Cass Anderson / BroBible
Phish continued their New Year’s Eve residency at Madison Square Garden this past NYE and keeping with tradition, they completely floored fans with an unexpected 2nd Set gag that left every jaw on the floor when the band busted out the first ‘Gamehendge‘ in almost 30 years.
Prior to Phish‘s 2nd Set on 12/31/23, the last time the boys from Vermont played the songs from Trey Anastasio’s Goddard College thesis (1) in their entirety, (2) in order, and (3) with narration from the band was back on 7-8-1994.
That’s a whopping 10,768 days between the last time Phish had busted out ‘Gamehendge’ and many phans had all but given up hope that the band would ever play it again in full. In fact, it became a running joke amongst a lot of Phish phans that the band would never play it again.
Predicting a ‘Gamehendge’ set was akin to telling your friends you were going to win the Powerball or Mega Millions… Nothing but a pipe dream, that was until the first notes of ‘The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday’ on 12/31/23 (after ‘Harpua’) at Madison Square Garden where Phish has played every New Year’s Eve since 2014 (other than 2020). And the band brought in actors to make the narration even more theatrical for the NYE performance.
Full 4K Video Of Phish’s ‘Gamehendge’ Performance On 12/31/23 at Madison Square Garden
Instead of putting the full ‘Gamehendge’ set behind a paywall, the band released the complete performance for free on YouTube in 4K HDR. It’s not unreasonable to say that this is a top-5 all-time moment from Phish given the historical context here:
It is hard to overstate how incredible this set was from the band. I’ve been a Phish fan for most of my life, at least since I was old enough to see them and the band was back together.
On 12/31/13 when Phish came out and performed their 2nd Set on top of an old bus and used their old hockey stick as a mic stand and proceeded to play a set of songs from their earliest days but didn’t play ‘Gamehendge’ I figured my chance to see a ‘Gamehendge’ in its entirety was all but gone.
But that’s part of the beauty of Phish. Just when you think you’ve got them figured out they flip things upside down. Swifties have been losing their minds all Summer over Eras Tour ‘bust out songs’ each night yet Phish has been doing that at every show they’ve played since 1989.
Why did Phish play ‘Gamehendge’ at MSG on 12/31/23?
For those who don’t know a ton about Phish or are wondering ‘why now?’ Let me try to explain.
Every New Year’s Eve show that Phish plays they do a second set ‘gag’. In the past, they’ve ridden a flying hot dog around MSG while playing songs, a hot dog that’s on display at the Rock & Roll Museum in Cleveland.
They have staged a ‘runaway golf cart marathon’ at MSG. My first NYE Phish show (12-31-03) was in Miami and they dropped a Mini Cooper from on top of the stage then an ENTIRE Miami Palmetto Senior High marching band climbed out of the tiny car to perform ‘Jungle Boogie’ and other songs.
Phish fans, or ‘phans’ as they’re most often called, have come to expect a gag of some sort during Phish’s second set on New Year’s Eve shows regardless of the location. However, it was always a pipe dream to expect the band to come out and play ‘Gamehendge’ in its entirety after 29+ years… until 12/31/23.
What is ‘Gamehendge’?
At its core, ‘Gamehendge’ is a Rock Opera.
‘Gamehendge’ is a collection of songs that’s inextricably tied to the band’s earliest history and has stuck with them throughout the decades. Most of the songs can be traced to singer/guitarist Trey Anastasio’s ‘The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday’ (or TMWSIY) which was his thesis at Goddard College all the way back in 1988.
There are ‘original Gamehendge songs’ and some songs that have been added to the lore over the years. ‘Gamehendge’ at its core is a collection of songs telling a story of Colonel Forbin entering the mythical land of Gamehendge where he uses the Helping Friendly Book to overthrow an evil dictator named Wilson.
There are central figures throughout the story including Colonel Forbin, Wilson, The Lizards, Tela, Mr. Palmer, the AC/DC Bag, McGrupp, Harpua, and others. And where the ‘Gamehendge’ lore has expanded over the years is those characters being included in other songs (Reba, Icculus, PYITE, etc) that weren’t part of the original ‘The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday’ (or TMWSIY) collection.
One thing is for certain, if you ever want to learn more about ‘Gamehendge’ this is something that just about any diehard Phish fan will talk to you about for hours on end.
Whether conscious or not, every Phish fan becomes a ‘Gamehendge’ scholar over the years due to the writings of the Helping Friendly Book. So if you want to learn more, just ask a Phish fan and they’ll talk your ear off about it.
And for all of the Phish fans out there still on Cloud 9 after this performance, see you at The Sphere in three months!