History Trivia / Phish

** "Mercury" was cut from ''Big Boat'' by producer Bob Ezrin. However, the song has since become a fan favorite, and they've now played it more often than some of the songs that actually made the album. The song was even the midnight countdown centerpiece of their 2018-19 New Year's Eve show.

* CutSong: In the summer of 1990, the band booked studio time at Wendell Studios in Boston and recorded studio versions of several of their most beloved concert staples, including "Harry Hood", "Suzy Greenberg", "Runaway Jim", "Possum", "Mike's Song", "I am Hydrogen", and "Weekapaug Groove". However, the band decided not to release any of the material they recorded: ''Lawn Boy'' was already completed and was released a few months later, and the band decided to start fresh when they began recording ''A Picture of Nectar'' in the summer of 1991. To date, the only two songs from the Wendell sessions that eventually wound up on an album were "Tweezer" (re-recorded for ''Nectar'') and "Rift" (re-recorded for ''Rift'').
** The same thing happened while the band was recording ''The Story of the Ghost'' in 1998. Left on the cutting room floor in those sessions were studio versions of live favorites like "Meatstick", "NICU", "Bittersweet Motel" and "Vultures". Many of the other cut songs found their way onto either ''The Siket Disc'' or ''Farmhouse''.

** The band itself have several, and one of the biggest was comedian Harris Wittels. Best known as a writer on ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'' and as part of the ''[[Podcast/ComedyDeathRayRadio Comedy Bang Bang]]'' crew, Wittels had been a devoted fan of the band since high school, and saw over 300 shows in his lifetime. The best known extension of his fandom was his ''Podcast/AnalyzePhish'' podcast in which he attempted to get ''Comedy Bang Bang'' host Scott Aukerman to like, or at least appreciate, the band. Wittels died in 2015, [[{{Retirony}} a few days before]] the final episode of ''Parks and Recreation'' aired. Phish themselves paid tribute to Wittels that July: Mike Gordon wore [[https://relix.com/blogs/detail/mike_gordon_honored_harris_wittels_in_austin_with_a_great_shirt/ a shirt]] with Wittels' name in the band's logo, and the group opened one of their shows with a jammed out version of "Tube", Wittels' favorite song (which he often joked about never getting jammed whenever he saw them play it).

** "Mercury" was cut from ''Big Boat'' by producer Bob Ezrin. However, the song has since become a fan favorite, and they've now played it more often than some of the songs that actually made the album.

* LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition: ''The Complete Baker's Dozen'', a massive limited-edition ''36 CD'' box set, which featured all 13 of their 2017 Baker's Dozen concerts at Madison Square Garden. In addition to the [=CDs=], the set came with a ton of original artwork from the band's poster artist Jim Pollak, setlist notes from the band and replica tickets. The asking price? ''$500''.

** There's a few more instances throughout the band's discography. They tried "Runaway Jim" again during the sessions for ''A Picture of Nectar'' and ''Hoist'', but it didn't make it onto either of those albums. "Alumni Blues" and "The Lizards", "Wilson", "The Curtain" and "I Didn't Know" were all at one point considered for ''Junta'', "Buffalo Bill" and "Simple" were cut from ''Hoist'', and "Bittersweet Motel" was also attempted for ''Farmhouse''.

** There's a few more instances throughout the band's discography. They tried "Runaway Jim" again during the sessions for ''A Picture of Nectar'' and ''Hoist'', but it didn't make it onto either of those albums. "Alumni Blues" was cut from ''Junta'', "Buffalo Bill" and "Simple" were cut from ''Hoist'', and "Bittersweet Motel" was also attempted for ''Farmhouse''.

* NamesTheSame: While Phish toured North America extensively, former {{Music/Marillion}} singer ''Fish'' toured Europe extensively. Made yet more confusing by the fact that both artists appeal to the ProgressiveRock fandom, although their styles are quite different.

** "Mercury" was cut from ''Big Boat'' by producer Bob Ezrin. However, the song has since become a fan favorite, and they've now played it more often than some songs that actually made the album.

* BlackSheepHit: "Heavy Things". It's poppier than most of their other songs and has an unusually-for-the-band standard song structure. The song was their biggest hit ever on the adult alternative chart and was even a minor hit on adult Top 40 radio. Although the band has been playing the song for nearly 20 years now (including being a regular fixture at Trey's solo concerts), it's never really lended itself to being expanded upon live the way that their other big radio hit, "Down with Disease", has.

** The same thing happen while the band was recording ''The Story of the Ghost'' in 1998. Left on the cutting room floor in those sessions were studio versions of live favorites like "Meatstick", "NICU", "Bittersweet Motel" and "Vultures". Many of the other cut songs found their way onto either ''The Siket Disc'' or ''Farmhouse''.

** "Mercury" was cut from ''Big Boat'' by producer Bob Ezrin, but it wound up becoming a fan favorite live, and they've now played it more often than several songs that actually made the album.

** There's a few more instances throughout the band's discography. They tried "Runaway Jim" again during the sessions for ''A Picture of Nectar'' and ''Hoist'', but it didn't make it onto either of those albums. "Alumni Blues" was cut from ''Junta'', "Buffalo Bill" and "Simple" were cut from ''Hoist'', and "Bittersweet Motel" was also attempted for ''Farmhouse''. Several takes of "Strange Design" were recorded for ''Billy Breathes'', but the one that was released was a very experimental version, and only as the B-side to "Free" on a very rare CD single.

* ThrowItIn: As with the Grateful Dead before them, a mix of this and {{Improv}} is the guiding force behind most of their shows. The band used to work from a loose setlist of songs they were considering playing on any given night, but they've since abandoned even that. At every show, they can play almost anything, with the usual exception being whatever songs they played the previous night.
** One oft repeated story is that before every show, the band gives a list of songs they might play that night to their lighting director Chris Kuroda, so he knows what songs to expect to create light shows for. Apparently he just throws away that list every night because the band almost never sticks to it.

* ThrowItIn: As with the Grateful Dead before them, a mix of this and {{Improv}} is the guiding force behind most of their shows.

* FollowTheLeader: Subverted. Phish has been compared to Music/TheGratefulDead for decades. While they are certainly influenced by the Dead, Phish have other prominent influences, and the two bands' musical styles are very distinct from one another. For instance, Phish are significantly influenced by jazz fusion, funk, prog rock and alternative rock, none of which were really part of the Grateful Dead's sound. Meanwhile, Phish does not have the strong blues, R&B and country influences that were prominent in the Dead's repertoire. While Phish often covered Dead songs in concert when they were just starting out, they almost never did after they began developing their own repertoire of original songs in the late 1980s.
** Phish's contemporaries, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident and The Dave Matthews Band, were similarly slapped with the "New Dead" moniker, and all three of those bands also saw a boost in popularity after Jerry Garcia died and the Grateful Dead split. Phish and the DMB became the leaders of that jam band scene by the late 1990s, with Phish becoming the preeminent improvisational group of the decade, and DMB having mainstream pop success with their several hit singles.
** The same pattern happened again during Phish's 2000-2002 hiatus and 2004-2008 split, in which magazines ran articles on newer acts from the jam band scene, like O.A.R., Umphrey's [=McGee=], Dispatch, The Disco Biscuits, My Morning Jacket and Jack Johnson, in a search to find "The Next Phish". All six of those acts went on to be successful in their own right, and the "new Phish" tag followed them all around for much less of a time than Phish had to deal with Dead comparisons.
** In the late 2010s, the "Next Phish" tag has been applied to the Vermont band Twiddle. The Phish fanbase has a skeptical-at-best opinion of the band, but members of both Phish ([=McConnell=]) and the Grateful Dead (Phil Lesh) have played with them in concert.

* MilestoneCelebration: The band celebrated their 30th anniversary at their 2013 New Year's Eve concert at Madison Square Garden (the band had played their first show in December of 1983, so it was even around same time of year). They had their first equipment truck driven into the middle of MSG, and they played the show's entire second set atop of it. The [[http://phish.net/setlists/phish-december-31-2013-madison-square-garden-new-york-ny-usa.html setlist]] consisted entirely of songs the band has been playing since the 1980s, and they performed on some of their earliest musical equipment.

** Aron Ralston, whose April 2003 hiking accident inspired the film ''Film/OneHundredAndTwentySevenHours'', is also a prominent member of the fanbase; He was part of the tape-trading community, and [[http://forum.phish.net/forum/permalink/1377560052 was listening to]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q91uUM8fRKM this version of "Ghost"]] when he fell while rock-climbing and became trapped under a boulder.

** The same pattern happened again during Phish's 2000-2002 hiatus and 2004-2008 split, in which magazines ran articles on newer acts from the jam band scene, like O.A.R., Umphrey's [=McGee=], Dispatch, The Disco Biscuits and Jack Johnson, in a search to find "The Next Phish". All five of those acts went on to be successful in their own right, and the "new Phish" tag followed them all around for much less of a time than Phish had to deal with Dead comparisons.

* FollowTheLeader: Subverted. Phish has been compared to Music/TheGratefulDead for decades. While they are certainly influenced by the Dead, Phish have other prominent influences, and the two bands' musical styles are very distinct from one another. For instance, Phish are significantly influenced by jazz fusion, funk, prog rock and alternative rock, none of which were really part of the Grateful Dead's sound. Meanwhile, Phish does not have the strong blues, R&B and country influences that were prominent in the Dead's repertoire. While Phish often covered Dead songs in concert when they were just starting out, they almost never did after they began developing their own repertoire of original songs in the late 1980s. However, comparisons to the Grateful Dead have followed Phish around for decades, and
** Phish's contemporaries, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident and The Dave Matthews Band, were similarly slapped with the "New Dead" moniker, and all three of those bands also saw a boost in popularity after Jerry Garcia died and the Grateful Dead split.

* FollowTheLeader: Subverted. Phish has been compared to Music/TheGratefulDead for decades. While they are certainly influenced by the Dead, particularly in the two-set structure of their concerts and how they improvise their songs, Phish have other prominent influences, and the two bands' musical styles are very distinct from one another. For instance, Phish are significantly influenced by jazz fusion, funk, prog rock and alternative rock, none of which were really part of the Grateful Dead's sound. Meanwhile, Phish does not have the strong blues, R&B and country influences that were prominent in the Dead's repertoire. While Phish often covered Dead songs in concert when they were just starting out, they almost never did after they began developing their own repertoire of original songs in the late 1980s. However, comparisons to the Grateful Dead have followed Phish around for decades, and

* FollowTheLeader: Subverted. They are influenced by Music/TheGratefulDead, but they have other prominent influences as well. For instance, Phish are significantly influenced by jazz fusion, funk, prog rock and alternative rock, none of which were really part of the Grateful Dead's sound. While Phish often covered Dead songs in concert when they were just starting out, they almost never did after they began developing their own repertoire of original songs in the late 1980s.
** Phish's contemporaries, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident and The Dave Matthews Band, were similarly slapped with the "New Dead" moniker, and all three bands saw a boost in popularity after Jerry Garcia died and the Grateful Dead split.

* FanCommunityNicknames: Originally, fans were called "Glides" (inspired by the title of the song "Glide"), and later "Phans" or "Phish Heads".

** The same pattern happened again during Phish's 2000-2002 hiatus and 2004-2008 split, in which magazines ran articles on newer acts from the jam band scene, like O.A.R., Umphrey's [=McGee=], Dispatch, The Disco Biscuits and Jack Johnson, in a contrived search to find "The Next Phish".

** The same pattern happened again during Phish's 2000-2002 hiatus and 2004-2008 split, in which magazines ran articles on newer jams bands like O.A.R., Umphrey's [=McGee=], Dispatch, The Disco Biscuits and Jack Johnson in a contrived search to find "The Next Phish".

** Phish's contemporaries, Widespread Panic and The Dave Matthews Band, were similarly slapped with the "New Dead" moniker, and all three bands saw a boost in popularity after Jerry Garcia died and the Grateful Dead split.
** The same pattern happened again during Phish's 2000-2002 hiatus and 2004-2008 split, in which magazines ran articles on Phish-influenced artists like O.A.R., Umphrey's [=McGee=], Dispatch and Jack Johnson in a contrived search to find "The Next Phish".

* PromotedFanboy: All four members of Phish love Music/TheGratefulDead, and the surviving members of the Dead have occasionally collaborated with the band. The highest profile instance was Trey replacing the late Jerry Garcia for the Dead's Fare Thee Well reunion concerts in 2015. Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann have all made guest appearances at Phish concerts, joining the band for a few numbers. All four members have performed as part of Lesh's Phil & Friends supergroup at one point or another, with Anastasio and [=McConnell=] being part of that project's inaugural April 1997 lineup.