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They really played Gamehendge. It happened.

While the rumors had been present for the last few months and the absence of any songs from the story earlier in the run made it seem more likely to be the gag, I never truly believed that Phish would perform guitarist Trey Anastasio’s senior thesis on stage for New Year’s Eve.

But it happened.

In the early days of Phish, when Anastasio was a student at Goddard College, he composed The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday, a story about a retired colonel who finds himself whisked away to the magical land of Gamehendge and thrust into a plot to overthrow the evil king Wilson. It’s the kind of crazy niche geekery that Phish has always been known for – and the exact thing that most phans have been chasing for nearly 30 years.

Before we visited Gamehendge, however, Phish took the stage for the fourth and final night of their annual MSG New Year’s Run to a packed house and thunderous energy. After a hugely successful start to the run (and a slightly less successful third night), the band was primed to deliver some serious shit – and not just in terms of production value.

The show began with an easygoing “Everything’s Right,” the prominent jam vehicle lasting just around 12 minutes and hitting a solid peak to get us moving and ease the band into the jamming. “Tube” was tapped next and saw an initial segment of harsh envelope filtered guitar from Anastasio while keyboardist Page McConnell lit up his Wurlitzer electric piano. Anastasio led a bliss modulation early on and the quartet locked in on an amazing peak before the concise jam blasted into the blues ending.

2023 debut “Ether Edge” offered a mid-set cooldown before a mostly-well-executed “Reba” previewed the early songbook choices to come later in the show along with a patient and well-built jam. Anastasio seemed to pour a ton of emotion into his solo as McConnell, drummer Jon Fishman, and bassist Mike Gordon supported him with a solid backbone. “Reba” jams never disappoint, and you can hear the joy emanating from the crowd even on the soundboard recording.

A quick romp through “Taste” and an unusually short “Ruby Waves” led us into an emotional “A Life Beyond the Dream” before “Character Zero” blew the roof off as we headed into setbreak. While some may look at the second half of this set with disdain due to lack of exploration, the band was clearly amped to get to the gag and played each tune with energy and tightness.

When the second set opened with a “Down with Disease” that wrapped up in eight minutes, I was definitely a little bit concerned with what was to come – NYE gags typically are reserved for the third set, so I had been hoping that the “Disease” would offer us a much-needed big jam. Upon the opening “oom-pah-pah” of “Harpua,” however, all that was forgotten as I crossed an extreme rarity off my song chase list. While this song isn’t usually my favourite due to its propensity for 20-minute narration segments that take time away from jamming, it was clear that this was a special “Harpua” when a bed rose from the stage in front of the band, revealing the song’s protagonist Jimmy and his grandmother (played by actress Annie Golden).

Extra geeky tidbits were thrown into the Gamehendge prelude, revealing that Jimmy’s grandmother was the one who gave Esther the doll (from the song “Esther”) and that she had also gifted his cousin “Reba” her ladle.

As Anastasio strummed the first notes of “The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday” during the grandmother’s speech and she proclaimed that it was time to hear “the real story of Gamehendge,” the 25,000 people inside Madison Square Garden erupted in a way that I have never experienced at any other concert in my life. For me, realizing what I was about to witness overcame me and I started laughing and crying in disbelief and joy.

I first became aware of Gamehendge when I was 11 years old and discovering everything about Phish for the first time. I have a clear memory of being in my elementary school library and reading the entire story online, fascinated by how it tied together narratives from so many songs and understood that it has always been the ultimate white whale, having been played last on July 8, 1994.

As “The Lizards” began on Sunday night, the crowd erupted yet again and sang along loudly to every single lyric as Phish navigated the composition with ease. At the front of the stage, dancers in lizard costumes frolicked across the stage while the actors for Col. Forbin and Rutherford the Brave mimicked their journey throughout the song.

Crossing another song off my chase list, “Punch You in the Eye” (complete with a guy paddling a kayak around the outside of the floor section) led into “AC/DC Bag” as the namesake robot hangman (yes, robot hangman) appeared on stage. At this point in the set, I was so taken with the theatrical production and incredible vibe of the performance that I completely forgot that a jam could still happen in the second set.

While it’s had a bit of a resurgence as a shorter jam vehicle in the last couple of years, “Bag” had yet to really break free of its mold since Coventry in 2004, and Phish chose NYE to drop the longest version of the song since then. Anastasio dropped into a minor chord to decisively begin the improv and it was clear that they had every intention of adding some serious improvisational magic to the Gamehendge.

After a minute of power-rock jamming, McConnell began to infuse synth textures into the music as it grew more ethereal thanks to Anastasio’s calming riffs. A darker undertone developed for a brief moment as Gordon pushed and pulled with dissonant bass lines. McConnell’s synth work became more percussive and spookier with each passing measure, and Anastasio’s sharp guitar chords only heightened this. The darkness ebbed and flowed, containing some “Bug”-esque riffing from McConnell, before jumping full-force back into the depths of space. Anastasio’s several loops layered textures on top of the eerie Moog One synthesizer bedrock before emerging into a lighter motif. Hitting an excellent peak before the 11-minute mark, the band easily could have wrapped up there but was far from done. Phish spent the next six minutes locking in perfectly with each other through numerous more peaks, finally landing in a brief spell of space before ending in favour of “Tela.”

While the “Bag” jam unfolded, a massive three-headed Multibeast entered the room and made its way to the stage, Tela astride its back. Throughout her namesake song, the character was raised above the stage on cables, twirling above Forbin and the band through the rarity – another perfectly executed song.

“Llama” was up next and had one of the Lizards run around the stage with a t-shirt cannon, firing event t-shirts into the crowd at random as Phish shredded through one of their earliest rock anthems. “Wilson,” augmented by longtime collaborator Jo Lampert (dressed as Gamehendge character Errand Wolfe) on vocals, ripped through as the story continued through “The Sloth” and a set-closing “Divided Sky.”

While previous Gamehendges definitely contained more narration, this latest incarnation and its changes to the story had something none of the early-era performances had – a full Broadway-level production complete with dancers and actors to help the music get the real story across.

The band returned with around 15 minutes until midnight and struck up “McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters.” An often-debated detail of the Gamehendge saga is whether Tela was a spy for the evil Wilson or not – her death in the middle of “McGrupp” fails to answer that question and Anastasio asked Jimmy’s grandmother if this was true – without a proper response. I guess some things will remain a mystery…

It was then time for the classic pairing of “Col. Forbin’s Ascent” and “Fly Famous Mockingbird” to lead us into the new year and wrap up the gag. Forbin climbed the massive rhombus that had encased the stage throughout the story during the song about his journey up a mountain to acquire the Helping Friendly Book from the great and knowledgeable Icculus (one of the only songs notably missing from Sunday night). The Famous Mockingbird actually carried the book in circles around the inside of the Garden, calling back to the incredible whale gag from April 2022. As it returned back to the stage, Jimmy’s grandmother closed Gamehendge with a (two minutes early) countdown to the new year.

After the annual “Auld Lang Syne,” Anastasio announced that the mountain was actually on top of an active volcano – and Phish launched into an off-the-rails version of “Split Open and Melt.” Lizards danced crazily (and somehow choreographed together) to the beginning of the jam as they gradually began to fall beneath the stage into the mouth of the “volcano.” The second unexpected foray into improvisational territory of the night devolved into screaming dissonance as lighting director Chris Kuroda put on a clinic, flashing through colours and patterns at breakneck speed as the band eventually found their way back to the “Melt” ending.

With the story told, Phish was playing with house money and could have done whatever they wanted to conclude the show, but they decided to throw down “You Enjoy Myself,” one of their oldest and most quintessential songs. Another well-played compositional section gave another peak crowd moment at the “BOY!” lyric as once again, 25,000 people screamed the lyric in unison and excitement.

The “YEM” even flirted with Type II territory for a brief spell before wrapping up with its usual bass solo and vocal jam. An extra-mustard “Loving Cup” and blistering “Possum closed out the final set of the run with ear-to-ear grins from the band and crowd alike.

“Cavern,” “First Tube,” and “Tweezer Reprise” acted as the three-song encore, giving us 15 minutes of pure fire and energy, blowing the roof off the World’s Most Famous Arena one last time for 2023 Phish.

Shows like this are why we Phish. The fact that this band can celebrate the conclusion of their 40th year by performing a rock opera composed in college – and still add fresh elements to the story like the volcanic “Melt” – just speaks to the longevity and commitment to creativity that the Vermont quartet has always had. As we enter their fifth decade, the four musicians will become the second band to perform at the Las Vegas Sphere in April and host their first festival since 2015 in August, plus a to-be-announced slate of tour dates.

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have become a Phish fan at the early age that I did, and see Sunday night’s Gamehendge performance as a culmination of 12 years of personal geekery and insane love for this music. Every single phan, whether in attendance or not, understands the gravity and impact of this performance, and seeing the band’s gratitude for the outpouring of energy and love for every single minute they are on stage.

Thank you, Phish, for 40 amazing years – here’s to endless celebrations of the greatest band on the planet for many more to come!!

Gotta keep chasing that “Icculus”…

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