Formation, The White Tape and The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday: 1983–1988 Phish was formed at the
University of Vermont (UVM) in 1983 by guitarists
Trey Anastasio and
Jeff Holdsworth, bassist
Mike Gordon, and drummer
Jon Fishman. Anastasio and Fishman had met that October, after Anastasio overheard Fishman playing drums in his dormitory room, and asked if he and Holdsworth could jam with him. Gordon met the trio shortly thereafter, having answered a want-ad for a bass guitarist that Anastasio had posted around the university. The new group performed their first concert at Harris Millis Cafeteria at the University of Vermont on December 2, 1983, where they played a set of classic rock covers, including two songs by the
Grateful Dead. The band performed one more concert in 1983, and then did not perform again for nearly a year, stemming from Anastasio's suspension from the university following a prank he had pulled with a friend. Anastasio returned to his hometown of
Princeton, New Jersey following the prank, and reconnected with his childhood friend
Tom Marshall; The duo began a songwriting collaboration and recorded material that would appear on the
Bivouac Jaun demo tape. Marshall and Anastasio have subsequently composed the majority of Phish's original songs throughout their career. Anastasio returned to Burlington in late 1984, and resumed performing with Gordon, Holdsworth and Fishman. The quartet named themselves Phish in October 1984, shortly before they performed their first concert together following Anastasio's return to UVM. Anastasio designed the band's logo, which featured the group's name inside a stylized fish. In late 1984, Phish began to play regularly at Nectar's bar and restaurant in downtown Burlington, and performed dozens of concerts across multiple residencies through March 1989. The band's 1992 album
A Picture of Nectar was named in honor of the bar's owner, Nectar Rorris, and its cover features his face superimposed onto an orange. The band would collaborate with percussionist
Marc Daubert, a friend of Anastasio's, in the fall of 1984. Daubert ceased performing with the band in early 1985. Keyboardist
Page McConnell met Phish in early 1985, when he arranged for them to play a spring concert at
Goddard College, the small university he attended in
Plainfield, Vermont. He began performing with the band as a guest shortly thereafter, and made his live debut during the third set of their May 3, 1985, concert at UVM's Redstone Campus. In the summer of 1985, Phish went on a short hiatus while Anastasio and Fishman vacationed in Europe; during this time, McConnell offered to join the band permanently, and moved to Burlington to learn their repertoire from Gordon. McConnell officially joined Phish as a full-time band member in September 1985. Phish performed with a five-piece lineup for about six months after McConnell joined, a period which ended when Holdsworth quit the group in March 1986 following a religious conversion. Anastasio and Fishman relocated in mid-1986 to Goddard College after a recommendation from McConnell. Phish distributed at least six experimental self-titled cassettes during this era, including
The White Tape. While based at Goddard College, Phish began to collaborate with fellow students Richard "Nancy" Wright and Jim Pollock. Pollock and Wright were musical collaborators who made experimental recordings on multi-track cassettes, and had been introduced to Phish through McConnell, who co-hosted a radio program on
WGDR with Pollock. Phish adopted a number of Nancy's songs into their own set, including "Halley's Comet", "I Didn't Know", and "Dear Mrs. Reagan", the latter song being written by Nancy and Pollock. In his book
Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, music journalist Jesse Jarnow observed that Wright and his music were highly influential to Phish's early style and experimental sound. In October 1986, he began working as their sound engineer. Since then, Languedoc has built exclusively for the two, and his designs and traditional wood choices have given Phish a unique instrumental identity. As his senior project for Goddard College, Anastasio penned
The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday, a nine-song
progressive rock concept album that would become Phish's second studio experiment. Recorded between 1987 and 1988, it was submitted in July of that year, accompanied by a written thesis. The song cycle that developed from the project – known as
Gamehendge – grew to include an additional eight songs. The band performed the suite in concert on six occasions: in 1988, 1991, 1993, twice in 1994, and in 2023, without replicating the song list.
The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday has never received an official release, but a bootleg tape has circulated for decades, and songs such as "Wilson" and "The Lizards" remain concert staples for the band. They called these jam sessions "Oh Kee Pa Ceremonies", a reference to the film
A Man Called Horse. In July 1988, the band performed their first concerts outside of the northeastern United States, when they embarked on a seven-date tour in Colorado. These shows are excerpted on their 2006 live compilation ''
Colorado '88. The show sold out due to the caravan of fans that had traveled to see the band. That spring, the band self-released their debut full-length studio album, Junta'', and sold copies on cassette tape at their concerts. The album includes a studio recording of the epic "
You Enjoy Myself", which is considered to be the band's
signature song. Later in 1989, the band hired Chris Kuroda as their lighting director. Kuroda subsequently became well known for his artistic
light shows at the group's concerts. A profile on Phish appeared in the October 1989 issue of the
Deadhead magazine
Relix, which marked the first time the band had been covered in a major national music periodical. By late 1990, Phish's concerts were becoming more and more intricate, often making a consistent effort to involve the audience in the performance. In a special "secret language", the audience would react in a certain manner based on a particular musical cue from the band. For instance, if Anastasio "
teased" a motif from
The Simpsons theme song, the audience would yell, "
D'oh!" in imitation of . On occasion, performances of "You Enjoy Myself" and "
Mike's Song" involved Gordon and Anastasio performing synchronized maneuvers and jumping on mini-
trampolines while simultaneously playing their instruments. Fishman would also regularly step out from behind his drum kit during concerts to sing cover songs, which were often punctuated by him playing an
Electrolux vacuum cleaner like an instrument. The band released their second album,
Lawn Boy, in September 1990 on Absolute A Go Go, a small independent label that had a distribution deal with the larger
Rough Trade Records. The album had been recorded the previous year, after the band had won studio time at engineer Dan Archer's Archer Studios when they came in first place at an April 1989
Battle of the Bands competition in Burlington. Aware of the band's growing popularity,
Elektra Records signed Phish in 1991 after they were recommended to the record label by A&R representative Sue Drew. In the summer of 1991, the band embarked on a 14-date tour of the eastern United States accompanied by a three-piece horn section dubbed the
Giant Country Horns. In August of that year, Phish played an outdoor concert at their friend Amy Skelton's horse farm in
Auburn, Maine that acted as a prototype for their later all-day festival events. Phish, along with
Bob Dylan, the
Grateful Dead, and
the Beatles, was one of the first bands to have a
Usenet newsgroup, rec.music.phish, which launched in 1992. In 1992, the band released their third studio album,
A Picture of Nectar, their first release for the major label Elektra. Subsequently, the label also reissued the band's first two albums. Later in 1992, Phish participated in the first annual
H.O.R.D.E. festival, which provided them with their first national tour of major amphitheaters. The lineup, among others, included Phish,
Blues Traveler, the
Spin Doctors, and
Widespread Panic. That summer, the band toured Europe with the
Violent Femmes and later toured Europe and the US with
Santana. Throughout the latter tour,
Carlos Santana regularly invited some or all of the members of Phish to jam with his band during their headlining performances. The band ended 1992 with a New Year's Eve performance at the
Matthews Arena in
Boston, Massachusetts, a performance that was simulcast throughout the Boston area by radio station
WBCN.
Rift, Hoist, and A Live One: 1993–1995 Phish began headlining major amphitheaters in the summer of 1993. That year, the group released their fourth album,
Rift, a concept album which featured a cover painted by
David Welker that referenced almost all of the songs on the record. The album was the band's first to appear on the
Billboard 200 album chart, debuting at No. 51 in February 1993. In March 1994, the band released their fifth studio album
Hoist. The album featured an array of guest performers, including country singer
Alison Krauss, banjoist
Béla Fleck, former
Sly & The Family Stone member
Rose Stone, actor and trombonist
Jonathan Frakes, and the horn section of R&B group
Tower of Power. To promote the album, Gordon directed the band's only official music video, for its first single "
Down with Disease". "Down with Disease" became a minor hit on rock radio in the United States, and was the band's first song to appear on a
Billboard music chart when it peaked at No. 33 on the magazine's
Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart that summer. To further promote
Hoist, the band released an experimental short-subject documentary called
Tracking, also directed by Gordon, which depicted the recording sessions for the album. On
Halloween of that year, the group promised to don a fan-selected "
musical costume" by playing an entire album from another band. After an extensive mail-based poll, Phish performed
the Beatles'
White Album as the second of their three sets at the
Glens Falls Civic Center in upstate New York. The "musical costume" concept subsequently became a recurring part of Phish's fall tours, with the band playing a different album whenever they had a concert scheduled for Halloween night. in
Cleveland, Ohio On December 30, 1994, the band made their first appearance on national network television when they performed "
Chalk Dust Torture" on
Late Night with David Letterman. The band would go on to appear on the program seven more times before
David Letterman's retirement as host in 2015. For the December 31 show at the Boston Garden, the band rode around the arena in a float shaped like a hot dog. The stunt was reprised at their 1999 New Year's Eve concert before the hot dog was donated to the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the end of 1994, Phish appeared on
Pollstar's list of the highest grossing concert tours in the United States for the first time, as the 32nd highest grossing act, with $10.3 million in ticket sales. Following the death of Grateful Dead guitarist
Jerry Garcia in the summer of 1995 and the appearance of "Down with Disease" on
Beavis and Butt-Head, the band experienced a surge in the growth of their fan base and an increased awareness in popular culture. Phish's first live album,
A Live One, was released during the summer of 1995 and featured selections from various concerts from their 1994 winter tour. The album charted at number 18 on the
Billboard 200 album chart, and was reported to have sold around 50,000 copies in its first week on sale.
A Live One became Phish's first
RIAA-certified gold album in November 1995. In 1997,
A Live One became the band's first Platinum album, certified for sales of 1 million copies in the United States, and remains their best selling album to date. Phish ended 1995 with their first New Year's Eve concert at Madison Square Garden. The concert was released in its entirety on the live album ''
Phish: New Year's Eve 1995 – Live at Madison Square Garden'' in 2005.
Billy Breathes, The Story of the Ghost, and The Siket Disc: 1996–1999 In early 1996, Anastasio and Fishman formed a
free jazz side-project called
Surrender to the Air, inspired by the music of
Sun Ra, which also featured
Marshall Allen,
Michael Ray,
John Medeski,
Oteil Burbridge,
Kofi Burbridge, and
Marc Ribot, among other musicians. The group's only album,
Surrender to the Air, was released in March. Following an appearance at the
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April 1996, Phish spent the summer of that year opening for
Santana on their European tour. In August 1996, the band held their first festival,
The Clifford Ball, at the decommissioned
Plattsburgh Air Force Base on the New York side of
Lake Champlain. The festival attracted 70,000 attendees, making it both Phish's biggest concert crowd to that point and the largest single concert by attendance in the United States in 1996. Phish recorded their sixth album
Billy Breathes in the winter and spring of 1996, and the album was issued in October of that year. The album's first single, "Free", peaked at No. 24 on the
Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart and No. 11 on the
Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and was their most successful song on both charts. By 1997, Phish's concert improvisational ventures were developing into a new
funk-inspired long form jamming style. Vermont-based
ice cream conglomerate
Ben & Jerry's launched "Phish Food" that year. The band officially licensed their name for use with the product, the only time they have ever allowed a third-party company to do so, and were directly involved with the creation of the flavor. Proceeds from the flavor are donated to the band's non-profit charity
The WaterWheel Foundation, which raises funds for the preservation of Vermont's
Lake Champlain. On August 8, 1997, Phish
webcast one of their concerts live over the internet for the first time. On August 16 and 17, 1997, Phish held their second festival, The Great Went, over two days at the
Loring Air Force Base in
Limestone, Maine, near the
Canada–United States border. In October 1997, the band released their second live album
Slip Stitch and Pass, which featured selections from their March 1997 concert at the
Markthalle Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany. Following the Great Went, the band embarked on a fall tour that was dubbed by fans as the "Phish Destroys America" tour after a
1970s kung fu-inspired poster for the opening date in Las Vegas. The 21-date tour is considered one of the group's most popular and acclaimed tours, and several concerts were later officially released on live album sets such as
Live Phish Volume 11 in 2002. Phish ended 1997 as one of the ten highest grossing concert acts in the United States that year. In April 1998, the band embarked on the
Island Tour – a four night tour with two shows at the
Nassau Coliseum in
Uniondale, New York on
Long Island and another two at the
Providence Civic Center in
Providence, Rhode Island. The four concerts are highly regarded by fans due to the band's exploration of a
jazz-funk musical style they had been playing for the previous year, which Anastasio dubbed "cowfunk". The band performed the tour in the middle of studio sessions for their seventh album, and were inspired by the quality of their performances to further incorporate the cowfunk style into subsequent sessions. The resulting album,
The Story of the Ghost, was released in October 1998. The album's first single "
Birds of a Feather", which had been premiered on the Island Tour, became a No. 14 hit on Billboard's
Adult Alternative Songs chart. To promote
The Story of the Ghost, Phish performed several songs from the album on the public television music show
Sessions at West 54th in October 1998, and were interviewed for the program by its host
David Byrne of
Talking Heads. In the summer of 1998, the band held Lemonwheel, their second festival at Loring Air Force Base in Maine. The two-day event attracted 60,000 attendees. The band played another summer festival in 1999, called Camp Oswego and held at the Oswego County Airport in
Volney, New York. Unlike other Phish festivals, Camp Oswego featured a prominent second stage of additional performers aside from Phish, including
Del McCoury,
The Slip and
Ozomatli. In July 1999, the band released an album of improvisational instrumentals titled
The Siket Disc. The band followed that release with
Hampton Comes Alive, a six-disc box set released in November 1999, which contained the entirety of their performances on November 20 and 21, 1998 at the
Hampton Coliseum in
Hampton, Virginia. The set marked the first time that complete recordings of Phish concerts were officially released by Elektra Records. To celebrate the new millennium, Phish hosted a two-day outdoor festival at the
Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida in December 1999. The festival's climactic New Year's Eve concert, referred to by fans as simply "The Show", started at 11:35 p.m. on December 31, 1999, and continued through to sunrise on January 1, 2000, approximately eight hours later. The band's performance of the song "Heavy Things" at the festival was broadcast live as part of
ABC's
2000 Today millennium coverage, giving the band their biggest television audience up to that point. In 2017,
Rolling Stone named the Big Cypress festival one of the "50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years".
Farmhouse and hiatus: 2000–2002 Following the Big Cypress festival, the band issued their ninth studio album
Farmhouse in May 2000. "Heavy Things", which was released as the album's first single, became the band's only song to appear on a mainstream pop radio format, reaching No. 29 on
Billboard's
Adult Top 40 chart that July. The song also became the band's biggest hit to date on the Adult Alternative Songs chart, reaching No. 2 there. In July, they taped an appearance on the PBS music show
Austin City Limits, which was aired in October. In the summer of 2000, the band announced that they would take their first "extended time-out" following their upcoming fall tour. Anastasio officially announced the impending hiatus to the band's fans during their September 30 concert at the
Thomas & Mack Center in
Paradise, Nevada. During the tour's last concert on October 7, at the
Shoreline Amphitheatre in
Mountain View, California, the band made no reference to the hiatus, and left the stage without saying a word following their encore performance of "You Enjoy Myself", as
The Beatles' "
Let It Be" played over the venue's sound system.
Bittersweet Motel, a documentary film about the band directed by
Todd Phillips, was released in August 2000, shortly before the hiatus began. The documentary captures the band's 1997 and 1998 tours, the Great Went festival and the recording of
The Story of the Ghost. Phish were nominated in two categories at the
43rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2001:
Best Boxed Recording Package for
Hampton Comes Alive and
Best Instrumental Rock Performance for "First Tube" from
Farmhouse. During Phish's hiatus, Elektra Records continued to issue archival releases of the band's concerts on compact disc. Between September 2001 and May 2003, the label released 20 entries in the
Live Phish Series. These multi-disc sets featured complete
soundboard recordings of concerts that were particularly popular with the band and their fanbase, similar to the
Grateful Dead's
Dick's Picks archival series. In November 2002, the label released the band's first concert DVD,
Phish: Live in Vegas, which featured the entirety of the September 2000 concert at which Anastasio announced the hiatus. In April 2002, Phish guest starred on the episode "
Weekend at Burnsie's" of the animated series
The Simpsons. The episode marked the band's first appearance together, albeit as animated characters, since the hiatus began. Phish provided their own voices for the episode and performed a snippet of "Run Like an Antelope". They also recorded
Round Room over the course of four days in October and released it on December 10. The band had initially planned to record the new album live at the Madison Square Garden concert, but instead felt that demos they had recorded of the material were strong enough to merit release as a studio album. Four days after the release of
Round Room, the band appeared as a musical guest on the December 14 episode of
Saturday Night Live, hosted by former Vice President of the United States
Al Gore. During the episode, the band debuted the song "46 Days", appeared in a comedy sketch, and their song "You Enjoy Myself" was featured in a
TV Funhouse cartoon segment. During their return concert on December 31, McConnell's brother was introduced as actor
Tom Hanks. The impostor sang a line of the song "Wilson", prompting some media outlets to report that the actor had appeared at the concert. in
East Troy, Wisconsin, in July 2003, accompanied by a
light show created by Chris Kuroda At the end of the 2003 summer tour, Phish returned to
Limestone, Maine for
It, their first festival since Big Cypress. The event drew crowds of over 60,000 fans, and was the band's final festival to be held at Loring Air Force Base. In November and December 2003, the band celebrated its 20th anniversary with a four-show mini-tour of shows in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The December 1 show at
Pepsi Arena featured a guest appearance by former member Jeff Holdsworth, who sat in with the band on five songs, including his compositions "Possum" and "Camel Walk". On May 25, 2004, Anastasio announced on the Phish website that the band would disband at the end of their 2004 summer tour. He wrote that he had met with the other members earlier that month to discuss the "Strong feelings I've been having that Phish has run its course, and that we should end it now while it's still on a high note." The band's summer 2004 began with two concerts at
Keyspan Park in
Brooklyn, New York. The first concert was recorded for the live album and concert documentary
Phish: Live in Brooklyn, while the second featured a guest appearance by rapper
Jay-Z, who performed two songs with the band. Later that summer, the band appeared on the
Late Show with David Letterman and performed a seven-song set from atop the marquee of the
Ed Sullivan Theater for fans who had gathered on the street. The 2004 tour finished with the band's seventh summer festival on August 14 and 15, which were billed as their final performances.
The Coventry festival was named for
the town in Vermont that hosted the event, which was held at the nearby
Newport State Airport. The concerts were simulcast in movie theaters and on
XM Satellite Radio. "The Curtain With" was the final song the band performed at their then-final concert on August 15. The festival weekend was beset by logistical issues, including heavy rain, muddy conditions in the festival area and a traffic jam on
Interstate 91. The members also occasionally appeared on each other's solo albums and collaborated on side-projects. In 2005, Phish formed their own record label,
JEMP Records, to release archival CD and DVD sets. The label's first release was ''
Phish: New Year's Eve 1995 – Live at Madison Square Garden, which was released in conjunction with Rhino Records in December 2005. The album was named the 42nd greatest live album of all time by Rolling Stone in April 2015. The label subsequently released several other archival live box sets, including Colorado '88 (2006), Vegas 96 (2007), At the Roxy (2008) and The Clifford Ball'' (2009). In December 2006, Anastasio was arrested in
Whitehall, New York for drug possession and driving while intoxicated, and was sentenced to 14 months in a
drug court program. In 2007, while Anastasio was undergoing rehabilitation, the other members of Phish surprised him on his birthday with an instrumental recording they had made for him to play along with on guitar. Phish received the
Jammys Lifetime Achievement Award on May 7, 2008, at
The Theater at Madison Square Garden. All four members attended the ceremony and gave a speech, and both McConnell and Anastasio performed, although not together. In response to a June 2008 rumor that Phish had reunited to record a new album, McConnell wrote a letter on the band's website updating fans on the current relations between the band's members. McConnell wrote that while the members remained friends, they were currently busy with other projects and the reunion rumors were premature. He added, "Later this year we hope to spend some time together and take a look at what possible futures we might enjoy." Later in 2008, the band reconvened at
The Barn, Anastasio's farmhouse studio in
Burlington, Vermont, for jamming sessions and rehearsals. The three reunion concerts were held on March 6, 7 and 8, 2009, with "Fluffhead" being the first song the band played onstage at the first show. Approximately 14,000 people attended the concerts over the course of three days, and the band made the shows available for free download on their LivePhish website for a limited time, to accommodate fans who were unable to attend. When the band decided to reunite, the members agreed to limit their touring schedule, and they have typically performed about 50 concerts a year since. Following the reunion weekend, Phish embarked on a summer tour which began in May with a concert at
Fenway Park in
Boston. The Fenway show was followed by a 25-date tour which included performances at the
2009 edition of the
Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee and a four date stand at
Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. At Bonnaroo, Phish was joined by
Bruce Springsteen on guitar for three songs. Phish's fourteenth studio album,
Joy, produced by
Steve Lillywhite, was released September 8, 2009. "Backwards Down the Number Line", a single from the
Joy album, reached number 9 on the
Billboard Adult Alternative Songs chart in October. In March 2010, Anastasio inducted
Genesis, one of his favorite bands, into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the museum's annual ceremony in New York City. In addition to Anastasio's speech, Phish performed the Genesis songs "
Watcher of the Skies" and "
No Reply at All" at the event.
Fuego and Big Boat: 2011–2016 Phish's ninth festival, Super Ball IX, took place at the
Watkins Glen International race track in Watkins Glen, New York on July 1–3, 2011. It was the first concert to take place at Watkins Glen International since
Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in 1973. In September, the band played a benefit concert in
Essex Junction, Vermont which raised $1.2 million for Vermont flood victim relief in the aftermath of
Hurricane Irene. In June 2012, Phish headlined
Bonnaroo 2012 with the
Red Hot Chili Peppers and
Radiohead. During their 2013 Halloween concert at
Boardwalk Hall in
Atlantic City, New Jersey, the band played twelve new songs from their upcoming album, which at the time had the working title
Wingsuit and would later be renamed
Fuego. During the concert, the band was joined onstage by actor
Abe Vigoda, who is mentioned by name in the song "Wombat", dressed in a wombat costume. Phish ended 2013 with a New Year's Eve concert at Madison Square Garden that also celebrated their 30th anniversary, as they had played their first concert in December 1983. The concert featured a nine-minute montage film celebrating the band's career, and the band performed an entire set in the middle of the arena from atop an equipment truck. The album peaked at number 7 on the
Billboard 200 album chart, and became their highest charting album since
Billy Breathes reached the same position in 1996. During their Halloween 2014 concert at
MGM Grand Las Vegas, the band performed a set consisting of ten original songs inspired by the 1964
Walt Disney Records sound effects album
Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House. in Chicago. In 2015, Phish performed both a summer tour and their tenth multi-day festival event,
Magnaball, was held at the Watkins International Speedway in New York in August. Phish's fourteenth studio album,
Big Boat, was released on October 7, 2016.
The Baker's Dozen and Kasvot Växt: 2017–2019 Phish played a 13-night
concert residency at New York City's Madison Square Garden from July 21 to August 6, 2017, dubbed "
The Baker's Dozen". Each concert featured a loose theme with performances of unique cover songs and a special
doughnut served each night to the audience by Federal Donuts of
Philadelphia. No songs were repeated during the Baker's Dozen run, with a total of 237 individual songs performed across the 13 concerts. The complete Baker's Dozen residency was released as a
limited edition 36-disc box set in November 2018. A scaled-down triple CD set featuring 13 song performances, titled ''
The Baker's Dozen: Live at Madison Square Garden, was issued simultaneously with the box set. At their Halloween concert that October at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the band performed a set of all-new original material that they promoted as a "cover" of í rokk'' by Kasvot Växt, a fictional 1980s Scandinavian progressive rock band they had created. The Kasvot Växt set was released as a
standalone live album on Spotify on November 10, 2018. All four concerts in the 2018 Halloween run were livestreamed in
4K resolution, which marked the first time that a major musical act had ever offered a 4K livestreaming option.
Between Me and My Mind, a documentary film directed by
Steven Cantor about Anastasio's life, his
Ghosts of the Forest side-project and Phish's 2017 New Year's Eve concert, was screened at the
Tribeca Film Festival in April 2019. In June 2019,
SiriusXM launched Phish Radio, a satellite radio station dedicated to the band's music.
Sigma Oasis and Evolve: 2020–present Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, Phish postponed their 2020 summer tour until 2021. Before 2020, Phish had embarked on a summer tour every year since their 2009 reunion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Phish hosted free weekly "Dinner and a Movie" webcasts of archival performances on Tuesday evenings until Labor Day weekend, after which they were hosted monthly. Phish released their fifteenth studio album
Sigma Oasis on April 2, 2020. The album was premiered through a listening party on their LivePhish app, SiriusXM radio station and Facebook page. The album consists entirely of material the band had been performing in concert over the course of the previous decade, but had yet to appear on a studio release. In January 2021, Anastasio told
Pollstar that the band was unable to perform or rehearse together due to COVID-19 restrictions and quarantine rules currently in place in the
New England states, but said "As soon as it's feasible, we'll be back." Phish performed their first concert since the start of the pandemic on July 28, 2021, at the
Walmart AMP in
Rogers, Arkansas, having not performed since February 23, 2020. Beginning with their concerts at
The Gorge Amphitheatre in late August, the band began requiring attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative test for COVID-19. During their 2021 Halloween concert, Phish debuted a set of new original science fiction-themed material under the guise of the fictional band Sci-Fi Soldier. According to
Pollstar, Phish were the ninth highest grossing concert act in the world in 2021, with a $44.4 million gross from 35 concerts. Phish also had the fifth highest concert ticket sales in the world in 2021, with 572,626 tickets sold. Due to an increase of cases of the
Omicron variant of COVID-19 in New York City, Phish postponed their 2021 New Year's Eve concerts at Madison Square Garden from December 2021 to April 2022. In lieu of the traditional New Year's Eve concert, Phish instead performed a three set New Year's Eve concert on December 31, 2021, from a soundstage they dubbed "The Ninth Cube". Phish released
Get More Down, a studio version of their Sci-Fi Soldier material, on October 31, 2022. In August 2023, Phish performed two benefit concerts at the
Saratoga Performing Arts Center in
Saratoga Springs, New York for recovery efforts following a
flood in Vermont and upstate New York earlier that summer. The band raised $3.5 million for the relief efforts through their two concerts and merchandise sales. The band performed a version of their
Gamehendge song cycle at their 2023 New Year's Eve concert at Madison Square Garden, which featured actors portraying the story's characters, and an appearance by actress and musician
Annie Golden during the song "
Harpua". during the band's four-date concert series at the venue in 2024 Phish performed four concerts at
Sphere in Paradise, Nevada in April 2024, and were the second music act, after
U2, to perform at the venue. The concerts featured visual effects created by the Montreal studio Moment Factory. The four shows grossed $13.4 million from 65,665 tickets sold.
Evolve, Phish's sixteenth studio album, was released on July 12, 2024. Mondegreen, a four-day Phish festival at the Woodlands of
Dover Motor Speedway in
Dover, Delaware, was held in August 2024. 45,000 people attended the four-day Mondegreen festival. Phish were nominated for induction into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the first time in 2025, but were not among that year's inductees. The members of Phish appeared in a
Seinfeld parody sketch on an episode of ''
Everybody's Live with John Mulaney'' in April 2025. The band is scheduled to return to
Sphere in April 2026 for a nine show residency. ==Reception and legacy==