Photo: Crothers/FilmMagic
Fresh off their triumphant three-night stand at Indio, California’s Festival 8, the reunited Phish have announced plans to play their first New Year’s Eve concert since 2003 when they take over Miami’s American Airlines Arena for a four-night residency December 28th-31st. The New Year’s Eve show will be a three-set extravaganza at the same Miami arena where Phish and their Phans last rung in the New Year together six years ago. Phish also celebrated the dawn of the new millennium in the Sunshine State with a festival in Big Cypress, Florida on December 30th and 31st, 1999.

Check out photos from Festival 8.

The online ticket request period for Phish’s Miami shows is going on right now over at the band’s official Website, with the public onsale date scheduled for November 21st. As Rolling Stone reported from Indio two weekends ago, Phish resurrected an old Halloween tradition by performing another artist’s album — in this year’s case, the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street — in its entirety. The Vermont foursome followed that October 31st performance with their first-ever acoustic set the very next day. (more…)

Photo: Crothers/FilmMagic

Free breakfast has become a hotel staple, but how can Phish fans be sated while camping in the middle of the scorching California desert for Festival 8? A Sunday high-noon acoustic set with gratis coffee and donuts, shaped fittingly, like the number eight.

Check out photos from Festival 8.

Most of the 40,000 in attendance (many still buzzing about the band’s Halloween monster take on the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street) straggled in to enjoy the band’s first-ever full-length unplugged set Sunday morning. The band — playing under eight red-and-black banners that hung from the lighting rig to the stage — kicked off with “Water in the Sky” and the chugging “Back on the Train.” Befitting the mellow mood, not to mention the punishing SoCal sun, fans dutifully obeyed singer-guitarist Trey Anastasio’s request to sit down because “we’re gonna play a lot of mellow tunes.” (more…)

Photo: Crothers/FilmMagic

Combining two of their most beloved traditions for the first time — the multi-day festival and the Halloween album “costume” — Phish got their rocks off at their Festival 8 in Indio, California, during the second of a three-day set with a crushing start-to-finish version of the Rolling Stones‘ classic Exile On Main Street. Just a day earlier, Stones frontman Mick Jagger took the stage himself 3,000 miles away, joining U2 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert in New York.

Under pristine conditions at the Empire Polo Field and in front of a devoted Phish crowd of 40,000 fans, the Vermont foursome rollicked in Exile’s swamp blues and roadhouse country, extending several songs with their own jams, highlighted by a spacey interlude between “Ventilator Blues” into the gospel-esque “I Just Want to See His Face.” Special guests Sharon Jones and three horn players (one, trumpeter David Guy is a Dap King) added their own flourishes (horns to “Sweet Black Angel”), and each band member took lead vocal turns. Incredibly, four of the double album’s songs made their big-stage live debut —”Soul Survivor,” a scorching “Casino Boogie,” “Turd On the Run” and the flickering ballad “Let It Loose” — having never been performed by the Stones themselves. The set clocked in at nearly a 100 minutes, 33 more than the actual album. (more…)

Photo: Kravitz/FilmMagic

On Halloween night tomorrow in Indio, California, Phish will once again put on a “musical costume” at Festival 8 and revive their Halloween tradition of performing another artist’s album. We’ve kept on an eye on the Vermont jam band’s art gallery of album covers on the Festival 8 site, where Phish have been systematically killing off potential albums as candidates for the Halloween set.

Get into the Halloween spirit by checking out photos of rockers in costumes.

Favorites like Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, Nirvana’s Nevermind and, most recently, Michael Jackson’s Thriller have all been eliminated, leaving just eight classic albums unharmed, one of which will be performed by Phish tomorrow night: (more…)

Photo: Kravitz/FilmMagic

On the heels of Joy and a sold-out reunion tour, Phish have announced their fall live dates, which kick off just over two weeks after the jam quartet perform their three-night Festival 8 in Indio, California. The new trek launches November 18th at Detroit’s Cobo Arena and journeys throughout the Northeast, including a three-night stand at New York’s Madison Square Garden on December 2nd through 4th. The current dates only travel as far south Charlottesville, Virginia, on December 5th, so we’d expect some more dates in the coming weeks. Will Phish perform another New Year’s Ever blowout? We’ll find out soon enough.

Phish come alive: check out photos from their first reunion gig.

Meanwhile, as Rolling Stone reported, Phish continue to kill off album covers at their Festival 8 page as they count down to their “musical costuming” on Halloween, when the band will perform another artist’s album in its entirety. (more…)

Phish’s massive Festival 8 in Indio, California, October 30th through November 1st won’t just find the Vermont foursome resurrecting their Halloween tradition of covering another artist’s full album: For the first time in Phistory, the jam quartet will perform an all-acoustic set on the morning of the festival’s third day. According to Phish’s official Website, “the set will take place at the crack of noon on Sunday morning.” Saturday night, or Halloween, promises to be an all-night party, so to help the Phans out of their sleeping bags and shake off their hangovers, Phish will provide coffee and donuts to those who make it up in time for the acoustic set. We’d recommend guzzling down the coffee, as Phish will also play two more sets on Sunday. Phish also revealed the schedule for Festival 8, and as promised, eight sets will be spread over the course of the fest’s three days.

As for “The Halloween Set,” the middle of three sets on Saturday night that finds Phish assuming a “musical costume” and performing a classic album, Rolling Stone is still betting on Purple Rain, while our readers are hoping for Radiohead’s OK Computer. The dark horse pick: Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Past albums that Phish has covered on Halloween include the Beatles’ White Album, Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, the Who’s Quadrophenia and the Velvet Underground’s Loaded. We’ll find out what Phish has in store in just over a month from now. Until then, check out the Festival 8 schedule below: (more…)