Leg Two

Back in early June, I centered my Phish Summer Tour Preview around a symbolic fork in the road, which is where I saw the band prior to their 19-date first leg. It wasn’t my most accurate column as I mistakenly called the cavernous Thompson Boling Arena in Knoxville small and was probably a little harsh in criticizing their playing in Hampton. But at the end of the column I laid out three options that I thought were available to the band for this summer, which was really my main point of the whole article.

[All photos by Adam Kaufman]

We all saw what went down in June and early July with Phish tearing it up on a nightly basis and surprising the hell out of fans with bust outs and new covers galore. This is what I referred to in the column as “Option A.” Every song the band had ever played was fair game. Among the most outstanding choices: Fuck Your Face was played in Charlotte after being on the shelf for over 23 years (or 1,413 shows). The Friday night Camden show opened with the first Alumni Blues in 222 shows sandwiched around the first Letter to Jimmy Page in 587 shows. Tela, which had previously appeared only five times since 1997, was played twice. In Raleigh, the show opened with the now-rare Llama and always-rare Roses are Free with Have Mercy and a scorching Light Up or Leave Me Alone in the second set.

The new covers included The Band’s Look Out, Cleveland and John Lennon’s Instant Karma! in Cuyuhoga Falls, Tom Waits’ Cold Water in Portsmouth, VA, Jumping Jack Flash in Merriweather and a heartfelt take on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a gutsy choice considering the high regard in which that song is held. And in Alpharetta, on July 4, the band whipped fans into a frenzy with a Harpua featuring a cover of Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name Of. That of course after already playing Colonel Forbin’s Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird in the first set. So far the covers have all been one-offs. Will that continue in the second leg or will we see more polished versions of some of these? I’m hoping for the latter.

READ ON for more of our Phish Summer Tour Leg 2 Preview…