Trey Anastasio just finished up the first night at the first of 11 solo acoustic shows on a tour throughout October. For tonight’s show from the Smith Opera House in Geneva, New York, the Phish frontman played a fantastic mix of songs from his catalog and told a few hilarious stories worthy of attention and re-listens, especially before Phish picks back up in November. You may need to know what the MomBall is in case that inside joke continues.
From the couch the band leader sounded great and confident as hell up there, maybe coming off the fantastic announcement today that his Oysterhead project was reuniting. I’m sure his phone was blowing up with attention from friends or people sending him links. So for tonight’s show, starting with “Back on the Train” and playing a ton of Phish classics like “Sample in a Jar” and “Wolfman’s Brother,” along with some of the new Kasvot Växt songs like “Turtle in the Clouds” and “We Are Come to Outlive Our Brains,” the show was a perfect mix of some of the fan favorites and expected sing-a-longs. Definitely a fun, fun show.
Trey just asked the crowd if anyone had the plague… lol #phish #treyanastasio
— LIVE music blog (@livemusicblog) October 16, 2019
We also got to see the best of the instrumental acoustic Trey with “The Inlaw Josie Wales” appearing, always a favorite of mine, plus the first-ever acoustic appearances of “About to Run” and “Ghosts of the Forest” in the encore, both from the Ghosts of the Forest project Trey debuted earlier this year.
As for some of the stories Trey told, you’ll definitely need to find a copy of the show to hear it but he talked a bit about CurveBall (trigger warning). He made a bit of a reference to how Mike makes “lists” with the ideas and that was how they named all the previous festivals. Curveball was the first one they didn’t name. 😂
Oh, but they were going to do some hilarious stuff there.
Curveball banter: a long way to get to your tent and a short way. The short way you'd have to walk through a Mime Field.
— Scott Marks (@bizarchive) October 16, 2019
Fish apparently stayed at Curveball and got plastered with all of the mimes from the Mime Field
— Scott Marks (@bizarchive) October 16, 2019
Here’s the setlist from the show:
Trey Anastasio @ Smith Opera House, Geneva NY 10.15.19
Set I: Back on the Train, Sample in a Jar, Snowflakes in the Sand*, About to Run^, Heavy Things, Turtle in the Clouds, Wolfman’s Brother, Mountains in the Mist, Strange Design, Driver, Sleep, Water in the Sky, Brian And Robert, Theme from the Bottom, Shade, We Are Come to Outlive Our Brains, Sand > The Inlaw Josie Wales, Limb by Limb > Chalk Dust Torture > Harry Hood > Chalk Dust Torture > The Wedge > Bathtub Gin
Encore: Waste, Lifeboy, Ghosts of the Forest^, Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S.
* – Trey mentioned how he’s played that room before with Phish, but didn’t remember it until entering the building. It was a week after Rift came out and he reminisced that it was special that everyone was still together doing these sorta shows together.
^ – First time played acoustic, from the Ghosts of the Forest project
