exactly from the Marquee gig.

In extensive liner notes on LivePhish, an archivist writes that advanced tickets to the 18+ show cost $13.50, and that the 950-capacity room was sold out. Among the crowd was Sue Drew, the Elektra Records A&R rep who would eventually sign the band to the major label for 1992’s A Picture of Nectar, catching her first Phish show.

“I was completely blown away,” Drew told Phishbase in 2017. “The crowd was one thing because they were all so into their own little world and into the whole music, but the band was just incredible. The musicianship was amazing. And from that minute on, I just became obsessed with them as musicians, and so I started paying attention to where they were playing.”

Listening to the remastered soundboards, the crowd does seem to be in its own little world. The hooting and hollering of the likely mostly-collegiate age audience bounces off the tight club walls to give the audio a bygone feeling of intimacy. Engaging with the crowd, guitarist Trey Anastasio rattles off a quick “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” tease as the band tunes up before a “Runaway Jim” opener.

As one would expect from 1990 Phish, the show is a gas, gas, gas. Don’t come looking for any absurdly long jams; the longest single song is a “Divided Sky” that comes in just shy of 13 minutes. Even the second set “Tweezer”, split in the middle by “Manteca” (the second-ever split “Tweezer” following 9/20/90), only combines for 9 minutes and change. Instead, Phish plays with the tightness and tenacity that would put them on the radar of Sue Drew and growing hordes of college kids along the East Coast. Mike Gordon is playing a Languedoc bass, which bubbles through on the crisp recordings, and Page McConnell is working with a Yamaha CP70 electric piano and Hammond B-3 organ.

As far as setlist analytics go, this show saw the continued emergence of songs that would become regulars. That night at The Marquee featured Phish’s third-known “Horn” and the second “Manteca”, the Dizzy Gillespie instrumental that became a frequent link in multi-song jams through the ’90s but has only been seen five times this century (LTP 2/22/20 in Mexico).

Then there’s the guest of honor, Blues Traveler vocalist and ’90s face of the harmonica, John Popper. Fellow Wetlands alumni and future H.O.R.D.E. chums Blues Traveler swapped sit-ins with Phish throughout the early 1990s, with this marking the eighth collaboration that year (the most of any year).

After an otherworldly “Divided Sky”, the band came back down to Earth with a grounding take on Syd Barrett‘s “No Good Trying”, featuring drummer Jon Fishman on lead vocals. The night of December 28th, 1990, would mark the third and last “No Good Trying” in Phish history, as well as the band’s third and final “Don’t Get Me Wrong”, an original Anastasio fleshed out with Popper from a shelved middle section of “Reba”. “Don’t Get Me Wrong” does go out with a bang, getting a drawn-out jamming that ultimately devolves into five minutes of YEM-style improvisational vocal chaos.

The December 28th, 1990, Phish show serves as a vital flashpoint in the band’s history. As Anastasio recently reflected on Cory Wong‘s podcast, Phish—as audiences have come to know it through the decades—was already pretty fully formed by the late ’80s when the members were graduating from college. Looking at the setlist, many of the songs are still in the band’s live rotation some 35 years later. The playing has expanded and contracted to various degrees through the albums, eras, breakups, and reunions, but the core of what we know and love as Phish was right there, packed into that sweaty New York City club, waiting to bust the two blocks over to Madison Square Garden a few years later.

Stream full, remastered audio of Phish at The Marquee on December 28th, 1990, on LivePhish, or in the soundboard audio below. [Editor’s note: Live For Live Music is a LivePhish affiliate. Ordering your subscription or audio downloads via the links on this page helps support our work covering the world of live music. Thanks for reading!]

Phish — The Marquee — New York, NY — 12/28/1990 — Full Audio

[Audio: fromtheaquarium]

Setlist: Phish | The Marquee | New York, NY | 12/28/1990

Set One: Runaway Jim, Foam, Horn, Reba, Llama, Colonel Forbin’s Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird > Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, Golgi Apparatus
Set Two: The Landlady > Possum[1], The Squirming Coil -> Tweezer -> Manteca -> Tweezer > The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > My Sweet One > Divided Sky, No Good Trying[2] > Hold Your Head Up[2], Don’t Get Me Wrong[3], Funky Bitch[2]
Encore: Bouncing Around the Room, Highway to Hell
[1] Charlie Chan and Random Note signals.
[2] John Popper on harmonica.
[3] John Popper on harmonica and vocals.

Trey teased We Wish You a Merry Christmas before Runaway Jim. Possum contained Charlie Chan and Random Note signals and ended with a We Wish You a Merry Christmas tease. Trey quoted Manteca in the first Tweezer. Page teased Manteca in the second Tweezer and played a few notes of HYHU before No Good Trying. No Good Trying through Funky Bitch featured John Popper on harmonica with John singing vocals on Don’t Get Me Wrong. Mike teased The Girl from Ipanema before Funky Bitch. This show is available as an archival release on LivePhish.com.