Phish Reunite For First Time In Four Years To Play Wedding

Phish reunited on Saturday night to play the wedding of their former road manager Brad Sands. The impromptu performance marked the first time the band played together onstage since they called it quits in 2004. Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Page McConnell and Jon Fishman performed their own "Suzy Greenberg," "Julius," and "Waste." In another star cameo, Police drummer (and former Anastasio bandmate in Oysterhead) Stewart Copeland sat in with the wedding band.

The wedding performance is already fueling rumors about the band's inevitable reunion, especially after Anastasio's comments to Rolling Stone saying "I would give my left nut to play [Phish's "You Enjoy Myself"] five times in a row every day until I die." Plus, Mike Gordon told RS that the band has been getting dinner together and even held a meeting with Billy Breathes producer Steve Lillywhite. And then there was that near-reunion at Rothbury. There is precedent for the Phans hope that the wedding will equal the band getting back together: Fourteen months after the band announced they were taking an "extended time-out" in 2000, the band reunited to play another friend's wedding, and ultimately returned to touring in 2002. Check out footage from the wedding above, with the sharply-dressed band — it's still weird seeing Fishman not wearing a dress — performing Hoist's "Julius."

Related Stories:
• Trey Anastasio Hints at Phish Reunion
• Phish Reunion? Mike Gordon Is "Optimistic," Says Band Met With Lillywhite
• Phish Nearly Reunite at Rothbury for Beatles Cover

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Song Stories

“The A Team”

Ed Sheeran | 2011

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.

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