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The lights went up, and this time the walkout song of choice was the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”—once upon a time the very first music video to air on MTV. It was a nice wink to the 160,000-square-foot Sphere screen, which had just spent several days dominating phans’ fields of sight and senses of scale and depths of imagination. And in the end, it was a clever reminder that Phish really doesn’t slot neatly into common industry trends and tropes and aphorisms and stereotypes. Phish was never really much of a “radio star.” Which is maybe why, all these years later, the band is as alive as ever, still discovering—and providing—new highs. Before a COVID-rescheduled set of shows brought the band to Madison Square Garden on that date in 2022, Phish hadn’t played on 4/20 since 1994, when Dave Matthews Band opened for it at a venue called Virginia Horse Center, which featured a dirt floor and cost $16.50 to enter.
Inside the Creative Direction for Phish’s Sphere Residency: ‘Trying to Design the Unpredictable’
I wrote this song, um, and um, about, I think about three weeks before my wife and I were about to have our first child, which was incredibly 14 years ago. And, um, um, I wrote this, um, sitting, kind of leaning on my back against the wall and kind of, um, thinking about making that strange step from being a non-parent to a parent and that, all the weird feeling and whatnot. Phish.net is a non-commercial project run by Phish fans and for Phish fans under the auspices of the all-volunteer, non-profit Mockingbird Foundation.
Watch Trey Anastasio & Page McConnell Play Intimate Duo Sets Before Phish Flood Recovery Benefit Shows [Videos] - Live for Live Music
Watch Trey Anastasio & Page McConnell Play Intimate Duo Sets Before Phish Flood Recovery Benefit Shows [Videos].
Posted: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
What Genre of Music Is Phish?
(Other discarded design concepts included “a muffin, a box and even a pyramid.”) It is a big-ass blank canvas with seemingly boundless creative potential. Which is why it was such a perfect match for the innovative eccentricity of Phish. A glimmering globe, a monocultural marvel, Sphere looks like a crystal ball on the outside and feels like a virtual reality visit to a combination Guggenheim-IMAX planetarium on the inside. Sphere opened in September after five years of construction and cost a reported $2.3 billion to build, which is probably why a humble pint of beer inside the arena will run you, like, $20.
The Story Behind Phish’s “Strange Design”
According to Anastasio, the song was inspired by his relationship with his wife, Sue. The lyrics describe the feeling of being in love with someone who is constantly changing and evolving, and how challenging it can be to adapt to these changes. Anastasio has described the song as “a love letter to my wife, but also a message to myself to try to be more open and understanding”. The heartfelt lyrics, combined with Anastasio’s soaring guitar work, make “Strange Design” one of Phish’s most emotional and enduring songs. The band nevertheless recorded a handful of studio versions of the song, one of which ended up on the B-side to the European CD Single for “Free” (a slightly more atmospheric version vaguely reminiscent of King Crimson). An mp3 of this studio version was readily available for download from the February, 1996 installment of “This Month in Phishtory” at
Phish Booked For 2024 Four-Show Sphere Run in Las Vegas
That Phish will mix up its show for each gig on a four-night run — not repeating a single song — is a given; what that looks like in a venue with Sphere’s epic visual capabilities is less familiar territory. Some of Phish’s most popular songs include “Possum”, “Tweezer”, “Down with Disease”, “Backwards Down the Number Line”, and “Bouncing Around the Room”. These songs showcase Phish’s unique style and their mastery of complex musical arrangements and improvisational jamming. The origins of the band’s name are somewhat murky, but it is generally believed to be a reference to Trey Anastasio’s childhood nickname, “Treyfish”. The band played their first gig under the name “Blackwood Convention” before settling on the name Phish.
Missing lyrics by Phish?
Over the course of their four Sphere shows, Phish not only played 68 unique songs—the band also organized them into four guessable nightly themes that eventually coalesced, by the end of the run, into a whole overarching thing. But Phish has never been some anyband that just plays the hits—partly because, and I say this with reverence, Phish doesn’t really have hits, at least not in the conventional, played-constantly-on-FM-radio sense. Ask 10 different phans to recommend a starter song and you’ll get about seven different answers, and all of them will be right. It’s a party of abundance where everyone present leaves with a gift. Phish’s penchant for newness is, in Holmes’ estimation, what will define the band’s Sphere run — and it explains why the booking appealed to the band in the first place. It’s a marked contrast from U2, which kept its show more or less the same for each of the 40 nights it played Sphere, and designed impressive song-specific visuals for several key tracks.
The Meaning Behind The Song: Strange Design by Phish
Anastasio sings, “I’d like to think the world is at my fingertips/I’m feeling tip-top, don’t want to stop, to jeopardize my harmony”. This suggests that he wants to embrace the changes in his relationship, rather than fight against them. Finally, the song is also about the power of love to transcend all obstacles. The chorus, with its refrain of “Love is won, love is lost”, suggests that love is a force that can survive even the toughest of trials and tribulations. The band was touring in Europe at the time and made the painful decision there – in Italy or France I think. It was a bizarre version that no one ever really got used to….
“We’re basically VJ’ing on a 16,000-by-16,000-pixel ratio for Sphere,” Jean says. Phish is generally considered to be a jam band, with a style that draws on elements of rock, funk, jazz, and other genres. The band is known for their improvisational style and their live performances, which often involve extended jams and intricate musical interplay. The lyrics of “Strange Design” are open to interpretation, but there are a few key themes that emerge. The song’s opening lines, “Every strange design/Every new dream woven in/Is a ghost, a ghost in time” suggest that nothing lasts forever, and that all relationships go through periods of flux and transition. The second theme is the idea of acceptance and letting go.
Then there were the clouds shaped like turtles and seahorses. And the golden tribute to longtime Phish artiste Jim Pollock’s towering body of work, one that the man himself was as delighted to see as anyone else in the building. And the skies full of stars, and the mountains in the mist. From my seat I could see show director Abigail Rosen Holmes make dynamic adjustments to the visuals to better allow the band to noodle. It has audio technology I’m not qualified to understand that precision snipes you one minute and warm hugs you the next and somehow doesn’t leave your ears ringing either way. It is an idea that was born when entertainment titan James Dolan sketched a circle with a stick figure inside.
David Tepper made a fool of himself, the Raiders look smart, Howie Roseman restocked the Eagles’ secondary, and the Bills (finally) landed a wide receiver. Phish tours frequently and plays concerts all over the world. Check their website or social media pages for information on upcoming shows and ticket sales.
A month after that, in The New York Times, music critic Kelefa Sanneh wrote about the end of an era in an article that began, “Phish is breaking up, and you probably don’t care” and asked, “Will Phish leave a scar? Or will the band just disappear, as if it were never here at all? ” That August, Phish scheduled a final festival in Coventry, Vermont, that went off with every possible hitch.
The first thing I noticed, as I joined the line to see Phish in Las Vegas one night this past weekend, was a trio of white-and-red-suited Elvises who were passing a vape around. An objectively absurd sight, to be sure, but one that also felt soothing in its regional specificity—like eating mushy peas in England, or overhearing someone holler, “Eyyy, I’m walkin’ here! And speaking of walking, the second thing I noticed was all the Hokas. So many Hokas, bulky and bright and mega-cushioned and present in a quantity that easily outnumbered the Tevas and Birks and Stan Smiths combined. “Whatever you do,” goes one cherished Phish lyric from the early ’90s, “take care of your shoes.” But for the phans who have been following the band since the early ’90s (or earlier!), the bigger priority these days appears to be taking care of your arch support.
A tropical storm had left so much ankle-deep, squelchy mud behind that most cars weren’t able to drive onto the grounds. Many fans abandoned hope, but others walked for, like, 10 miles on the side of the road with their coolers and their tents to get into the venue for one last goodbye. As the band began the contemplative ballad “Wading in the Velvet Sea,” McConnell broke down in tears and could barely continue.
Hotel rooms all around Las Vegas overlook the big ol’ orb, which can be (and has been) made to look like a basketball, a skeptical emoji, a jack-o’-lantern, and—ohgodpleaseno—an eye. This month, when A24 put out a bunch of promotional posters for its new Civil War movie that show beloved landmarks across the country being destroyed in battle, Sphere was one of them. Will Phish let it all hang out in the final show of this mini-tour? The entire run had been available at Live Phish to view live or on demand after the fact. Watch Strange Design on YouTube Phish “Strange Design” studio version. Old Time Music is proud to have such a passionate and talented team of writers who share their love for music with our readers.
“Billy Breathes” is widely regarded as one of Phish’s best albums, and features some of their most beloved songs, including “Strange Design”. The album was produced by Steve Lillywhite, who had previously worked with bands like U2 and The Rolling Stones, and helped to give Phish’s sound a more polished, radio-friendly sheen. The Mockingbird Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Phish fans in 1996 to generate charitable proceeds from the Phish community. If you’re a fan of “Strange Design”, you might also enjoy other Phish classics like “Harry Hood”, “Waste”, “Twist”, and “Reba”. These songs share a similar emotional depth and musical complexity to “Strange Design”. Phish is still an active band and continues to tour regularly.
“Strange Design” can be interpreted in as many ways as Schrodinger’s Cat, but its reflections on life itself and the evolution of thought are notions that run throughout. Thematically, the song hints at an oft-repeated philosophy permeating Tom Marshall’s poetry as well as the band’s music…“Surrender to the flow”-- and even goes so far as to apply that concept to questions of mortality in the song's last refrains. The inaugural performance of “Theme,” “Ha Ha Ha,” and “Free” took place as well on that memorable day in May, which garnered the band enough respect and admiration to receive an introduction to the crowd by legendary women’s right’s advocate, Gloria Steinem. If you’re in the mood to piece apart the reality hologram of Tom Marshall’s dream-like ballad, you won’t be the first, nor the last. Unconfirmed rumors abound that Neil deGrasse Tyson’s next book will be based on Phish songs and their relation to maintaining the fabric of the Universe.
