History Trivia / Phish

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Partially because of the uniqueness of each Phish concert, the band allows and actively encourages fans to tape the band's concerts, so long as the resultant recording is not sold for profit. Non-monetary trades of recordings/copies of recordings was often the way that most physical tapes circulated before the internet (Often traders asked only for "Blanks and postage": Blank cassettes on which to dub the shows for the recipient, and the stamps to send them back). Nowadays, the highest quality recordings from every circulating concert are available through a meticulous, maintained spreadsheet that circulates around the community, as well as streaming sites such as Phishtracks and Relisten.

** ''The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday'', which the band recorded as Trey's senior thesis for Goddard College in 1987, has never been officially released. The recording has circulated among fans for decades, and contains the only studio versions of the songs from Trey's famous Gamehendge prog-rock opera. Many of these songs, particularly "The Lizards" and "Wilson", remain live staples for the band to this day. Trey claimed he was going to give the album an official release in the mid-90s as a multimedia CD-ROM, but this never came to pass.

** Phish has planned to perform Music/{{Genesis}}' ''The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'' in its entirety at a Halloween concert for several years. At one point, the band even [[https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/phish-hope-to-perform-genesis-album-with-peter-gabriel-on-halloween-86528/ contacted]] Music/PeterGabriel to see if he would perform the album with them. However, this idea has yet to come to fruition.

* InMemoriam: ''Round Room'' was dedicated in the memory of Widespread Panic guitarist Mikey Houser, who died of pancreatic cancer in August 2002, and Scott Schertzer, a Phish fan who was killed in the [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror 9/11 attacks]].

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Partially because of the uniqueness of each Phish concert, the band allows and actively encourages fans to tape the band's concerts, so long as the resultant recording is not sold for profit. Non-monetary trades of recordings/copies of recordings was often the way that most physical tapes circulated before the internet. Nowadays, the highest quality recordings from every circulating concert are available through a meticulous, maintained spreadsheet that circulates around the community, as well as streaming sites such as Phishtracks and Relisten.

* FanNickname: Phish Heads call Hampton Coliseum, the Virginia venue that hosted the two concerts that were officially released as ''Hampton Comes Alive'', "The Mothership". Phish have played at the venue 21 times in their career, including the three-night stand in 2009 that kicked off their reunion and "3.0" era.

* FanNickname: Phish Heads call Hampton Coliseum, the Virginia venue that hosted the two concerts that were officially released as ''Hampton Comes Alive'', "The Mothership".

** The band's March 8, 1993 show in Santa Fe, Arizona was their last show from that year and most recent concert that was unavailable as an audience recording, in part due to the lack of tapers in the southwest at the time. That was until 2020, when the band themselves released their own archival soundboard recording of the show.

* BigNameFan: Jon Fishman (and probably the band as a whole) is a fan of Music/CattleDecapitation and has been spotted attending their shows in Burlington. The band, as a whole, also performed with Cattle Decapitation in disguise as Garbage Dick, a "just for fun" one-off performance art project while Cattle was on tour.
** 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.
** There are other famous fans too: [[Series/TheAdventuresOfPeteAndPete Danny Tamberelli]] has been a fan since the mid-90s and has attended over 100 shows. NBA legend Bill Walton, who is famous for his love of the Music/GratefulDead, is also a fan of Phish and has attended many 3.0 shows. Creator/NathanRabin became a fan of the group through his wife, and he also wrote a book, ''You Don't Know But You Don't Like Me'', about following Phish and Music/InsaneClownPosse on tour and the two bands' respective fandoms. MSNBC host Katy Tur is also a devoted fan, and she regularly works references to the band's songs into her reporting.
** 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 show]] when he fell while rock-climbing and became trapped under a boulder.
** Music/VampireWeekend singer Ezra Koenig and drummer Chris Tomson are both fans of Phish, and writers have frequently compared the sound of VW's acclaimed fourth album ''Father of the Bride'' to Phish and other jam bands.
* BlackSheepHit: "Heavy Things". It's poppier than most of their other songs and has an atypical-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.
** "Heavy Things", however, has had an unusual legacy with the band, because an integral part of the song has resulted in a permanent addition to Trey's guitar rig: [[https://youtu.be/AywJYBCxxuc?t=3m44s A special loop pedal labeled "ONCE"]], which manually plays a sample one time as opposed to looping it. That button was specifically designed for Trey to perform "Heavy Things", for which he manually plays back a single, chiming guitar note throughout the song. It has since found other uses during concerts.

** The band's summer 2020 tour was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the dates were moved to 2021. This means that 2020 is the first year without a summer tour since Phish reunited in 2009. In fact, the only Phish concerts in 2020 at all were their annual three-day stand in Mexico in February. The pandemic also canceled or postponed a tour by the Trey Anastasio Band and the much-awaited reunion tour of Oysterhead, the supergroup Trey is part of with [[Music/{{Primus}} Les Claypool]] and [[Music/ThePolice Stewart Copeland]].

* NoHitWonder: Has a large, loyal fan following despite never hitting the mainstream charts.

** Phish have two songs called "Timber" in their repertoire. The first and best known is also known as "Timber Ho!" or "Timber (Jerry the Mule}" and is a cover of a song written in the 1930s by blues singers Josh White and Sam Gary. Phish probably learned about this song from a 1957 cover by folk singer Odetta, and they've played it many times since they first debuted it in 1987. The second "Timber" is a song from Phish's 2014 ''Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House'' Halloween performance, but was only played twice more after that show.

* 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. Additionally, the nickname of Phish drummer Jon Fishman is "Fish", and he's almost exclusively referred to as "Fish" by his bandmates and their fans.

** The band's March 8, 1993 show in Santa Fe, Arizona was their last show from that year and most recent concert that was unavailable as an audience recording, in part due to the lack of tapers in the southwest. That was until 2020, when the band themselves released their own archival soundboard recording of the show.

* MissingEpisode: Over 1500 Phish concerts circulate as live concert recordings taped by fans, all with the blessing of the band. Every concert they've played since 1993 is more or less accounted for[[note]]With the exception of a March 1993 concert in Santa Fe and a private show they played for the cast and crew of ''Film/MeMyselfAndIrene'' in 1999[[/note]], but it's little spotty before that year. About 250 of the band's concerts are unaccounted for, most of which are from the 1980s, before they built up the fanbase they have today and were only really known in Vermont.

** "Mercury" was cut from ''Big Boat'' by producer Bob Ezrin. However, the song has since become a fan favorite, and Phish have 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.

* ThrowItIn: As with the Grateful Dead before them, a mix of this and {{Improv}} is the guiding force behind most of their shows. At first, Trey would sometimes plan setlists in advance, which helped create popular segues like "The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony" -> "Suzy Greenberg". In the early 90s, the band switched to working from a loose setlist of songs they might play at each show, but eventually abandoned even that. At every concert, they can play almost anything, with the usual exception being whatever songs they played the previous show.

** Music/NeilYoung once offered to take Phish on as his backing band for a European tour, having greatly enjoyed playing with them at the 1998 Farm Aid festival. Trey was very excited about the idea, and even [[http://www.mtv.com/news/510188/phish-and-neil-young-talk-collaboration/ spoke to MTV]] about a possible recording project with Young, similar to the ''Mirror Ball'' album he had released with Music/PearlJam a few years before. Unfortunately, the album and tour never happened, but Young would play with Phish again at the 1999 Bridge School Benefit Concert.

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Partially because of the uniqueness of each Phish concert, the band allows and actively encourages fans to tape the band's concerts, so long as the resultant recording is not sold for profit. Non-monetary trades of recordings/copies of recordings was often the way that most physical tapes circulated before the internet. Nowadays, the highest quality recordings from every circulating concert are available through a meticulous, maintained spreadsheet that circulates around the community.

** Music/NeilYoung once offered to take Phish on as his backing band for a European tour, having greatly enjoyed playing with them at the 1998 Farm Aid festival. Trey was very excited about the idea, and even [[http://www.mtv.com/news/510188/phish-and-neil-young-talk-collaboration/ spoke to MTV]] about a possible recording project with Young, similar to the ''Mirror Ball'' he had recorded with Music/PearlJam a few years before. Unfortunately, the album and tour never happened, but Young would play with Phish again at the 1999 Bridge School Benefit Concert.

* Music/NeilYoung once offered to take Phish on as his backing band for a European tour, having greatly enjoyed playing with them at the 1998 Farm Aid festival. Trey was very excited about the idea, and even [[http://www.mtv.com/news/510188/phish-and-neil-young-talk-collaboration/ spoke to MTV]] about a possible recording project with Young, similar to the ''Mirror Ball'' he had recorded with Music/PearlJam a few years before. Unfortunately, the album and tour never happened, but Young would play with Phish again at the 1999 Bridge School Benefit Concert.

* 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 might play at each show, but they've since abandoned even that. At every concert, they can play almost anything, with the usual exception being whatever songs they played the previous show.