Phish

Starting in the Pacific Northwest (including Boise) in what was technically still summer, Phish’s fall 1999 tour landed at Shoreline for two shows. After Shoreline, the tour followed the lines going south more than eight hours to San Diego for a show the very next day. Coors Amphitheatre, as it was originally named, is a scenic 20,500 seat amphitheatre built on a former dairy farm near San Diego and opened in 1998. Saturday, September 18th was the eighth show of fall tour and the first Phish show in Chula Vista.

Phish keyboardist Page McConnell and guitarist Trey Anastasio released December, a collection of six duo performances recorded at The Barn in Vermont earlier this month.

Two shows from Phish's 1994 tour from two separate stops at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago that year, June 18 and November 25. Paul Languedoc's stereo soundboard mixes re-mastered by Fred Kevorkian carry the power of these special shows to listeners' ears eighteen years later. The shows are presented here with new artwork by longtime collaborator and Chicagoan Jim Pollock. Chicago '94 contains nearly six hours of music performed at both shows for a total of 43 songs, including material from the UIC sound checks. The 6-CD boxed set is essential listening for any Phish fan.

In the 1990s, a number of young "jam bands" (modeled after the musical and social model of the Grateful Dead) began developing a nationwide following, such as Blues Traveler and the Spin Doctors, but none have achieved greater success than Phish. With little radio play or mainstream media coverage, Phish developed a grassroots following that's grown so large they can sell out multi-night arena stands overnight, and the group has staged several well-attended weekend-long festivals in which they are the only attraction, playing multiple sets over several days.

Phish keyboardist Page McConnell announces the release of his new solo album, MAYBE WE’RE THE VISITORS, arriving digitally via Keyed Records this Friday, April 9. MAYBE WE’RE THE VISITORS was written and recorded in Iceland and Burlington, VT. The release is preceded by today’s premiere of the album’s first song, “Radio Silence,” which David Fricke called in his album notes “an overture of slowly dawning arpeggios that dot the void like hopeful transmissions.”

Phish fans with disposable income must be some of the happiest people on earth. In 2010 alone, the band released an avalanche of live material: a 3-D film, a DVD of their 1996 performance in West Palm Beach, official bootlegs from every single concert performed that year, and a four-disc CD/DVD package highlighting their two-night August residency at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre. Split equally between video and audio footage, the Alpine collection features over four hours of music, with high-definition visuals and clear, multi-tracked sound courtesy of a 57-channel setup. To the dedicated Phishhead, most of these tunes are familiar concert staples, including “Mike’s Song,” “Suzy Greenberg,” “Run Like an Antelope,” “Reba,” “AC/DC Bag,” and “The Divided Sky.”

Drawing upon nearly 15 years of exclusive interviews with the members of Phish, veteran music journalist Parke Puterbaugh examines the colorful chemistry that inspired the wildly popular rock group to push their four-man experiment to the limit. An intimate and fascinating portrait, Phish: The Biography is the definitive story of these Vermont jam-band legends.

The upcoming record, produced by Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, KISS) — making this the producer’s second collaboration with Phish following 2014’s Fuego — and recorded between Nashville, New York, and their home state of Vermont, will be the band’s 13th album over a career that’s spanned 30 years.