Live For Live Music

09/08/2026

Closing out a summer tour marked by historic jam lengths, a nostalgia-heavy Madison Square Garden run, and the revival of Trey Anastasio’s ’90s mini drum kit, Phish returned to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, CO on Sunday for a finale that felt like a reflective victory lap. While setlist purists noted the lack of composed epics like “You Enjoy Myself” across the entire Labor Day weekend run, the improvisational depth confirmed that 43 years in, the band continues to enjoy itself.

Set one reflected the tour’s exploratory tone, kicking off with a 17-minute “Ghost” driven by Page McConnell’s Clavinet and Mike Gordon’s bass before ramping up with a punchy “Kill Devil Falls.” An unusually dark and moody “Roggae” jam further illustrated the band’s willingness to hoist anchor and explore uncharted waters, while a soaring “Blaze On” raised spirits with a burst of radiant, buoyant improvisation.

Despite being a somewhat polarizing song among fans, “Backwards Down the Number Line” earned an enthusiastic response from the sold-out Sunday crowd, adding to the evening’s reflective tone and kicking off a brisk three-song stretch that continued with a fiery “Axilla (Part II)” and a nimble “Taste.” After building tension with three quick hits, Phish cracked the set wide open with “Split Open and Melt,” letting a viscous stream of dark, chaotic improvisation pour out like a broken yolk oozing across the stadium.

The second set maintained that patient momentum, launching with a 12-minute “My Friend, My Friend” (hold the “Myfe”). That segued into a blissful “Fuego” jam, which saw Anastasio take to his auxiliary percussion rig—a hallmark of mid-’90s Phish that was revived for the band’s 1995-themed 95th MSG show earlier this summer and has remained a fixture of its ensuing tour dates.

Next came the return of “Melt the Guns,” played for only the second time since 1987. The selection marked another full-circle moment for Phish in Colorado: Last summer, when the band opted to play Boulder’s Folsom Field instead of its traditional Labor Day weekend Dick’s run, ambitious fans requested the long-shelved XTC cover not by casually holding up a sign, but by flying a small plane over the venue with a banner reading “Phish Please Play Melt the Guns” fluttering behind it. After finally obliging the request at Fenway Park earlier this summer and shattering a 2,051-show drought in the process, Sunday’s rendition felt like thoughtful a nod to the 2025 Boulder request.

Finishing the set off with two more extended jams, Phish offered a sprawling “Light” and then segued directly into the positive affirmation of “Everything’s Right.” After teasing the “Tweezer Reprise” that had gone missing after Saturday night’s “Tweezer,” Anastasio addressed the crowd, quickly thanking them for a great summer before the final hit.

For the encore, the quartet slowed things down with a tender “Waste,” raised the energy to a howl once again with a triumphant “First Tube,” and punctuated the setlist and the summer with the undefeated exclamation point of “Tweezer Reprise.”

📸: Juliana Bernstein

09/08/2026

❤️ ♾️

Lesh & Friends' fitting gesture came at the group's performance yesterday at Robin Williams Meadow at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, kicking off Forever Grateful, a new art exhibit touted as one of the most comprehensive visual histories of Grateful Dead ever assembled.

The exhibit runs through October 25th, and be sure to catch GLAF with some special guests at our Colorado Free Jam at Denver, CO's Levitt Pavilion on October 3rd.

Info/tix for that show can be found here: https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/grahame-lesh-friends-play-free-show-denver/

09/08/2026

Must Be Seven Below...

Read more about the upcoming Trey Anastasio Band x Billy Strings concerts in Worcester this fall:

Trey Anastasio and Billy Strings will link up for a special two-night benefit run for the Divided Sky Foundation.

09/08/2026

is hitting the road in 2027, announcing a tour that includes (and only includes) stops in Japan and Australia.

Check out a complete list of tour dates below and let us know if you're planning on attending ⬇️

Radiohead Tour 2027:
05-03-27 Perth, Australia - RAC Arena
05-04-27 Perth, Australia - RAC Arena
05-06-27 Perth, Australia - RAC Arena
05-07-27 Perth, Australia - RAC Arena
05-13-27 Melbourne, Australia - Rod Laver Arena
05-14-27 Melbourne, Australia - Rod Laver Arena
05-16-27 Melbourne, Australia - Rod Laver Arena
05-17-27 Melbourne, Australia - Rod Laver Arena
05-19-27 Melbourne, Australia - Rod Laver Arena
05-20-27 Melbourne, Australia - Rod Laver Arena
05-25-27 Sydney, Australia - Afterpay Arena
05-26-27 Sydney, Australia - Afterpay Arena
05-28-27 Sydney, Australia - Afterpay Arena
05-29-27 Sydney, Australia - Afterpay Arena
05-31-27 Sydney, Australia - Afterpay Arena
06-01-27 Sydney, Australia - Afterpay Arena
06-08-27 Saitama, Japan - GMO Arena
06-09-27 Saitama, Japan - GMO Arena
06-11-27 Saitama, Japan - GMO Arena
06-12-27 Saitama, Japan - GMO Arena
06-13-27 Saitama, Japan - GMO Arena

📷️ via Getty Images

09/08/2026

Two nights of Grateful Dead in Sicily with EuroDead Orchestra for the first time ever 💀🌹⚡️

EuroDead Orchestra heads to Sicily for two nights of Grateful Dead music with Dave A'Bear, plus a special Road Crew travel experience.

09/08/2026

The middle show of a three-night Phish run can often get lost in the pack: Night one benefits from the energy of the new scenery—or, in the case of Commerce City, CO’s Dicks’s Sporting Goods Park this year, the return to an old, familiar field after a year away. An air of finality reliably adds to night three, giving the band and fans alike the impulse to empty the tank and end things on a high note. Between those two weighted contextual markers, night two can often feel like “just another show.”

But night two of Phish’s 2026 Dick’s run on Saturday night was certainly not “just another show.” If anything, its “middle child” standing worked to its advantage: From start to finish, Saturday’s performance seemed to find Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Page McConnell, and Mike Gordon in full, mid-show stride, playing with the sort of interwoven fluidity that normally ramps up and back down along the curve of a given night.

Even before the show began, the band sounded loose and ready to move wherever the music took them when its soundcheck jam morphed from “Funky Bitch” into a play on the Batman theme song—lyrics (lyric?) and all—before rolling into a team percussion circle.

With the Dick’s Batmobile already rolling down the road, Phish used “Possum,” the rocker that typically serves as an emphatic closing statement, to open the show for the first time since 2024.

From there flowed a pair of nimble, sonically varied Type-II jams. Each one found distinct spaces to explore, from the urgent, tension-building motif that surged to an expansive climax during 17+ minutes of “Sand” to the delicate, clean-tone wandering on “Sigma Oasis” that seeped into to sleek, meditative textures with Anastasio on his auxiliary percussion rig over the course of its nearly 20-minute runtime.

The “Moma Dance” that followed worked through thick funk grooves and mischievous Fishman vocal ad-libs before McConnell pushed the pace on piano. A seamless shot through “Back on the Train” chugged along a sturdy rhythmic track as Anastasio toyed with dynamics to engaging effect. “Free” leaned into a pulsing Gordon bass line and percolated for several satisfying minutes in ominous tension before exploding into its closing refrain.

“Most Events Aren’t Planned,” the fan-favorite holdover from Page’s Vida Blue days, continued its recent run of stellar set-closing appearances with Phish. While it didn’t stray far from its composed structure, the palpable cohesion on its red-hot closing section highlighted the ease with which the four players had excelled throughout the first frame: No on-ramp, no breathers; all energetic, inventive heat. On paper, this first set could could pass as a satisfying second set—with lengthy jams, engaging songs, and not a minute sacrificed toward filler.

That considerable momentum only intensified when Phish returned from set break: Saturday’s four-song second set presented three fluid, extended acts of improv—”What’s Going Through Your Mind” (24+ minutes), “A Wave of Hope” (nearly 18 minutes, plus more drumming Trey), and “Tweezer” (almost 24 minutes)—then torched them all with a fiery “Chalk Dust Torture” finale.

While each of the set’s extended jams covered plenty of ground, all of them were tastefully restrained and methodically constructed, more often percolating on an idea and gradually adding layers than sprinting toward one destination or another. The subtle timbre of this “Tweezer” jam felt particularly notable: Inclined toward spacey, shadowy ambiance rather than riff-heavy rock, it gave the impression of the band sampling or looping itself, digging out a deep groove layer by layer rather than stretching for white-light heights. By the time “Chalk Dust” unleashed the roaring guitar peaks that had largely been subverted through most of the set, they felt particularly cathartic and well-earned.

Read our full review at the link in the comments, and let us know if you were there.

09/08/2026

Cory Henry had tried to get Stevie Wonder on his records “tons of times” in the past, to no avail.

“Every record I put out, I make with the idea of Stevie playing on it,” he explained to L4LM. But for his new LP 'Devotion,' he called his shot on the demo.

Read the full interview:

After hoping for a Stevie Wonder guest spot on one of his albums for years, Cory Henry finally manifested it on his new gospel LP, 'Devotion.'

09/08/2026

On the eve of Phish’s Labor Day weekend run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, bassist Mike Gordon stopped by eTown Hall in Boulder on Thursday for a surprise sit-in with acclaimed roots singer-songwriter Darrell Scott.

Gordon emerged at the tail end of the first set, slipping in alongside another special guest, Hot Rize bassist and eTown co-founder Nick Forster, who notably penned a staple in Phish’s live repertoire, “Nelly Kane.”

After adding a bass solo to Johnny Cash’s “Big River”—a classic tune favorited by the Grateful Dead, among others—Gordon returned during the second set to join Forster and Scott for a multi-song sit-in, including “It’s The Wh***ey That Eases The Pain,” Hank Williams’ “Weary Blues From Waiting,” “Born To Fly” and “Wayfaring Pilgrim.”

Thursday’s sit-in marked a return to the eTown stage for Gordon, who previously taped a session at the venue alongside acoustic guitar virtuoso Leo Kottke back in 2005. The 220-capacity room offered an exceptionally intimate warmup before he joined Phish on the 27,000-capacity pitch at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park—less than an hour down the road.

09/08/2026

Trey Anastasio and Billy Strings have announced a run of collaborative concerts benefiting the Phish guitarist’s Divided Sky Foundation. The two-show run at Worcester, MA’s DCU Center (11/20–11/21) will feature both artists backed by the Trey Anastasio Band.

All proceeds will benefit the Divided Sky Foundation, the addiction recovery-focused nonprofit co-founded by Anastasio which operates a 46-bed residential recovery program in Ludlow, Vermont. This benefit run follows the three-night run Phish played in Albany, NY in October 2024 that raised more than $4 million for Divided Sky.

The upcoming shows will mark the latest onstage collaboration between Billy Strings and Trey Anastasio, who have periodically dropped in on each other’s performances for surprise appearances over the past several years.

“As a phan, to be on that stage with those fellers and just hear it.. to feel it all so close.. and then to be able to interact with it,” Strings wrote of sitting in with Phish back in 2024. “To poke it a little bit and tickle it and pet it .. and then to have it react!! I know it’s sacred.. and that band is AIRTIGHT after playing together for all these years .. I didn’t want to get in the way too much, I was already feeling like I shouldn’t be up there fu***ng up their show .. they’re so good. They don’t need me up there wanking all over the joint.. but they asked me to so of course I’m gonna go try!!”

09/08/2026

Returning to Commerce City after shifting to Boulder in 2025, Phish opened its 14th otherwise annual Labor Day weekend run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park with a reminder that, even after 43 years, the quartet continues to push beyond its own boundaries. Anchored by a record-breaking “Down with Disease,” the first of three nights at the beloved Colorado venue proved the band’s ongoing evolution shows no signs of plateauing.

The evening’s opening frame laid a loose, exploratory foundation, kicking off with an upbeat “No Men In No Man’s Land” before plunging into an aptly expansive “Oblivion” highlighted by a subtle “Baby, You’re a Rich Man” tease from Trey Anastasio. Set one continued with a pairing of “Prince Caspian” and an unfinished “Plasma” that featured a sly nod to Eric Clapton’s “Layla” from Page McConnell and a callback to the lyrics of “Prince Caspian” from Anastasio during the outro.

“Tube” provided a funky mid-set breather, followed by the lighthearted calypso vibes of “Ya Mar.” The band stretched out one last time before set break with a 13-minute “Wolfman’s Brother,” capping the jam-heavy first frame with percussive bass slapping courtesy of Mike Gordon and a fiery improvisational peak.

The true magic unfolded in set two, with a brief “46 Days” opener serving as a runway into the night’s historic pièce de résistance. As the band waded into “Down with Disease,” Anastasio set an automated loop running in the background, slung his guitar around his back, and turned to the mini drum kit he used in the 1990s and recently brought back for the band’s 1995-themed concert at Madison Square Garden.

His shift to the mini kit added a layer of percussive texture, while setting aside his guitar cleared sonic space for McConnell’s synth work and Gordon’s thunderous basslines to temporarily drive the jam. The 35+ minute version surpassed the previous record from July 11, 2025 at North Charleston Coliseum to become the longest version of the song in Phish history.

Trey continued to showcase his drum chops on a high-voltage “Life Saving Gun,” which barreled beyond the 15-minute mark, while “Lonely Trip” offered a necessary emotional cool-down after 50+ minutes of ambitious improvisation. After picking the energy back up with a bounding “Run Like an Antelope,” Phish closed out the second set on a high note with a roaring “Character Zero.”

Returning for the encore, the band eased back in with a gentle ballad, “Wading in the Velvet Sea,” before Jon Fishman’s unmistakable drum intro kicked off a massive, beautiful 17-minute “Harry Hood” to cap off night one in triumphant fashion.