Phish will headline Bourbon & Beyond tonight, September 12th, but Trey Anastasio got to Louisville, KY a day early to catch Waxahatchee. The guitarist posted a photo with the singer-songwriter born Katie Crutchfield, and was even spotted watching her set from the wings.
Bourbon & Beyond’s first day saw performances by the reunited Alabama Shakes, Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, Cage the Elephant, Collective Soul, Benson Boone, and dozens more across six stages at the Highlands Festival Grounds at the Kentucky Exposition Center. Anastasio evidently made his way around, posting a pair of photos with Waxahatchee and TV on the Radio with the caption, “Got to see two of my favorite artists today! DO meet your heroes.” Phish’s affinity for TV on the Radio is well documented, with the jam band covering “Golden Age” 85 times since its debut in 2009.
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This year has also seen Anastasio gush about Waxahatchee in multiple interviews. The guitarist seems to be deep in the modern indie scene, dropping names like Japanese Breakfast, Mitski, and Mannequin Pussy in a feature profile for The New Yorker. But among the rising class of musicians, few excite Anastasio like Waxahatchee and M.J. Lenderman. Apparently there are no hard feelings after Lenderman sang “We watched a Phish concert and Human Centipede / Two things I now wish I had never seen,” in 2021’s “Phish Pepsi” with his former band Wednesday.
“Tell him I love him, if you’re texting him,” Anastasio told GQ‘s Grayson Haver Currin, who had just published a profile on Lenderman. “That won’t mean anything. That’s why I love him, because he probably hates my band. That and the song he did with Waxahatchee? [Katie Crutchfield, Waxahatchee’s founder] talks about that a lot, in a healthy way — when Tigers Blood came out, she’s like, ‘I’m not in my 20s anymore. I can’t be. I have to find a new mojo.’ And she did. But tell MJ: Thank you for ruining my living room. It’s all I listen to. My poor wife, Sue, is like ‘Are you putting Manning Fireworks on again?’ Yes, because it’s so good. I had that snide thing for a minute: ‘Wilson, can you still have fun?’”
That love for Waxahatchee seems to have spilled out of Anastasio’s living room, as Phish sometimes used her album Tiger’s Blood as set break music on last year’s summer tour. Then on Thursday, Anastasio was spotted watching Waxahatchee perform from the side of the stage, even capturing it on his cellphone.
Waxahatchee — “Right Back To It” — Louisville, KY — 9/11/25
[Video: uublr]
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If you want to catch Phish tonight but don’t feel like lurking backstage, tune into the webcast on LivePhish. The band will livestream all eight shows of its mini September run, with stops in Louisville, KY (9/12), Birmingham, AL (9/13, 9/14), Alpharetta, GA (9/16, 9/17), and finally Virginia’s Hampton Coliseum (9/19, 9/20, 9/21). Fans can purchase nightly individual streams, bundle them together, or get the discounted “I Saw It Again” tour bundle. Order your webcast through LivePhish. [Editor’s note: Live For Live Music is a LivePhish affiliate. Ordering your Phish summer tour 2025 webcasts via the links on this page helps support our work covering the world of live music. Thanks for reading!]