Phish Tours

Phish Tours

American rock band Phish is one of the most successful live acts in popular music history, forging a popularity in concert far greater than their album sales, radio airplay, or music video presence would otherwise indicate. Phish tours, at the peak of their popularity in the mid to late 1990s, consistently ranked as one of the highest-grossing concert tours in the world.

One of the major factors of Phish's live success was the fact that every show in the band's history contained a completely different song setlist. Throughout 21 years and over a thousand shows, the band never played the same concert setlist twice. Additionally, many Phish songs were rarely played the same way twice. This unique approach to live performance influenced Phish fans to attend multiple nights on a particular tour, much like sports fans buying season tickets, since they were guaranteed a completely different concert on a nightly basis. Phish fans recorded the band's concerts (with permission) and circulated the music throughout the country. Therefore, fans could collect large numbers of live recordings free of charge, a practice encouraged by the taper-friendly band. Guitarist Trey Anastasio considered it "free advertising" since it enabled the band's music to be distributed and traded all over the United States and, eventually, the rest of the world.

Musical costume is a term for the band Phish's elaborate Halloween concerts that involved the band performing an entire album by another artist and including it as the second of three sets. For the 1994 and 1995 Halloween shows, Phish fans were able to vote via newsletter for their choice in which album was to be played. Fans were invited to wear Halloween costumes and take part in costume contests and were given a "Phishbill" which identify the album and the band's relationship to it.

Five official musical costumes were played by Phish in their original 21-year run, plus one surprise performance of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon on November 2, 1998--just two days after the band performed the music of The Velvet Underground. The band has played a total of eleven times on Halloween night: 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2009, and 2010 with audience costume contests being part of the 1990, 1994, and 2010 shows.

During their comeback year of 2009, Phish performed the Rolling Stones' album Exile on Main Street as part of Phish Festival 8 at Indio, California.

Four shows have been released in their entirety as Live Phish Volume 13, which included the 1994 cover of The Beatles' White Album; 14, which included the 1995 cover of The Who's Quadrophenia; 15, which included the 1996 cover of Talking Heads' Remain in Light, and 16, which included the 1998 cover of The Velvet Underground's Loaded.