Pop Break Live: Phish New Year’s Run at Madison Square Garden — Night 1 — December 28
Words & Photos by Will Marks
Everyone at Madison Square Garden got their ass handed to them on December 28 … twice!
Phish came home to their favorite venue and played an amazing show to open their annual New Years Run. Phish celebrated 25 years of performances at Madison Square Garden on December 28 which totaled out to sixty-four shows. It is another amazing milestone in the bands career, and they are just building up steam to keep going strong.
The first set opened with a debut of a new song titled Evening Song. Which was a good way for the boys to get their feet wet before diving into the deep end of the night. After that you knew it was time to get grooving with a great version of No Men in No Mans Land then the body slam of Mike Gordon’s bass heading into Down with Disease. At this point you knew you were at MSG when you started to hear the roar of the crowd and the floor start to bounce and move. That is a feeling that will never get old for anyone who has even seen a show there or for the band members themselves.
The rest of the first set included another debut of a song entitled 20-20 Vision, and some other great staples of the Phish repertoire. Some of the standouts included a great version of Ghost, and a funky Gumbo to get everyone groovin. They closed out the first set with Say It to Me S.A.N.T.O.S which has been moving up into the bands go to jam to get the whole house amped up and singing along.
The second set opened with a great version of Everything’s Right which kept the party going. Some other great standouts included an incredible version of Piper, which led into The Who cover of Drowned. This was a peak jam of the night which took the band into the heavier more ominous jams and some great uncharted territory. This brought us into something new, the funny Ass Handed, but also an Ass Handed Reprise because the band was just having too much fun with it. It’s always great to see some banter on stage and showing us how much fun, the band is having even after all the years in this venue.
Finally, they finished the first night of the Phish New Year’s Run with a double encore including A Life Beyond the Dream, and a smoking version of Rocky Top. Overall it was a great way to kick off the new year’s run and got the band cooking with fire. It will be interesting to see how the next three nights pan out. I am sure that the boys have something brewing for us to make for another memorable New Year’s celebration at MSG.
Set List
SET 1:
Evening Song
No Men In No Man’s Land
Down with Disease
20-20 Vision[2]
Ghost, Gumbo > Rift
Weigh
Dog Faced Boy
Twenty Years Later > Tube > Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S.
SET 2:
Everything’s Right
Beneath a Sea of Stars Part 1
Set Your Soul Free
Gotta Jibboo
Free
Piper
Drowned
Ass Handed
Chalk Dust Torture Reprise
Character Zero
ENCORE:
A Life Beyond The Dream
Rocky Top.
Check out Pop Break’s insane amount of Phish related coverage from 2019:
Trey Anastasio & Ghost of the Forest in Albany
Trey Anastasio Band at Brooklyn Bowl
