LAS VEGAS ā Adele, Mariah Carey and Garth Brooks tower over the Las Vegas Strip, peering out from billboards advertising their various casino residencies. But the 20,000 fans marching toward the glowing Sphere last week were there for a band that many Strip visitors have no idea exists.
Over the past 40 years, legions of dedicated Phish fans have followed the Vermont jam band no matter where it goes. This time, it happened to be Las Vegas, for four nights at the $2.3 billion immersive arena. No two Phish shows are the same, and while the band had played Vegas 26 times before, the Sphere offered a game-changing canvas for its signature light shows.
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The fans came in sequined, glittery dresses and tie-dye alike, in button-down shirts and overalls printed with the band's red doughnut logo. Once inside, they were greeted with a LED screen the size of a football field.
Over 68 songs over the four nights, co-creative director Abigail Rosen Holmes would use that expanse to drive fans across bold visual worlds inspired by the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas and plasma. As Phish jammed, the Sphere's screens became an art show, taking the audience through flowing streams of color and simple dots of light, around an enchanted lake and a field of psychedelic trees, and through a car wash (yes, a car wash).
āIt gives me hope,ā said Sean Marmora, 31, who traveled from New Jersey. āItās inspiring that theyāre pushing boundaries and doing things that they have never done before.ā
Some displays were more abstract ā during āSandā and āChalkdust Torture,ā specks of light danced on screen in time to the music ā while others were easier to discern: āBathtub Ginā featured computer-generated people on floats made of donuts, pineapples and pizza slices in a wave pool. During āMaze,ā a narrow line of video blew up into bits across the screen. For āLeaves,ā hundreds of digital balloons joined the very real balloons flying up inside the Sphere.
āIt was a very different Phish show, so special in its own right,ā said Tim Urbashich, 38, from Wisconsin. āThis is a whole evolutionary experience in whatās happening. They deserve visual representation of their music.ā
Phish's light shows are typically driven by Chris Kuroda, whom fans have nicknamed CK5 ā as in, the fifth member of the band.
Kuroda was still heavily involved in the shows at the Sphere, albeit with a stripped-down light setup offsetting the screen. Phish frontman Trey Anastasio said Kuroda played a key role in fighting against the ātyranny of the wallā of visuals.
On Saturday night, the screen lit a digital version of the band ablaze during āFuego,ā eventually subsiding into a calm blue. As the real band jumped into āGolden Age,ā Kuroda lit them in his signature soft purple and yellow spotlights.
Holmes says the production team learned to be looser over the course of the Vegas run, refining and adopting subtle changes to make the visuals more responsive to the music.
āThis is such a new and different environment, where we started trying to make everything perfect. And then being more comfortable, taking chances and pushing things a bit further,ā Holmes said. āI think Chris Kuroda and I were able to reach further and mesh better as the nights went on.ā
As much as the Sphere shows will be remembered for the visuals, though, itās the music that ultimately makes Phish.
No song was repeated, and the band took advantage of the ability to isolate sounds across the roomās 167,000 speaker drivers. Anastasio says he was proud the band could still go in without a plan. Most large visual concert experiences include a click track to know when to hit certain marks. Phish insisted on being able to improvise.
āI felt like if we didnāt have that element, it wouldnāt be a Phish concert,ā Anastasio said.
At the end of Sunday nightās show, Anastasio vowed to return to the Sphere. Phish was only the second band to play it after U2 opened it with a 40-show run. Dead and Company are scheduled to play there this summer.
Meanwhile, Phish will release its 16th studio album, āEvolve,ā in July, when it will also launch a summer tour.
āAs long as the four of us are together and walking this planet, I would like to think that Phish exists and that we can keep playing,ā McConnell said of the band's stamina and longevity.
So much of the bandās time together is spent thinking about processes and new approaches, he said.
āSo we donāt exactly know where it goes and where itās going. But I have a good feeling that itās going to go on for a long time,ā he said. āI really hope it does.ā
As long as Phish keeps going, so too will its community. Both Marmora and Urbashich were among the dozens of artists selling their Phish-inspired work at the PhanArt show that pops up at the band's stops.
āWeāre all trying here to find something special,ā Urbashich said. āYou have to open up your mind to the simplest things. Itās so out there and abstract. If you donāt give it patience you might not think itās what youāre looking for.ā