Table Of Content
Hotel rooms all around Las Vegas overlook the big ol’ orb, which can be (and has been) made to look like a basketball, a skeptical emoji, a jack-o’-lantern, and—ohgodpleaseno—an eye. This month, when A24 put out a bunch of promotional posters for its new Civil War movie that show beloved landmarks across the country being destroyed in battle, Sphere was one of them. Will Phish let it all hang out in the final show of this mini-tour? The entire run had been available at Live Phish to view live or on demand after the fact. Watch Strange Design on YouTube Phish “Strange Design” studio version. Old Time Music is proud to have such a passionate and talented team of writers who share their love for music with our readers.
Share or embed this setlist
In fact, they are known for their legendary live shows, which often involve extended improvisational segments and elaborate stage setups. “Strange Design” was written by Trey Anastasio and Tom Marshall and is widely believed to be inspired by Anastasio’s relationship with his wife, Sue. The song’s lyrics describe the complexities and challenges of love, and the need to embrace change and impermanence. This project serves to compile, preserve, and protect encyclopedic information about Phish and their music.
Phish Setlist
“Billy Breathes” is widely regarded as one of Phish’s best albums, and features some of their most beloved songs, including “Strange Design”. The album was produced by Steve Lillywhite, who had previously worked with bands like U2 and The Rolling Stones, and helped to give Phish’s sound a more polished, radio-friendly sheen. The Mockingbird Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Phish fans in 1996 to generate charitable proceeds from the Phish community. If you’re a fan of “Strange Design”, you might also enjoy other Phish classics like “Harry Hood”, “Waste”, “Twist”, and “Reba”. These songs share a similar emotional depth and musical complexity to “Strange Design”. Phish is still an active band and continues to tour regularly.
Music, Songs & Lyrics
I wrote this song, um, and um, about, I think about three weeks before my wife and I were about to have our first child, which was incredibly 14 years ago. And, um, um, I wrote this, um, sitting, kind of leaning on my back against the wall and kind of, um, thinking about making that strange step from being a non-parent to a parent and that, all the weird feeling and whatnot. Phish.net is a non-commercial project run by Phish fans and for Phish fans under the auspices of the all-volunteer, non-profit Mockingbird Foundation.
“We’re basically VJ’ing on a 16,000-by-16,000-pixel ratio for Sphere,” Jean says. Phish is generally considered to be a jam band, with a style that draws on elements of rock, funk, jazz, and other genres. The band is known for their improvisational style and their live performances, which often involve extended jams and intricate musical interplay. The lyrics of “Strange Design” are open to interpretation, but there are a few key themes that emerge. The song’s opening lines, “Every strange design/Every new dream woven in/Is a ghost, a ghost in time” suggest that nothing lasts forever, and that all relationships go through periods of flux and transition. The second theme is the idea of acceptance and letting go.
Setlist History: The First Bonnaroo in 2002
(Other discarded design concepts included “a muffin, a box and even a pyramid.”) It is a big-ass blank canvas with seemingly boundless creative potential. Which is why it was such a perfect match for the innovative eccentricity of Phish. A glimmering globe, a monocultural marvel, Sphere looks like a crystal ball on the outside and feels like a virtual reality visit to a combination Guggenheim-IMAX planetarium on the inside. Sphere opened in September after five years of construction and cost a reported $2.3 billion to build, which is probably why a humble pint of beer inside the arena will run you, like, $20.
Then there were the clouds shaped like turtles and seahorses. And the golden tribute to longtime Phish artiste Jim Pollock’s towering body of work, one that the man himself was as delighted to see as anyone else in the building. And the skies full of stars, and the mountains in the mist. From my seat I could see show director Abigail Rosen Holmes make dynamic adjustments to the visuals to better allow the band to noodle. It has audio technology I’m not qualified to understand that precision snipes you one minute and warm hugs you the next and somehow doesn’t leave your ears ringing either way. It is an idea that was born when entertainment titan James Dolan sketched a circle with a stick figure inside.
We hope you enjoy the articles and insights they bring to our platform. Phish’s music is known for its combination of catchy hooks, intricate musical arrangements, and extended improvisational sections. The band draws on a wide variety of musical influences, including rock, jazz, funk, bluegrass, and classical music. The meaning of “Strange Design” is open to interpretation, but it is generally understood to be a song about the challenges of love and relationships. The lyrics suggest that love is a force that can overcome obstacles, but that it requires acceptance, understanding, and an openness to change.
Phish Gig Timeline
Trey Anastasio and Rick Mitarotonda Duet Over "Strange Design" at UMass Lowell - jambands.com
Trey Anastasio and Rick Mitarotonda Duet Over "Strange Design" at UMass Lowell.
Posted: Sat, 12 Nov 2022 08:00:00 GMT [source]
And since we're entirely volunteer – with no office, salaries, or paid staff – administrative costs are less than 2% of revenues! So far, we've distributed over $2 million to support music education for children – hundreds of grants in all 50 states, with more on the way. Phish is an American rock band known for their jam band style of music and unique songwriting. One of the band’s most beloved songs is “Strange Design” from their 1994 album, “Billy Breathes”. This song has captivated fans with its poignant lyrics and beautiful melody. In this article, we’ll delve into the story behind “Strange Design” and explore its hidden meanings and inspirations.
They have hundreds of songs in their live catalog—though only a small handful ever made it to mainstream radio. The band has appeared on Beavis & Butthead—the fellas approved! —and The Simpsons, where cartoon Phish plays “Run Like an Antelope” at a medicinal marijuana rally. Moment Factory contributed to the set design that ensured Kuroda’s lighting rig and Sphere’s screen could live in harmony. And furthermore, Sphere has provided an opportunity for the company to expand its early 2000s roots in multimedia to staggering proportions.
Cutting it was one of those great decisions – after working so long and hard on the song, sacrificing it for the good of the album took a very wide focus – as much thought went into cutting it as went into recording it.
Over the course of their four Sphere shows, Phish not only played 68 unique songs—the band also organized them into four guessable nightly themes that eventually coalesced, by the end of the run, into a whole overarching thing. But Phish has never been some anyband that just plays the hits—partly because, and I say this with reverence, Phish doesn’t really have hits, at least not in the conventional, played-constantly-on-FM-radio sense. Ask 10 different phans to recommend a starter song and you’ll get about seven different answers, and all of them will be right. It’s a party of abundance where everyone present leaves with a gift. Phish’s penchant for newness is, in Holmes’ estimation, what will define the band’s Sphere run — and it explains why the booking appealed to the band in the first place. It’s a marked contrast from U2, which kept its show more or less the same for each of the 40 nights it played Sphere, and designed impressive song-specific visuals for several key tracks.
A four-person musical collective that was formed in the ’80s by a bunch of shaggy teenaged buddies in Vermont, Phish is at once an American cultural institution and a clichéd punch line, a religious experience and a niche act. Frontman Trey Anastasio, drummer Jon Fishman, pianist Page McConnell, and bassist Mike Gordon have played more shows at Madison Square Garden than anyone besides Billy Joel, having passed Elton John on the leaderboard last year. They routinely show up on annual lists of the year’s highest-grossing tours.
The creative team for the band's four-night Las Vegas run, set for April 18-21, explain how to conceptualize an advanced sensory experience for a band whose signature is improvisation. Phish is known for their legendary live performances, which often involve extended musical improvisation and intricate, highly choreographed light shows. Some of their most famous live performances include their 1996 Halloween show in Atlanta, where they covered the soundtrack to The Beatles’ “White Album”. They also performed a 13-night residency at Madison Square Garden in 2017 that was widely regarded as one of the highlights of their career. “Strange Design” was written by Trey Anastasio, Phish’s lead vocalist and guitarist, and his longtime collaborator, Tom Marshall.
The lights went up, and this time the walkout song of choice was the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”—once upon a time the very first music video to air on MTV. It was a nice wink to the 160,000-square-foot Sphere screen, which had just spent several days dominating phans’ fields of sight and senses of scale and depths of imagination. And in the end, it was a clever reminder that Phish really doesn’t slot neatly into common industry trends and tropes and aphorisms and stereotypes. Phish was never really much of a “radio star.” Which is maybe why, all these years later, the band is as alive as ever, still discovering—and providing—new highs. Before a COVID-rescheduled set of shows brought the band to Madison Square Garden on that date in 2022, Phish hadn’t played on 4/20 since 1994, when Dave Matthews Band opened for it at a venue called Virginia Horse Center, which featured a dirt floor and cost $16.50 to enter.
