Phish resurfaces for March reunion shows

Grab your tackle box--Phish is back.

The Vermont-based jam band, which became one of the top draws in the concert business during the 1990s and early part of this decade, will reunite for shows March 6-8 in Hampton, Va., and is expected to announce additional performances for 2009.

Rumors of a reunion have been heating up since last spring, and the momentum kept building when three of the four Phish members played together in July at the Rothbury Festival in Michigan. All four showed up last month and played at the wedding of their road manager Brad Sands.

When the group decided to call it quits in 2004, guitarist Trey Anastasio said his thinking was that  "Phish has run its course and that we should end it now while it's still on a high note.”

The band’s final shows Aug. 14-15, 2004 in Coventry, Vt., drew about 80,000 fans and movie theaters around the country carried some of the performances.

Only two of the group’s studio albums made the Top 10, but Phish pulled off the unprecedented feat of placing 16 live albums in the Billboard Top 200 albums chart within the span of  14 months in 2001 and 2002.

Tickets go on sale to the public on Oct. 18 through Ticketmaster, but fans wishing to get a jump on the general sale can try an online ticket request process under way at a Phish ticket web site.

--Randy Lewis

Photo by Alden Pellett/AP

Comments

[Rick Pickle]

You mean, I sat in a 24 hour traffic jam to see the 2 worst Phish shows ever for absolutely nothing?

[Travis Robinson]

In reply to Rick: thank goodness you did. If Coventry had actually been the final Phish shows it would have eventually been remembered as the worst finale for a band ever.

Now, post addictions, the band can get back to doing what they used to do best. Putting on 3 hour spectacles of fun and music.

[roddy]

That is right rick! Now you can do it again. Rewind, play, repeat....
It will never end with these guys. Just like there will always be bold dentist's sons who steal dad's backup nitrous tanks for parking lot use at hippie festivals, there will always be Phish.