Phish Begin Second Sphere Residency
Phish, photo by Dean Budnick
Phish were made for Sphere. Over four decades of performance, the groundbreaking jam quartet has earned a reputation for turning even routine performances into high-concept marvels, determined to fine-tune even details as slight as a set’s balance of rarities and standards, or a hint of another song in a solo. For special occasions, they’ll go above and beyond to give their passionate fans an experience worth bragging about — as was the case at their unforgettable four-night Sphere residency in 2024. There’s no band that better embodies the balance of theatricality and artistry that the singular arena demands.
Last night, April 16, Phish made history by setting off their second residency at the crown jewel of the Las Vegas strip. Where their 2024 series on the immersive stage spent four nights touring through the highlights of their catalog, set to a non-repeating rotation of eye-popping graphics, their follow-up two years later stretches their tenure to nine performances over three consecutive weekends. As anyone could’ve called, the band from Vermont made a spectacle of its return to Sin City, but all bets were off when it came to just how it would mark the moment.
As the audience for night one filed into the venue, they were greeted by a serene scene of The Barn, Trey Anastasio’s Vermont studio. Excited chatter surged to a roaring reception as frontman Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, keyboardist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman stepped onstage and wordlessly launched “Evolve,” the title track form their 2024 studio album. With the music came a change in scenery as the panoramic screens around the band showed a truck crossing the country from a diorama of the Northeast woodlands to one of dazzling Las Vegas, assembled in real time by giant hands from overhead that placed background set-pieces. As the truck arrived outside Sphere, the band hit the song’s final notes, then gave the crowd a chance to take it all in before striking up “Wolfman’s Brother.”
After their original Sphere residency – only the second at the technologically unparalleled performance space – set a high standard for Sphere’s immersive potential, Phish’s return has already raised the bar again in its creative and thoughtful use of the venue’s capabilities. Throughout night one, the band cycled through no less than 25 distinct visual sequences, largely rushing together into a hypnotic display of bizarre brilliance.
It’s a true challenge to pick favorites from the presentation, but some of the moments that best exemplified the degree of consideration that Phish brought to the show were when the band – seemingly knowingly – complemented the visuals in their performance. This occurred both in bits of thematic congruence, as when underwater scenery flowed in while Anastasio hit the “among the seaweed and the slime” line in “Split Open and Melt,” and in sonic mirroring, as occurred earlier in the same track when the band’s jam navigated sticky and springy rhythms before claymation characters chewing and stomping in gum.
Other highlights from the evening’s visuals included “Wolfman’s Brother,” which was the first song to lean into the confounding potential of the experience through an Escher-esque puzzle that periodically stopped by a fireplace and a massive cat’s eye; “Rift,” which saw posters from throughout the band’s career mounting to a maze that finally became David Welker’s iconic cover art for the 1993 album; and “Twenty Years Later,” which cast the crowd into the webs of an enormous spider. The most talked-about moment from the show will doubtlessly be the rapid-fire graphic sequence that accompanied the second-set closer of “You Enjoy Myself” and “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” the former of which hosted the return of last year’s fan-favorite car wash and dog lick, followed by a vintage drive-in movie theater with the band projected before the cars, and finally culminating in eruption of hot dogs, with a hot dog rocket finally out into a night sky specked with space junk (food) and landing on a fantastic planet where hot dog creatures worshipped a hot dog monolith. If that’s not making the most of the setup, what is?
Of course, the main event of Phish’s Sphere shows is still the band’s musicianship. Some of the most striking songs in the band’s 17-track setlist included 15 minutes of slinking funk in “Wolfman’s Brother” and another 15 in the transcendent first frame finale of “Split Open And Melt,” 17 blissed-out minutes of radiance in “Everything’s Right,” 18 minutes of race-pace cacophony in “Down with Disease” and the combined 28-minute “You Enjoy Myself” and “Also Sprach Zarathustra” medley. For an encore, the band returned to David Bowie’s “Space Odyssey” for the first time since July 2022, then finally landed on “Harry Hood,” complete with a virtual fireworks show.
Phish will return to Sphere tonight, then deliver seven more shows at the venue through May 2. Find tickets and more information at phish.com, and stream the shows at nugs.net.
Phish
Sphere – Las Vegas
4/16/26
Set I: Evolve, Wolfman’s Brother, Foam, Theme from the Bottom, Rift, Scents and Subtle Sounds > Steam, Split Open and Melt
Set II: Everything’s Right, Down with Disease, Twenty Years Later, Gotta Jibboo, Lifeboy, You Enjoy Myself > Also Sprach Zarathustra
Encore: Space Oddity, Harry Hood
