North Carolina

Phish @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre – Charlotte

We’ve reached the final weekend of the first leg of Phish Summer Tour 2011 as the band moved from one Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre (Alpharetta) to another (Charlotte) for their fourth-ever show at the venue. Phish has previously played the North Carolina shed on July 7, 1999; July 25, 2003 and July 2, 2010.

[via @Mike_Gordon]

For the previous two shows in Alpharetta, Phish tended to play it safe and offered fans high-energy versions of some of their most popular and most played songs. This evening’s performance went a different route as the band reached into their “bag of tricks” and came out with the first exploratory jams in quite a few shows, some bust outs and even our first Henrietta song of the nearly-completed tour.

Tonight Mike’s Groove kicked off a show for the first time since Phish’s “final show” at Coventry in 2004. Mike’s was played in response to a fan who brought a “Mike’s House” sign to the show. How about we stick to signs for songs that haven’t been played in a while folks? Later in the set, NICU gave fans a chance to visit “Leo’s House” while Colonel’s Forbin’s Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird reared its head for only the third time since the quartet went on hiatus in October of 2000. Just like each of the other post-hiatus versions, there was not much of a narration with tonight’s YEMblog guest tweeter Scott Marks telling us that guitarist Trey Anastasio referenced the t-shirt he and bassist Mike Gordon were wearing thusly – “look, I’m not going to give this away (points at his short-sleeve t-shirt) but you all know who this is…it’s the Famous Mockingbird!”

READ ON for the setlist and The Skinny…