December 31st is the most important day on the Phish calender. On that date each year, they ring in the new year with a special three-set performance which includes heighthened theatrics as the clock approaches and/or passes midnight.
Anticipation for the last show of 2023 had been ballooning since hints that the band could be performing the first live performance of the Gamehendge saga in nearly 30 years started disseminating. This became clearer as the first three nights of the New Years run at Madison Square Garden concluded without any songs taking place in Gamehendge. The first set of night four was much the same.
Coming out of the first set break that night, the band plays "Down with Disease". And then, we hear the number one cue that Trey is ready to tell us a story, an Oom Pah Pah. Off to the races we go.
The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday
"Harpua" narrations of time immemorial have identified the setting of the tale as present-day Gamehendge. Trey's narration does not mention the setting by name, the first of many signs of the intentionality in creative decisions that prompted me to write about this show in the first place.
This, of course, gives Annie Golden, introduced as Jimmy's grandmother, the honor of being the first to namedrop Gamehendge, which she does to a crowd pop MSG had not seen since Willis Reed came out of that tunnel while "The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday" plays on in the background.
This show marked the first live performance of "TMWSIY" in the context which it was composed for.[1] As the song progresses, we are greeted to the formation of the Rhombus and Colonel Forbin taking the steps through the door that has been haunting him ever since it first appeared to him one day on a morning walk with McGrupp. The intended effect of these visuals is to show that the audience is actively entering Gamehendge alongside Forbin; establishing that the audience will be part of the show throughout. This is a significant departure from every previous narration involving Forbin, where the audience can only watch the wheel of fate turn.
Next up is "The Lizards", one of the main expository pieces of the narrative, played fairly straight. The costumed lizards we will be seeing throughout the performance have their first choreographed routine here. Seeing closeups of them during Page and Trey's solos, I see them having already surrendered to the flow and found eternal joy and never-ending splendor. The narration coming out of "Lizards" sees the Wolf (played by Jo Lampert) and her band of rebels come in from sea to the river Forbin sees Rutherford dive in and profess the ideals of their revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity. The use of this particular slogan serves to place the revolution the Wolf leads squarely into the outside world's revolutionary tradition. The allusions to bodies of water allow for a perfect segue into "Punch You In The Eye", which gets canonized as another leg of Forbin's journey by showing the Colonel kayaking through the audience.
March of the Multibeast
The band continues its unbroken chain of segues between songs by going into "AC/DC Bag", which pertains to Wilson putting Mr. Palmer into the device. The titular AC/DC Bag only shows to amp up the crowd during the refrain; simulating the execution is not a pressing issue for several reasons. Of course, anything graphic would sour the mood of what is supposed to be a New Years celebration. More important, however, is that Phish is signalling an express desire to jam into the great unknown during a Gamehendge set, something they hadn't done before. With that intent established, they double down and up the ante further by setting the scene and trying their damnedest to have a jam advance the plot just like narration would.
The subsequent jam suceeds at all of these, and is rewarded for its efforts by gaining the nickname (though not a separate spot in the setlist) "(The) March of the Multibeast".[2] As the tentpole jam of this set enters Type II territory, Colonel Forbin arrives back on stage again, standing completely still and staring off into the distance, the camera focusing intently on him as he is doing so. Forbin is trying to process the fact that the door he stepped through with a promise of a better place and time had not delivered yet, and the territories that the jam explores reflect that. Meanwhile, a different pair of explorers, Tela and her multibeast steed, are making their way through the audience to adoring fans. As Tela gets closer to the stage and Forbin gets closer to despair, Trey dons his best Hendrix impression and chronicles the apocalypse with his guitar playing.[3] The rancor continues until Tela steps off her steed and connects her harness to high wires.
"Tela" is excellently choreographed. Tela's routine, and Forbin's interaction with her, is perfectly in sync with what the lyrics are describing. Chris Kuroda's complementary lighting changes to evoke serenity. The standout moment of this song is Tela spinning up and down continuously as Trey and Page's parts are at their busiest. This part of the song, paired with the lyrics "Tela! Tela! Jewel of Wilson's foul domain!" provide one of the most empathis resolutions to a Phish song, and I'm glad the choreography matched.
As Tela and Forbin ride into the rebel base camp inside a turquoise mountain, they encounter a rebel armed with bazookas stationed upon the mountain's face. This sets up a performance of "Llama", which prominently features a lizard rebel armed with bazookas making their last stand against encroaching members of Wilson's forces. "Llama"'s formal placement in the narrative recontextualizes the song's protagonist as perpetually on guard, ready to kill and/or die to defend their ideals and the security of the rebel base. The frenetic pace of the song highlights the urgency of the situation this lone lizard has placed themselves in. The improvised sections fit as the soundtrack to this soldier's final act. On particularly raucous nights at MSG's concert configuration, the stage begins to shake. The crowd has inadvertantly added an additional effect that simulates the "blastoplast" detonation that makes a martyr out of "Llama's" protagonist.[4]
Divided Sky
The crowd chanting between the recurring double-E riffs throughout "Wilson" is one of Phish's longest-standing audience participation traditions, tracing its origins back to the version that made it on A Live One. Befitting someone tasked with leading a rebellion, the Wolf leads the crowd in this chant by example as part of her contribution to the vocals of this song. Her punk rock-infused vocals add new dimensions to the song; it captures the Wolf's rage against Wilson more completely than Trey's standard lead vocals do. The underpinning of "punk" is "defiance". The utilization of a vocal style that defies the expectations of a Phish show serves to accentuate the in-universe defiance against Wilson.
"Wilson"'s lyrics predate the construction of the Gamehendge narrative as we know it, its original insertion into TMWSIY served the purpose of being a musical adrenaline shot. As part of a stage performance, the music amping up the audience is mirrored in the Wolf rallying her fellow troops to channel an outlet for their collective anger against Wilson. Coming out of this revolutionary fervor, the Wolf gets to work applying the ace in her hole: calling upon the aid of the one contract killer fit for the job of assassinating Wilson: the Sloth.
The Sloth, bottle of Bathtub Gin in hand, approaches the evil king Wilson by moving much like an actual sloth would: very slowly towards the objective it purports to have (if any). Whatever swings they attempt to hit Wilson with display just as much of a lack of urgency as the approach itself. Wilson, in an act of hubris, silently taunts the Sloth the whole time before ultimately escaping. The Sloth failing to kill Wilson is the biggest departure from previously existing Gamehendge lore up to this point. The primary intent behind this decision being to give Forbin the chance to play the hero and save the day. The immediate and expected reaction to this twist is that the Sloth was just too slow, causing him to fail in a task that was previously felt to be a foregone conclusion. "The Sloth" is an image song, the titular character's ode to all the grimy qualities that made him feared. While the lyrics do read of hubris, and the altercation with Wilson is only brought up in ever-changing narrations between songs, it is still unwise to doubt the Sloth.[5]
With both Forbin and the Wolf expressing dismay that the Sloth failed, Forbin agrees to grab the Helping Friendly Book from Wilson's tower. In the original narration Trey wrote for his senior study, Forbin calls an audible from his initial verbal agreement in order to seek divine aid. At this moment in this performance's story, Forbin has no reason to distrust the Wolf and sets out towards Wilson's tower. While going through the woods, Forbin stops to observe lizards performing a solemn ritual in which three chosen individuals climb the (in-universe) Rhombus to offer tribute to Icculus. "Divided Sky", a composition deployed in high leverage moments in Phish setlists, reaches its apex here. The backstage choir used throughout the show is heavily utilized here, adding to the effect that this ritual is sacred. The pause that bisects the song, long doubling as an audience behavioral study, fits in the Gamehendge saga instead as a simple instruction to the audience (and Forbin): be at ease. In two previous performances of the full Gamehendge saga, the "Divided Sky" ritual served as a musical victory lap for the lizards. Here, there is more story to be told.
