The enormous LED video screen that forms the interior surface of Sphere can be used to transport audiences to mountain tops, to outer space, to beneath the legs of an elephant as tall as a 20-story building.
On Friday night, Phish turned the place into a car wash.
Playing the second date of a four-night sold-out stand at this state-of-the-art venue just off the Las Vegas Strip, the veteran Vermont jam band took full advantage of the technological capabilities that cost the building's brains, Madison. James Dolan, CEO of Square Garden Entertainment, five years and more than $2 billion to bring it to life last fall.
At one point during the nearly four-hour concert, the 160,000-square-foot screen (said to be the highest resolution in the world) turned into a starry night sky so vividly that you could almost believe the roof had retracted; At another point, Sphere transformed into an underwater forest of seaweed with sunlight falling from the top of the dome. The venue's sound system was equally impressive, with a finely detailed mix and seat-back haptics that allowed you to literally feel the push of bassist Mike Gordon's low notes.
Friday's Phish show was the second date of a four-night, sold-out event at Sphere.
(Live Coverage)
However, Phish's production (the second by a band to play Sphere after U2's inaugural engagement) wasn't about excess or grandiosity; he was homely, friendly and deeply quirky. After the car wash portion, which replicated the experience of crawling through one, a gigantic dog appeared and proceeded to lick what looked like the other side of the screen in slow motion while the band performed their song “You Enjoy Myself.” ”.
The approach certainly differed from that of U2, whose 40-date residency began in September and ended last month. Built around the Irish group's 1991 album “Achtung Baby,” U2's show tackled big ideas about celebrity and media and the intersection of politics and capitalism; used Sphere's amazing technology to champion the band's distinctive brand of rock star heroism, reaffirming U2's place in a cultural lineage that stretches from Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Prince.
For Phish, perhaps music's biggest cult band, Sphere wasn't a means of self-glorification but of community building: One thing you thought about over the course of the band's two sets and an encore was how small they were. The musicians were seen on stage: the same size as any of the approximately 18,000 people in the crowd. Even when the screen showed a close-up of one of the musicians (Gordon, singer-guitarist Trey Anastasio, keyboardist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman), the image would be distorted almost beyond recognition.
Jam bands, of course, have a long history of elaborate visual presentations. Ahead of Phish's Las Vegas performance, fans of the band wondered online whether their lighting designer, Chris Kuroda, would have the space to do his thing properly amid the Sphere's digital overload. (The answer was something like this). Therefore, it makes sense that Sphere would become a destination for other acts of the tradition; In fact, next in line is Dead & Company, which will begin a 24-show season in May after saying its 2023 tour would be its last.
Phishing works.
(René Huemer / MSG Entertainment)
Unafraid of being upstaged by the room, Phish tapped into Sphere's immersive potential with a variety of aquatic-themed visuals: hundreds of swimmers floating in doughnut-shaped inflatables on the waves of a choppy sea; marine life running between the columns of a great sunken monument; a psychedelic waterfall cascading over a cliff that seemed almost untouchable, far from wherever you were sitting in the steep amphitheater. As part of a production team stationed behind dozens of glowing monitors in the middle of the room, Abigail Rosen Holmes, Phish's creative director, manipulated these images in real time, responding, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, to the twists and turns. turns of the band. improvisations.
In a funny twist, Phish's lack of anxiety about being upstaged by what was happening on Sphere's immersive screen (the members themselves seem well aware that they've never had much to look at) meant that Friday's show actually seemed that it was about music. which was clearly the point for a band that never repeats a set list.
“Bathtub Gin” was upbeat and fun, with McConnell inserting a bit of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” into the song structure; “Lonely Trip” was a lilting ballad with one of the few convincing vocal turns of the night from Anastasio. “Split Open and Melt,” which arrived just before the evening's intermission, was the highlight of the concert: a demented boogie-rock that landed somewhere between early Sonic Youth and electric-era Miles Davis.
For the encore, Phish played the plaintive “Wading in the Velvet Sea” as photographs dating back to the band's beginnings in the mid-1980s appeared on Sphere's screen, and for a moment the musicians seemed to give themselves over to the guy. of rock god. Mythologizing the rest of the show resisted. Then you'd notice that most of the footage showed these guys in various humble backstage settings: just four lifers getting ready to go work for their people.
