The crowd: Inside MGM Grand about an hour before showtime Friday night, the concourse seemed sparsely populated, especially compared to the crowded halls of Phish’s 2014 Halloween run in the same venue. The will call line was nearly nonexistent, and tables could easily be had at nearby Mexican joint Hecho en Vegas, a rarity on big concert nights.
Tickets for the first of four fall tour-capping Grand Garden Arena shows—actually available online earlier in the week (along with tix for Saturday), despite the entire run having officially sold out months ago—weren’t up for purchase at the window, though an MGM staffer indicated some could be, closer to 7:30 p.m. Either way, it certainly didn’t seem difficult to get in, with lots of tickets being offered at face value ($65) throughout the building. “Everyone in America has extras tonight!” one fan announced exasperatedly as he attempted to unload his.
It didn’t translate to a half-empty room, of course. When the band hit the stage just after 8, the arena was packed, with fans filling the unseated floor and wrapping behind the stage. The energy level stayed relatively high throughout, with only the rarest of bodies down in a seat by the end of Set 2 more than three and a half hours later. Props to those who remain upright for the remaining seven sets over the next three nights.
The setlist: “Martian Monster,” off Disney’s 1964 record Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House—the band's choice for its 2014 Halloween “costume” album in the same building—made for a clever, if somewhat unsurprising, opener. “No Men in No Man’s Land,” the first of three cuts off new LP Big Boat came next (“Home” and “Blaze On” were the others), followed by two songs unperformed for some years, “Dogs Stole Things” and Phish's take on The Del McCoury Band's “Beauty of My Dreams” (the first versions since June 2012 and December 2010, Phish.net tells us). Other notable first-set selections: somewhat rarely heard oldie “Destiny Unbound,” which once went more than 11 years without making an appearance; a cover of Los Lobos’ “When the Circus Comes”; early-’90s favorites “Cavern” and “The Wedge” and the as-yet-unrecorded “Steam.”
Set 2 got underway with a surprise, the eighth-ever performance of “Crimes of the Mind,” (unplayed since 2009), which marked just the second time Phish has presented the song without its creator, longtime band collaborator Steve Pollak, aka The Dude of Life. The rest of the set included a cover of TV on the Radio’s “Golden Age” (also played here in 2014) and longtime live warhorses “Simple” and “The Squirming Coil,” and the encore paired “Bouncing Around the Room” with Jimi Hendrix’s “Bold as Love.”
The band: Judging from comments online, the common fan opinion seems to be that 2016 has not been an especially strong musical year for the Vermont quartet, with the band’s final pre-Vegas set—Set 2 from Tuesday’s show in Grand Prairie, Texas—especially savaged for being uninspired and/or sloppy. That was not the Phish we got for Night 1 in Vegas.
The first set developed slowly, with a fairly safe, bluesy vibe permeating the first 20 minutes or so. Guitarist Trey Anastasio seemed a bit tentative at first, never a recipe for a hot night in Phishland. But with fifth song “Destiny Unbound,” something changed noticeably. The four musicians began to lock in to a tighter groove, and Anastasio started pushing further out, first with some lyrical leads on “Limb by Limb” and then with more forceful rock work—spurred on by some piano pounding from Page McConnell—on “Home.” The sinister-sounding “Steam” brought a dark pre-Halloween vibe—along with well-timed bursts of fog—to the proceedings for about 10 minutes, though the way the song was developing, it could have easily gone on twice as long. Instead, it segued somewhat awkwardly into “The Wedge,” which found drummer Jon Fishman struggling to hold the tempo. The band recovered for the fun, fan sing-along “Cavern” before the stately “Walls of the Cave” closed out an interesting set that showcased several different sides of Phish.
The night’s true magic came early in the second set, however, when the jamming portion of TV on the Radio cover “Golden Age” hit. Over the next 20 minutes, Anastasio, McConnell, Fishman and bassist Mike Gordon reminded us why we keep coming back, as they charged into compositionally uncharted territory, where they constructed something massive and meaningful on the fly. Anastasio confidently led the way, soloing from one mini-melody to another, but truly, each member of the band played a key role in what will surely go down as one of the epic pieces of group improvisation from this era of the band. Listen to the recording—if you don’t have goose bumps by the song’s 17-minute mark, the crowd’s ecstatic reaction at that point will surely get you there.
The remainder of the night featured additional high points—specifically more Anastasio elegance during “Light” and a gorgeous McConnell outro to “The Squirming Coil” that left only the pianist onstage to end the set—but years from now, when people think back on Vegas 2016 Night 1, there’s no doubt they’ll be talking about that "Golden Age” jam.
