Graphics that soared from the stage to the ceiling. Sound that circled the venue. Seats that vibrated.
And all of those elements queued up and executed by a tech crew keeping up with a band's famously unpredictable musical passages.
This was not your typical concert — but Sphere isn't your typical venue, nor is Phish your typical band. And yet, all of these things combined to thrilling effect during Phish's debut engagement at the groundbreaking venue — the first of what hopes to be many long weekends for the act at the Sphere.
The Vermont act is only the second-ever music performer for the Sphere. In September, U2 began a 40-date residency centered around its 1991 album, Achtung Baby. Dead and Company starts its spring/summer residency in May, and The Eagles are all but confirmed for the fall.
Some highlights of the four-night stand, which took place April 18-21:
Four nights, four totally unique shows: Phish doesn't repeat songs during a multi-night stand in any given city it visits. But each song needed a visual complement, meaning the band needed a lot of creative content for the venue's famed 160,000-square-foot screen. Enter the Moment Factory, a production design firm that worked with Phish, show director Abigail Rosen Holmes, and lighting designer Chris Kuroda to create some 70-80 motifs. So no two shows were alike.
About those motifs: Imagery crafted for each song ranged from moving graphics of familiar objects like cars and televisions (all featuring footage of the musicians playing below); remixed, obfuscated and blown-up live shots of the band; photo-illustrated landscapes and scenery that transported audience members away from their seats; and abstract patterns and color mixtures to accentuate moodier song selections. The collective arsenal of images often changed according to the band's own improvisational shifts.
4D Phish: Not only was the presentation of immersive, larger-than-life imagery new to the band's live show, vibrating haptic seat technology, sensory effects like wind, and multi-dimensional surround sound — aided by the venue's laser-like 167,000 speaker drivers. Adding to both the overall effect — as well as highlighting the band itself — was Kuroda's custom-made lighting system both onstage and off. Where U2 relied almost solely on the giant visuals, Phish utilized nearly every innovation the venue offered.
No skimping on the musical performance: Phish, a touring warhorse for 40 years, didn't seem distracted at all by the visual cacophony (or the whirring drones) above it, nor did it take advantage of a crowd whose attention was more divided than usual. During Thursday's opener, the quarter stayed on point through thrilling performances of "Life Saving Gun," "Tweezer," "Mike's Song" and show closer "Run Like an Antelope," its masterful performance made even clearer by the Sphere's instrument-isolating, proprietary sound system. For all the oohs and ahhs from the 20,000 audience members, their loudest reactions came at the introduction of longtime favorites ("Carini," "Fluffhead") and as extended jams climaxed — a fanbase getting the best of all worlds.
