Watch Phish Debut Farmhouse on Conan’s Late Night

Nearly all of Phish’s late night television appearances are available for viewing on YouTube, with one major exception. On November 7, 1997, the quartet – with all four members sporting beards – visited Rockefeller Center in New York City as the musical guest on NBC’s Late Night With Conan O’Brien. Instead of playing a well-known song, the band unveiled a new original called “Farmhouse.”

It was a sign of Phish’s success that they could talk both their record company and Conan’s team into letting them perform a song no one had ever heard before. And it wasn’t like this new song was from a record they were promoting, Farmhouse wouldn’t land on a Phish album until 2000. For this performance of Farmhouse, each member of the band was using a minimal rig as for instance keyboardist Page McConnell only used his Fender Rhodes electric piano and Hohner Clavinet. Thanks to Redditor Lukelear for finding a copy of this longlost piece of Phish history.

Sadly, one of the best parts of Phish’s appearance on Late Night that evening is missing from this video. Just as Conan threw it to commercial following Farmhouse, Phish launched into Mike’s Song. I’ll never forget the “musical blueballs” when the commercial started, leaving me to wonder whether Phish actually played Mike’s for the live audience or were just toying with the intro (it was the latter).

Here’s the Mike’s intro featuring Page on Rhodes… (thanks Piper2000)