On Friday, New York’s City Parks Foundation hosted the Summerstage Jubilee livestream, a virtual version of the city’s annual Summerstage festival. The free stream featured performances from an array of artists, including Sting, Norah Jones, Rufus Wainwright, Roseanne Cash, and many more.
Yet one of the most highly-anticipated Summerstage Jubilee sets came from Trey Anastasio and marked the Phish frontman’s second live performance since the onset of coronavirus.
Related: Trey Anastasio Releases New TAB Live Album, ‘Burn It Down’ [Listen]
The set began with some brief remarks from Anastasio about how much he loves Summerstage, and reminiscing on the 2005 Arcade Fire set where David Bowie joined the indie rockers. With that, he began his solo acoustic performance with “Everything’s Right”, featured on Phish’s latest studio effort Sigma Oasis. Sitting on the concrete steps, the performance took on a casual–and even spontaneous–feel. While the rendition of “Everything’s Right” didn’t offer much in the way of improvisation, it did allow the guitarist to experiment with more melodic elements as he vamped out the lyrics for longer than usual, reminiscent of his solo acoustic tours.
Between songs, Anastasio took a moment to highlight the importance of parks for families and picnics and neighborhood residents, saying “I don’t know where people would do that without the parks. They’d be on the street corner somewhere, I think people would go nuts.”
For his second of two songs, Anastasio took on “More” from 2015’s Big Boat. Even though “Everything’s Right” and “More” aren’t the most requested Phish songs–and even serve as bathroom break songs for many–the tunes offer a much-needed message of hope right now.
Watch Trey Anastasio perform “Everything’s Right” and “More” for the Summerstage Jubilee stream from Friday.
Trey Anastasio – “Everything’s Right”, “More” – Summerstage Jubilee
[Video: Matt Nickel]