[ATTENDED: July 28, 2019] Trey Anastasio @ Newport Folk Festival
I have seen many variations of the Phish band. I’ve seen Phish a number of times, I’ve seen Mike Gordon solo, I have also seen the Trey Anastasio Band and soon I’ll be seeing Vida Blue. So here was my opportunity to see Trey solo. I’d heard that his solo shows were terrific. And this was terrific.
His show was the one I was most excited for on this day, even if there were a few other bands I wanted to check out. I was happy to have gotten pretty close to the stage (again, if I ever go back, stand on the other side, with the sun at my back).
Unlike at a Phish show where Trey barely says anything (usually not even hello), Trey is very chatty solo.
This shows feel very intimate (even in an outdoor venue with thousands of people). I know he has a lot of solo music out so I was pretty thrilled at how much Phish he played.
I was really surprised that he started with “Sample in a Jar.” This is a song which I have never seen Phish play live, so it was neat to start off the set with that one. I’m quite used to Phish’s long jamming style but I really enjoyed these shorter folkier versions. Trey’s acoustic guitar playing is really great–he seems to add fills and grace note throughout.
Trey seemed to enjoy being outside and made some comments about being at Newport. Like when a plane with a banner ad flew past, Trey read: “Fight back, call Jack.” Then asked who the hell Jack was. None of us knew.
I’m not sure if Trey anticipated a lot of Phish fans here, so I wonder how he created his setlist. Actually I know he didn’t have a setlist, but he must have had some idea of what he was going to play. Did he even care what the audience wanted to hear and just played what would be fun?
“Sample” wasn’t the only song I’d never heard played before (which I didn’t really expect). Although up next was the new song “Blaze On” a song I’ve heard twice live already, but never in this folky style, which was really fun. He even threw in a little soloing section in the middle.
I especially like this verse of the song:
And then one day you find to your intense delight
That three wrong turns can really make a right
So why not be like me? be proud of all your crimes
‘Cause when I screw up once, I do it two more times
He chatted about a “House on a rock” that he and Tom Marshall rented to write songs. The place “there it is! no that’s not it” was meant to be a new location to spent a week and write songs. But the end of the story is … “we didn’t go…worst story ever.” There was no air conditioning so they said forget it.
I had never heard “Brian and Robert,” a song I assumed I’d never hear live, so that was cool. And then even cooler, he played “The Inlaw Josie Wales” from Farmhouse (an album that I love but which a lot of fans seem to not like). It’s a lovely instrumental that really shows off his fingering chops (with some nice harmonic flourishes)–even if he did mess up mid song.
He complained about a technical problem for a few songs. It seems like people could hear on the live stream but which I couldn’t hear in the audience.
He played only one Trey solo song, “Set Your Soul Free.” This was a song I’d heard in Camden earlier this summer and rather enjoyed. It had a kind of funky feel (as much as an acoustic guitar can sound funky).
He picked up the tempo with a fun “Back on the Train” (another first for me). It’s definitely not as high speed as the full band version, but there’s was a lot of fun frills and soloing.
It was followed by “Farmhouse” one of my all time favorite Phish songs that I think doesn’t get played all that much. I was so thrilled to hear it. I was hoping the crowd would fill in the “cluster flies alas” part of the chorus, but alas they did not. He did a lovely acoustic solo in the middle.
He followed it with “Rise/Come Together.” Many of his songs were about joy and happiness, which was a wonderful feeling.
Someone shouted out a request and Trey jokes that he’ll play “Foam,” but he does take the request of “Shade” another song I’ve never heard live. In fact I didn’t even know the song (it is unreleased and has only been performed by Phish 13 times).
Then he says, “Let me do this because that song made me think of this one.” He sends it out to Sue. It was the beautiful “Summer of ’89” which S. said was her favorite song of the day. (Played only 4 times by Phish, but Trey plays it on his Tiny Desk Concert).
He joked that “Life would be so much easier if we [Phish] planned what we were going to play ahead of time and just walked on stage and did it but it never works..”
Up next he played “Sand” and looped his guitar part to play a lengthy solo over it. He then added a second looped section for three guitars at once. He followed “Sand” with the TAB song “Snowflakes in the Sand” (also new to me).
He surprised the heck out of me with the next song. It was “Steam.” I have seen this once with the band and it was very very cool–drawn out with interesting sound effects and smoke during the steam part. This version was obviously much simpler, but the way he slid his pick up the strings was a great effect for the steam part.
He followed this up with one of my favorite new Phish songs, “More.” It’s so uplifting and joyful (even if it may not be all that joyful really). He started it and played a verse and then said, “I’m going to the weirdest thing right now, but you guys are so forgiving… I’m going to play this song in the actual key its written in. He started over and played a wonderful full version of “More.”
It was a fantastic set. So very different from Phish, but amazing to hear how good those songs sound stripped down.
SETLIST (songs in bold are first time i’m hearing it live)
- Sample in a Jar [PHISH]
- Blaze On [PHISH]
- Brian and Robert [PHISH]
- The Inlaw Josie Wales [PHISH]
- Set Your Soul Free
- Back on the Train [PHISH]
- Farmhouse [PHISH]
- Rise/Come Together [TAB]
- Shade [PHISH]
- Summer of ’89 [PHISH]
- Sand [PHISH]
- Snowflakes in the Sand [TAB]
- Steam [PHISH]
- More [PHISH]* – Restarted after moving through a bit of the song in the wrong key.
And since this is Phish-based, you can hear the whole thing on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syfvhzj-ceE
I Just Read About That... 
I loved the song Summer of 89 and really liked hearing him solo and acoustic.