Phish at the Sphere: Trey Anastasio says Phish plans to show the power of the Sphere in Las Vegas (2024)

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Phish has been performing for decades, but never has the band played the same show twice.

Over the 40 years since the band was formed at a Vermont college, Phish has amassed a reputation for its dedicated legion of fans and the dazzling light shows that accompany the improvisational jams. Now, the the

Phish has been performing to thousands of dedicated fans for decades, insisting on never playing the same show twice and dazzling sold out crowds with a light show that keeps up with its improvisational jams.

As the first band to play the $2.3 billion Sphere in Las Vegas this week after U2’s 40-show residency, those fans will get something else they’ve never seen - or felt - before.

Mind-blowing visuals running up and down and across the wrap-around floor-to-ceiling screen, designed to be manipulated in real-time during the band’s long jams. A sound system that lets you put a Trey Anastasio guitar line in one spot and a line from Page McConnell’s keys in another across its more than 1,600 speakers. Seats that make you feel like you’re inside every drum kick from Jon Fishman or bass bomb from Mike Gordon.

The band that formed 40 years ago while in college in Vermont will play four shows starting Thursday with no repeated songs and new visuals each night. Anastasio promises a theme for fans to figure out as the four shows develop… and lots of Easter eggs.

“I love getting up in the morning and creatively thinking of another cool thing to blow people’s minds,” Anastasio says. “I mean, it’s like my favorite thing to do.”

An Interview with Trey Anastasio

Trey Anastasio, recording artist:

“Well, they will, I want to say how much I loved that U2 show. First and foremost, it was really incredible. And I'm a fan. I think it's the way they were using. The content was different based on who they are as artists. I think you will see some some video on the screens, but it will be, a little bit more deconstructed.”

“It's going to show the power of the Sphere. You know, very many a lot of artists are going to come in here and they're going to do great things, and I think the venue will grow with each artist.”

“Well, it's it's extremely, unique to any venue that we've played before. One of the things that we've tried to do is sculpt our show so that we can be the band that we always are and, you know, play to our strengths while simultaneously using the technology to kind of expand the elements of the show that, you know, like the adventure and the and the and the, breaking free of boundaries kind of elements of the show. And I think we've done that, to the best of our ability at least.”

“Our world is not going to be that different. Here's an exciting thing that happened. We did take a lot of the speakers and on stage sound, and we had to get rid of them. That's just something that you have to do. If you looked at U2's stage, there was nothing up there and the drums were wrapped in plexiglass. That's because the sound system goes completely behind the band.”

“Our fans are really smart and really involved, and we wanted to take a night or so for people to figure out what we were doing, playing a lot of Easter eggs and things like that.”

“We're a very different band. And - there were a number of reasons. The first is that we've never repeated a set and we didn't want to start now. So we created four unique Sphere shows - ttop to bottom. In order. There was a moment where we were discussing adding shows, because the tickets blew out pretty hard. And we decided as a team that they would be good, but not necessarily astounding, which is the level that we wanted to operate at. Unless we just repeated the exact same show over.”

“Well, we've always enjoyed. I mean, I know for myself, I love coming up with new ideas and we're in the, in the prime of our career. I mean, everyone, thank God, is healthy right now and relatively young. And we just put out a new album. We love it. We're putting out a lot of new material. We're still in the in the middle of our journey, we hope, given good health. The festival that we're going to do this summer is going to be so cool. We've been working on that too, and I just love that. I love getting up in the morning and like, creatively thinking of another cool thing to blow people's minds. I mean, it's like my favorite thing to do.”

“Always, always. For me, it's, you know, I sort of came up in a theatrical. Family. My daughter is a stage manager off Broadway, on Broadway in New York City. I worked on a Broadway show. It was a great honor, one of the great honors of my life. I met all kinds of people. You seen a lot of them on stage with Phish every year. That's where all those people came from. They're all Broadway actors and dancers. And when you get into this, I was doing stuff like that when I was in high school. I just love the feeling of being part of a group, working on something creative, especially when it's firing on all cylinders and people communicate well. It's been one of the great joys of my life, including that's what a band is, you know? A good a good band is a family. It's a team. It's communication and listening.”

“The longer this goes, the more we owe the fans. They've supported us for 40 years. Like it's our responsibility to keep raising the bar. Which is a great challenge. It is very unique. It's really. If you really look at the. At the series of events that we continue to put on. That's the thinking that goes behind it.”

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