On Monday night, Trey Anastasio continued his solo acoustic tour with a performance at Eugene, OR’s Silva Concert Hall at the Hult Center For The Performing Arts.

Trey began the fifth show of his winter acoustic run with “Waste”, marking the ballad’s fourth appearance this tour but its first that didn’t come toward the end of the show. Next, he moved into new Kasvot Växt favorite “We Are Come To Outlive Our Brains” for its second performance outside Phish‘s 2018 Halloween show, the crowd’s enthusiastic singing showing just how excited the fan base is about the new (old?) material. The crowd sing-along continued with “Limb By Limb”, as Trey thanked his audience for filling in the vocal holes normally occupied by his bandmates.

After waxing nostalgic about past visits to Eugene with Phish in the early 90s and teasing the crowd about their inscrutable (to him) calls for him to not forget to play “Mercury”, Anastasio moved into “Brian and Robert”, followed by a well-received rendition of “Lifeboy”, a song that’s always felt like a perfect fit for the acoustic setting.

After running through “Farmhouse”, Trey continued to banter with the crowd about that earlier request he couldn’t quite hear before taking off on a tangent about making his daily “gratitude list.” “You guys ever make a gratitude list?” he asked, “It’s a great way to start the day. … I wrote down with my pen, the first thing I could think of was, ‘I’m glad I’m not Joe Pesci in Casino, digging my own grave and getting beaten to death with a baseball bat and having to lay on top of my brother [laughs]… And that was pretty much it! From there, I thought, ‘It’s all cake after that.'”

Trey went on with his reminiscings about Eugene, telling an old Jon Fishman story from when Phish played the Hilton Ballroom in the early 90s. “The part that I remember, we played a gig at the Hilton Ballroom, and just to screw with him, I kept yelling out Fish’s room number. Because we would stay in the hotel. Like do the gig and then just go upstairs. So the whole gig I was like, ‘…and then there’s Jon Fishman, room 623! Party in his room! And everyone went running up there afterwards, and being a good sport…he had a party. The most epic party, the entire venue just in his room. Pretty crazy, fun night. One of the most fun nights, that night. Party in room 623. It’s legendary in this area.”

After losing himself in thought once again, Trey corrected himself. “Actually,” he said, “It was not the most epic night ever. I was remembering the other day. The most epic night ever was in the New York area. … There was this one night in New York where we went to this Grammy party and I ended up hanging out with Nelly… This is true, I’m not making this up. It was the most random, crazy thing. There’s actually a picture online [Note: See below]. … But it was in the mellower part of the night. A lot of people ask me, ‘what was that night like?’ God, the only thing I can come up with is, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the video for “It’s Getting Hot In Herre”? Watch that video when you get home, and picture exactly like that, but with me in the middle. It’s pretty much what happened. Except it wasn’t just three and a half minutes long. It was all night long…”

Shifting his focus back to the show, Trey addressed the vocal “Mercury” fan once again. “What was that song I wasn’t supposed to forget again?” After the fan in question repeated his request, Trey finally heard him—”Oh, ‘Mercury’. OK, I can play that. I thought you said ‘Billy Breathes’.” Rather than moving straight into the request(s), Trey decided to “get his fingerpicking warmed up” with a run through instrumental “The Inlaw Josie Wales”. That selection flowed straight into never-before-played Billy Breathes instrumental “Bliss” before making good on his promise of the album’s title track.

“Sample In A Jar” got the crowd singing along once again before moving straight into “The Wedge”. Next, the “Mercury” hopeful got their wish, as Trey worked through the newer tune to a chorus of hoots and hollers from the crowd. “Mountains in the Mist” came next, followed by the acoustic debut of another Kasvot Växt tune, “Cool Amber and Mercury”. After moving through “Back on the Train”, Trey regaled the crowd with a story of how he reluctantly learned to surf in the area before continuing into “Water in the Sky”, “Joy”, and “Strange Design”.

He went on to remember yet another story. “We were here in ’92, in April. And then we went to Europe that summer. We were touring so much, driving around in a car and stuff. And we went to Europe. We played at this festival, Roskilde, which is a festival in Denmark. We played earlier in the day, and the headliner was Nirvana. And they were right in the peak week of their power [laughs]. I’m not kidding. It was right when this thing was blowing up, just so huge. … And while we were there, we met this weird band called Kasvot Växt [cheers]. They were, like, on the third stage. It all comes together. Kasvot Växt… that’s all I’m gonna say. You figure the rest out. … There was more to that story but, fuck it, you’re not gonna hear it.”

“Steam” was up next, followed seamlessly by “Backwards Down The Number Line”, “Blaze On”, and “Down With Disease”. Finally, to close out his set, Trey once again worked a Kasvot Växt song inside a Phish favorite, moving from “Chalkdust Torture” into “Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S. and back to “Chalkdust”. After taking a brief encore break, Trey returned to cap the performance with renditions of “All of These Dreams”, “If I Could”, “Talk”, and, finally, “The Horse” > “Silent In The Morning”.

You can download a full audience audio recording of Trey’s Eugene performance here courtesy of taper gotfob.

Trey Anastasio’s ongoing solo acoustic tour continues tonight at the Cascade Theatre in Redding, CA. For a full list of remaining Trey Anastasio acoustic dates, head to his website here.

Setlist: Trey Anastasio Solo Acoustic | Silva Concert Hall | Eugene, OR | 12/10/18

Set: Waste, We Are Come to Outlive Our Brains, Limb By Limb, Brian and Robert, Lifeboy, Farmhouse, The Inlaw Josie Wales, Bliss [1], Billy Breathes, Sample in a Jar, The Wedge, Mercury, Mountains in the Mist, Cool Amber and Mercury [2], Back on the Train, Water in the Sky, Joy, Strange Design, Steam > Backwards Down the Number Line > Blaze On > Down with Disease, Chalk Dust Torture > Say it to Me S.A.N.T.O.S.[1] > Chalk Dust Torture

Encore: All of These Dreams, If I Could, Talk, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, More

[1] Trey solo acoustic; debut.
[2] Trey solo acoustic; first acoustic performance by Trey.
This entire show was performed by Trey solo acoustic and featured the debut of Bliss and the first Trey acoustic performance of Cool Amber and Mercury.