Written by Phish began their highly anticipated 2026 Las Vegas Sphere run on Thursday, returning to the impressive venue for the first time in two years. The band brought new visuals to go along with inspired playing across the opening night’s two sets.
In April 2024, Phish became the second Sphere performers after U2’s initial run that same year. Others who have taken the Sphere stage include Dead & Company, Eagles, Backstreet Boys, Kenny Chesney, Anyma and, most recently, Zac Brown Band.
Following Phish’s current run, the visually and audibly enhanced venue’s upcoming schedule includes first-time performances by No Doubt, Illenium, Carín León and Metallica.
Phish’s Sphere debut in April 2024 featured unique, non-repeated visual elements accompanying each of the four shows. Returning two years later for their second Sphere run, and more than doubling the number of shows to nine, Phish presented an almost entirely new suite of frequently captivating video elements.
Trey’s The Barn recording studio in the Vermont woods was depicted on the massive Sphere video screen prior to the show’s (nearly) prompt 8 p.m. start time. Guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman and keyboardist Page McConnell commenced their second Sphere run with “Evolve.”
The first visual component showed a delivery truck traversing the country with landmarks like the St. Louis Arch appearing along the way to its arrival on the Las Vegas strip and final destination at the Sphere.
The Vegas strip evolved into an M.C. Escher-like Dada maze of never-ending stairs and floating toilets while “Wolfman’s Brother” settled into the second slot. The four musicians on stage jammed along at a sturdy gait, the backdrop progressed with them through an eclectic museum that flooded with gushing water and a brief disco ball spinning into venus fly traps, an ominous cat with glowing eyes, and Trey Anastasio himself on the big screen.
“Wolfman’s” wound down with a return to the Escher-like structure reforming behind the band. Phish turned next to “Foam” and its complexity was matched with a beaded light pattern that waved around and shifted shapes.
McConnell keyed the start of “Theme From The Bottom,” accompanied by a shift to a psychedelic planetarium that merged deep space with an earthly forest. A drum kit and other gear and furniture began to emerge among the astral trees. As “Theme” deepened its intensity, the space dust morphed into an ephemeral rendering of the inside of The Barn, ending with feint renderings of the four members of the band.
“Welcome back, everybody,” Trey told the crowd during a short pause. “We’re so happy to be back here. Thank you for being here with us.”
The foursome followed with “Rift.” A wall of framed poster art flanked the first part of “Rift,” with the visual then shifting to a brief tour through David Welker’s iconic Rift album artwork.
Trippy spirals and swirling tubular arrays of light fit well with the subsequent “Scents And Subtle Sounds” when its lyrics reached the repeated line, “colors in the void.” Trey played through a few different ideas before centering the direction of the jam on a rhythmic riff, leading to a disintegration into busy ambience.
“Steam” surfaced from the noise and three-dimensional squares and geometrical shapes engulfed the Sphere wall surrounding the band. “Split Open And Melt” introduced a claymation-style character chewing gum and an army of feet stepping on wads of gum across a Mars-like landscape.
The gum formed a wall that fell away to reveal an underwater scene in time for the “among the seaweed and the slime” lyrics. A bizarre bubble gum river came into focus while “Melt” raged forward, with people bursting from the gumway and floating away. Entering into a mind-bending audio realm with a pulsating soundscape, Phish pushed the “Melt” jam to the brink amidst the oddly playful gum/underwater mashed-up backdrop, riding its momentum into set break.
A cozy scene from inside The Barn, where Phish has recorded numerous studio albums, was used as the video placeholder during the sub-30-minute intermission.
The stage at the Sphere was adorned with only a few stacks of lights like the ones that traditionally illuminate the band’s concerts. An enhanced approximation of the lighting at Phish shows – typically guided by longtime crew member Chris Kuroda – visually supported the band as they opened the second set with “Everything’s Right.”
The Sphere-ified lighting rig kept connecting with the band as they musically traversed improvisational ground. The continuity between the music makers and the video screen moved in tandem through Phish drilling deeper into the spirit-lifting jam.
Classic and recognizable CK5 color combinations and motifs kept coming through the initial stages of the prevailing “Down With Disease.” Maximizing the moment, the musical and visual aspects of the performance were on equal footing during this part of the second set, meshing in a way that felt both familiar and next level at the same time.
The end of the pungent “DWD” jam concluded the virtual light rig presentation as well. “Twenty Years Later” came after and those with arachnophobia inside the Sphere had to brave a spider-themed web of visuals spinning around the venue.
A virtual drive-in movie, with the band projected as the feature presentation, was shown in tandem with the arrival of “Gotta Jibboo.” More “edited for TV” than “director’s cut,” “Gotta Jibboo” came with a burst of inspired interplay. Rolling out of the drive-in, a pastel landscape developed behind “Lifeboy,” making for another tender Sphere appearance.
One of the iconic images from the 2024 Phish Sphere run was captured during “You Enjoy Myself,” when a dog appeared to lick the massive screen after passing through a synthesized car wash. Recreating that colorful cleansing experience from two years ago, “YEM” again incorporated the inside-the-car soapy trek, culminating with the adorable dog coming back to lick the walls spotlessly clean.
The post-“YEM” vocal jam sequence was paired with bubble-bath bathing dogs and cats (wearing goggles) and dachshunds in hot dog costumes that somehow made the segue into “2001” make absolute sense. Considering Phish’s rich hot dog history, the ensuing encased meat-themed visual that sent wieners to outer space only enhanced the decades-long lore and brought the second set to an end.
For the encore, Trey, Mike, Page and Fish assembled at the front of the stage to deliver their acapella arrangement of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” with a spotlight on them as the only visual accompaniment. Their last performance in Las Vegas of the Bowie song was as the encore of their Ziggy Stardust Halloween costume concert.
The first night finale was finalized with “Harry Hood” marking the end of the first night back at the Sphere. Balloons and fireworks, an unstable biodome shell, kaleidoscopic clouds and light rays helped enhance Phish’s celebratory Sphere return.
Phish’s first of three Sphere weekends continues on Friday, April 17 and Saturday, April 18. Livestreams of all nine Phish Sphere shows are available to purchase through nugs and LivePhish.
The Setlist | |
|---|---|
Set 1: Evolve, Wolfman’s Brother, Foam, Theme from the Bottom, Rift, Scents and Subtle Sounds > Steam, Split Open and Melt Set 2: Everything’s Right, Down with Disease, Twenty Years Later, Gotta Jibboo, Lifeboy, You Enjoy Myself > Also Sprach Zarathustra Encore: The backdrop for Evolve was a truck drving across America animated as a giant, elaborate diorama presented by hands animated in the same style. During Wolfman’s Brother, the scene bcame a journey through an MC Escher-esque landscape of surreal “rooms” that ranged from a cozy fireplace to a giant cat peering in through the window, ultimately emerging in Las Vegas. The perspective for Theme from the Bottom shifted to the earth beneath a forest, a scene made up of tiny dots which glowed and pulsed together. As the jam for Theme progressed, furniture and rooms began to appear in the forest, with the scene ultimately morphing into an image of the band. Rift culmiated in a recreation of David Welker’s cover art for the album.The scene for Split Open and Melt began with giant, sneaker-clad legs running in different directions while stepping on piles of goo on the ground, sticking to their shoes. This became a world with both aquatic and surface aspects, with stars and fish, plant and animal life, some of whom developed goo bubbles and started to rise. The entire scene ultimately melted back into a puddle with a confused face. You Enjoy Myself saw the return of the licking dog (from April 19, 2024) during the vocal jam, followed by a jam against an ocean of dogs swimming in sudsy water with goggles on, and finally weiner dogs in hot dog costumes. Also Sprach Zarathrustra continuted the hot dog theme by flying through a warehouse floor full of hot dogs to a hot dog rocket ship, which blasted into an outerspace littered with donuts and other snack foods. The ship ultimately found a planet with a hot dog population worshiping a giant monolith-like hot dog with a volcano erupting in the distance. Space Oddity was played for the first time since July 19, 2022 (168 shows). Harry Hood culminated in a virtual fireworks display. | |
The Venue | |
Sphere [See upcoming shows] | |
18,600 | |
4 shows | |
The Music | |
8 songs | |
9 songs | |
17 songs | |
1999 | |
17.41 [Gap chart] | |
None | |
All | |
Space Oddity LTP 07/19/2022 (168 Show Gap) | |
Junta – 2, Lawn Boy – 1, Rift – 1, Hoist – 3, Billy Breathes – 1, Farmhouse – 1, Undermind – 1, Joy – 1, Sigma Oasis – 2, Evolve – 1, Misc. – 1, Covers – 2 | |
The Rest | |
74° and Clear at Showtime | |
Koa 1 | |
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