Recap, Setlist & The Skinny

Brian Lasky December 29, 2022 • 7:07 AM PST

There’s always a little bit of worry when Phish starts running after taking a slightly longer break from playing a show. does it rust? Is the song selection going to avoid certain songs that are more difficult to play? Is Mike Gordon going to buy new shoes? For the record, I think he was concerned, but other questions were answered with the emphasis, “We’re here to burn this year down.” New Year’s Eve Night 1, 2022 was a very strong event.

It’s a little strange that this happens twice a year, but fans know the foursome will be frequenting MSG, especially this week, when temperatures are slowly rising and the forecast for NYE itself calls for rain. I don’t think you hate The moment the lights went out, you could feel it in the roar from the crowd.After a few jumps from Trey Anastasio, the band entered “Buried Alive” and raced off. Soon, his director of lighting, Chris Kuroda, showed off his new lighting technique, turning off all the lights on the 100 levels for the rest of his rig. There was also a new camera overhead in the audience, which I’m sure gave viewers at home a new couch tour perspective.

The first jam of the night with two slots went to ‘Wolfman’s Brother’. It started off slow and funky with Trey dominating, but slowly morphed into pure bliss with a great build and a good peak before returning to the song to close it out. Trey was definitely in the mood to rock and gave the “Maze” cue, much to the delight of the crowd. Keyboardist Paige McConnell moved through his entire arsenal as usual, with Trey inspiring him through solos. He indicated that he would not come.

Kuroda’s magic was fully demonstrated in “Sigma Oasis”. Around his 9th minute into the song, Trey used some wild effects from an array of pedals before it felt like the band was trying to finish the jam and close it out, while Page Used some magic to turn the band into evil. It was Fish territory and drummer John Fishman was really driving it at the end, so it felt like we were going to be big, but it wasn’t meant to be. A brief run-through of ‘NICU’ followed and moved to ‘Steam’. It seemed like he was going to stay within the song, but after about six minutes Fishman decided to do just that, sending the band into full-blown jamming. Great.

The always welcoming ‘Tela’ came next and was in the perfect spot for everyone to catch their breath. When “Tela” becomes the cooldown song, you know it’s already a great night. “Stash” followed, and the band felt like he couldn’t decide whether or not to go with the Type II, but about six minutes later, Mike dropped an absolute bombshell on the bass, sending the room into jubilation. It boiled. And what followed was the perfect build for the night’s biggest peak, and Trey was really stoked about it, bringing the band to the set closing “Spit Open and Melt.”

A wild, avant-garde dark jam was the perfect way to close out the opening stanza. I believe each member used every pedal at their disposal during the jam while Fishman was out on the town with his drum kit. This was the strangest night for Team Phish. It’s always amazing to see them create something so wild in real time that they’re still looking for ‘it’ after almost 40 years in their career.

Read on after The Skinny to see the rest of the recap and more.

After a set break, they released “Free,” “A Wave of Hope,” and “It’s Ice.” All of which he performed at his New Year’s Eve makeup show on April 22nd this year. “Free” was a solid jam and pretty fast, but “A Wave of Hope” was the highlight of the evening, coming in at a beloved 20 minutes. It felt as if the band were flying through songs to get to work on a jam and immediately went to Type II with it. Page moved across the rig, but the Fishman remained the machine it was. It’s also wild to see Mike limit the number of notes he plays and hypnotize the whole jam a bit. He’s talked about this technique before, and it’s really surprising how limiting what he does on the bass can spread the jam even further.

Around the 10th minute, the crowd went wild as Paige took over lead on the jam, leading the band into a faster and higher energy progression, with the four of them fully connecting and becoming a total teamfish. It never gets old to see moments happening that make the crowd want to dig deeper into them. A solid transition to “It’s Ice” followed, a solid rendition before going straight into “Leaves.” The band loves this song every time and plays it full force every time they are called upon. From there on the first note of “Simple” the MSG roared and the building shook. There were solid jams with tons of effect that recalled Dick’s “Machine” antics from a few years back.

The transition to “Plasma” was so strong that it felt like the jam was really about to start, but Trey decided he wanted to play “Twist.” have it all. The “Twist” jam was great and covered a lot of territory in the short sequence that followed. Kuroda again seemed to be using all the light available to him to push the freewheeling jam a bit. A musical note hit and the building lost it. It was the perfect capper for the set and played beautifully. You can’t go wrong with the ‘hood’ that closes out the show.

“Esther”, which appears in the encore, is the second time in the history of this song, so everyone welcomed it and was very surprised. Amazingly, this rare four-time performance of hers this year has been brilliant, and she’s already replaced by another rocker on “46 Days.” The band concluded with a rocking his jam. If the first night proves to be rust-free, the next three nights should be a special one to finish off the year.

Phish continues with MSG NYE tonight. Watch the live stream at LivePhish.com.

Fish From The Road Photos

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