{"id":62860,"date":"2026-04-20T16:09:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/phish-at-the-sphere-weekend-one-recap\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T16:09:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:09:32","slug":"phish-at-the-sphere-weekend-one-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/phish-at-the-sphere-weekend-one-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Phish at the Sphere: Weekend One Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tIt was during \u201cRun Like an Antelope\u201d when the giant guy in the Godsmack shirt behind me finally lost his shit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThose of us sitting near him at Night Three of Phish<\/a>\u2019s nine-show, three-weekend run at the Sphere in Las Vegas<\/a> had seen the telltale signs coming hours before: He\u2019d never seen Phish before; a friend brought him to the show; he was a metal guy but open-minded. At the break between the first and second sets, he talked with us about how impressed he was, how he didn\u2019t know what to expect on his way in, and how compelled he was by the visuals, which by that point had included a deep dive into Phish history, an ode to their lighting designer propelled by the man himself, and a story of a newborn chick who becomes a bird, then flies free into the world, with all of the 17,000 people in the dome watching through her eyes (if none of that makes sense to you, don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll come back to it). But during \u201cAntelope,\u201d as guitarist Trey Anastasio climbed up and up the neck of his guitar, frenetically building a crescendo along with his bandmates \u2014 keyboardist Page McConnnell, drummer Jon Fishman, and bassist Mike Gordon \u2014 the guy just started screaming, uncontrollably.<\/p>\n

\n\tI looked back and saw pure joy on the same face that, hours before, I would have bet belonged to someone who got lost on his way to the WWE event up the street. This man could not, on the surface, have had less in common with the Phish peace-and-love-and-tie-dye stereotype, yet, here we was, bouncing nearly literally around the room. The climax hit, and as every Phish fan knows, nearly collapsed the song before Anastasio brought the chicky-chicky guitar back in.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\u201cRye, rye Rocco,\u201d Anastasio said from the stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHoly fuck,\u201d I heard from behind me.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s how it happens. That\u2019s how they get you.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRich Fury\/Sphere Entertainment\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tIT\u2019S MOMENTS LIKE this that hook Phish fans and keep them coming back \u2014 even as, more than 40 years into their career, they\u2019re one of the most divisive bands in rock. If you\u2019re a fan, you\u2019re a fan for life: Every absurd lyric, every deep dive into words nearly meaningless to the uninitiated (the Rhombus! Gamehendge! The Rescue Squad!), every breakout set means another hit of the dopamine that has you checking your calendar right now to see if you can make the next two weekends of their run in Vegas. If you\u2019re not a fan, well, you\u2019ve probably stopped reading by now, but if you\u2019re still here you\u2019re probably thinking, \u201cAren\u2019t they the band that just goes on and on forever, with all the fans who smell like patchouli? Ugh!\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tFirst of all, there was no patchouli to be smelled anywhere in the Sphere<\/a>; second of all, if you do fall into that latter category, you\u2019re missing out on an unparalleled story in rock history: a band in its fourth decade still as ridiculously creative as it was in its early years, using the world\u2019s biggest palette in ways that it likely was never intended to be used. The Sphere <\/a>\u2014\u00a0 the $2.3 billion, 17,000-seat dome that has quickly become the most talked-about venue in the world \u2014 was built for spectacle. Its 160,000-square-foot LED screen wraps around the audience like a digital sky, capable of anything from hyper-real landscapes to full-blown sensory overload. It\u2019s the kind of place where every moment can be perfectly preprogrammed, every cue locked to a click track, every visual synced to the millisecond.<\/p>\n

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