Phish played their Halloween show last night in Las Vegas, and their second set musical costume will go down as one of the most ambitious sets the band has ever played. For the album they decided to cover, a 1964 Disneyland classic called Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House, they took it and repurposed the sounds and feels to what a Phish show would look and feel like, complete with a stage designed to look like a haunted house. It was incredible.
Haunted Phish House pic.twitter.com/kimMK0fdvV
— Hot Takes Today Only (@PhanArt) November 1, 2014
It’s so hard to sum up fully in words after only one listen and after only letting it digest for 12 hours, so I’ll just leave the setlist here for now with the official Phish.net explanation on what happened during the show.
As always, download this show via LivePhish.com and we’ll be back in a few days with more updates on the fun here in Vegas.
Phish @ MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, NV 10.31.14
Set I: Buried Alive > Ghost, Scent of a Mule, Sample in a Jar, Reba, 46 Days, Big Black Furry Creature from Mars, Lawn Boy, Saw It Again > Tube, Wolfman’s Brother
Set II: The Haunted House, The Very Long Fuse, The Dogs, Timber, Your Pet Cat, Shipwreck,The Unsafe Bridge, The Chinese Water Torture, The Birds, Martian Monster
Set III: Punch You In the Eye > Golden Age > Tweezer -> Heavy Things, Guyute, Sand -> Tweezer Reprise
Encore: Is This What You Wanted*, Frankenstein#
* Phish debut
# Page on keytar
Notes: The backdrop on the stage at the start of the show was a large gate adorned with a “P.” During Lawn Boy, Page introduced Mike as “Michael Gordleone” and Fishman took a drum solo. Trey teased Saw It Again during Tube and San-Ho-Zay during Wolfman’s. The musical costume was a set of original, mostly instrumental music played with the sound effects and narration of the 1964 Disneyland album Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House.
Prior to the start of Set II, the stage was cleared of all band equipment, and a graveyard set was brought out. At the start of the set, smoke filled the stage, and zombies appeared behind the gate. When the gate opened, a large haunted house with the band inside was brought to the front of the stage. The sound effects and narration were played on the PA, while an undead narrator would emerge from a crypt inscribed with “ESTHER” prior to each song for the introduction. At the end of The Fuse, the sides of the house came down while sounds of an explosion were heard, and the band was revealed inside, dressed in white tuxedoes and with zombie face paint. Several zombies came to the front of the stage and danced during Martian Monster. At the conclusion of the set, the band members came down from the Haunted House riser, slowly walked to the front of the stage, and took bows, along with the entire cast of zombies. All songs during the second set were debuts, with the titles taken from the first ten tracks of Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House. Is This What You Wanted (Leonard Cohen) was a Phish debut. Page performed Frankenstein on keytar, which was played for the first time since July 1, 2012 (100 shows).
