Phish
Live in Saratoga Springs 2025
**** out of *****
All of Phish's live music is available to their rabid fan base right after their lengthy concerts end, so when the band announced it was offering a 'digital box set', the shows had to be pretty special, and they were. The fantastic Live in Saratoga Springs 2025 captures the final three nights (July 25th, 26th 27th) of the band's 2025 summer tour at their self proclaimed outdoor home base, Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
The band, Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon, Page McConnell, have been delivering high quality offerings in recent years, and knew they had something special with this weekend run. Phish releases the best jam of the night to their fans in high quality video on youtube directly after the show and after these shows, full sets were released as things were obviously clicking on a high level in upstate New York.
Recorded by Vance Powell to multitrack, mixed by Jon Altschiller, and mastered by Fred Kevorkian this release sounds excellent with each instrument alive, crowd noise seeping in when needed and a fantastic overall tone. While the digital album cover is fairly generic, that is the only the only mark against this release.
The band starts out the three show run with the weakest set of the weekend, but even when they are just getting started, there are a few highlights. One of those arrives with the second song as "Bathtub Gin" is grooving and exploratory setting the tone for twenty minutes as McConnell and Fishman seem to take the lead before Anastasio grabs hold to wrap up. While "Bathtub Gin" is an old jam warhorse, the newer "Hey Stranger" was also a surprising excursion winningly moving through funk and jazz realms.
The second set of the 7/25 show is where things really begin to take off as Trey leads the band during "Set Your Soul Free" as he plays with his guitar tone, shifting from meaty to soaring. The band falls into "Chalkdust Torture" that is a gem of jam with so many layers intersecting as each musician seems to be playing individually, but locked into the group sound; the magic of Phish.
At around the seventeen minute mark things start to get experimental and whacky, for a stretch before Fishman displays propulsive drumming, leading to a cosmic reckoning and things truly start to cook. It is musical stretches like this that make this band still vital on the live stage. "Chalkdust Torture" drops into the ballad of "Beneath a Sea of Stars Pt 1" which acts as a breather before the group fires up "Piper".
While not up to the levels of the amazing 2004 version from SPAC, this offering of the tune is still fantastic, sparkling music from start leading to a rapid fire finish that finds Trey interacting with Page and burning a fire on the Saratoga stage. "Everything's Right", while not as adventurous as the tunes that preceded it, still offers up a cool groove and jam to close the set. A fun encore of "Loving Cup" and "Run Like an Antelope" cap a great first show in this box set.
The second show would amp up the funk as the opening run highlighted Gordon's bass work on the opening pairing "First Tube" and "2001". The cool grooving charm continued with "Mike's Song > Wading In the Velvet Sea > Weekapaug Groove" as the segue hit it's heights at the start with a textured "Mike's Song" that had multiple levels, a Black Sabbath "N.I.B" tease and sweet riffs working together.
The first set closing pairing of "My Friend, My Friend" > "No Men In No Man's Land" mixes down and gritty bass lines with spacey jamming showing exactly where the fantastic second set was heading. Kicking off with "Oblivion" McConnell and Gordon led the group before shifting to more of a rock mode with "Down with Disease". This version followed the previous nights Chalkdust's lead with a huge exploratory jam that had touches of arena rock, before a super cool ambient finale.
That unique conclusion bled into "Light" which never got fully cooking before dropping into the newer offering "Life Saving Gun". This version is very good with Fishman driving the train forward as the jam recalls a few elements of the early "DwD" before exhaling into the ballad "Waste". A perfectly played "Fluffhead" puts an old school exclamation point on the set as the sold out crowd cheers on the solid encore choices of "Golgi Apparatus" and "Rock and Roll".
While both of these shows were dynamite, containing jaw dropping moments, the culmination arrived on Sunday. Forever to be known as the Tweeprise-fest 5/27 found the band in both a playful and still incredibly locked in mood.
The shenanigans started early with the first ever jammed out version of "Tweezer Reprise" as the second song of the night. The crowd cheered as they realized something special was happening as the funky wah-wah and deep bass rolled out. The jam itself was inventive, getting blissful about halfway through, then gorgeous then back to "Tweezer Reprise" proper; it was a summation of everything they were doing right this weekend in Saratoga.
Segueing back into "Reba" the tune found Anastasio weaving in the main riff of "Tweezer Reprise" before fully falling back into the song and jamming it out again. Seamlessly falling into "Funky Bitch" the band was clicking yet again. The rarely played Ween cover "Roses Are Free" used funky strutting before a pumped up version of "Tweezer Reprise" once again emerged in killer jam fashion.
The madness stops a minute for a uniquely ominous rendition of "46 Days" and a herky-jerky "About to Run" before Phish's most experimental song these days "Split Open and Melt" gets completely tripped out with a psychedelic breakdown closing an amazingly powerful set of music.
The final set of the run stays strong, starting with "Kill Devil Falls" that includes teases of The Dead Milkmen's "The Secret Of Life" before falling into "Twist" which is highlighted early on by McConnell's piano work in the normally synth heavy tune which climbs to a gorgeous high pitch climax from Anastasio. TV on the Radio's "Golden Age" is delivered before shifting early into "Tweezer Reprise" once again and this one goes off the cosmic rails, exploring space and time for over eighteen and half minutes before the theme of the songs rises from the depths, closing it out at over twenty three minutes of free form jamming.
The band is not done, and that would be the only down side to this box set, if you are not already a fan this is a lot to take in and appreciate. The group seamlessly drops into one of their best covers, Stevie Wonder's "Boogie On Reggae Woman" for a quick spin before Phish's marquee song, "You Enjoy Myself". The huge tune of course can't finish the set as the sixth and final "Tweezer Reprise" appears to do that job swimmingly. A brief "Tweezer" to cap off the joke and a sublime "Harry Hood" bring this epic three night run from the group to a close.
Not to leave anything on the cutting room floor, the band includes for their fans the 7/27 "Soundcheck Jam" which gets even more free form as the quartet work out on their instruments. These twenty five minutes may feel like filler to those unaccustomed to Phish antics, and they kind of are, but the group was so on point this weekend, even this fun jam which is spacey and touches on "Come Together", are worth hearing a few times.
One of the strongest live releases in the band's career, Phish's 'digital box set' Live in Saratoga Springs 2025 captures a mature outfit doing what they do best, delivering a heaping helping of in the moment rock and roll improvisation like few ever have.
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