Standard Night 1 warmup show. Energy was great in The Garden. Simple, KDF, Driver and Antelope were great. The jams never really took off in the second set, however the song selection was good. Wave of Hope, Round Room, IAWITW… solid stuff. Solid encore too, 46 Days ripped. All in all nothing too crazy or special. Just a standard solid show.

While there were no jams that really blow your hair back, this is an exceptional N1 for this year's NYE run. The whole night was tightly played and there wasn't a single bad setlist entry (while featuring significant variety). Now that they nailed the warm up, do we have any reason to believe that the rest of the run won't be just as stellar?!

Welcome back to the garden, Phish. Very glad to see you!

This was the first 12-28 show in a long time I have missed, I ended up having to work late and could not make it. Usually the first night of YEMSG is the easiest ticket and considered the "Warm Up" of the run. This year since the 28th was a Saturday, it was by no means an easy ticket. However, it did feel like it still will be the "warm up" of the run.

That's not to say this show was bad at all. I gave it a solid 4 stars. But we all know Phish is going to step it up and tear shit down much more these next three nights compared to this show.

Set one opened with a powerful and well played Simple, unfortunately, nugs.net was having a stroke during it, so was hard to keep up. Still I could tell it was fantastic. Free was also played strong. Great 1-2 punch to start! Driver was a nice little bustout and Oblivion went hard. Overall, it was what was expected. A tame, warm up, set to get us going.

Set two as well had its moments - Round Room was a long awaited bustout an a sweet song. - I always wanted it this way rips, and this was yet again another strong version that perhaps highlighted the set. Twist had a great loose jam that also came close to being the highlight of the set. Cavern and Bowie standard but effective. Overall, not the set that will light phish.net on fire but still a hell of a good time and great playing. Treys voice did sound like it was scratchy and needed a break at points, which is scary to hear N1. Perhaps hes sick? Hopefully he feels better.

Encore had 3 songs, all with unique things to offer. personally i dont care for Mtns in the Mist, but a slow song was due. FYF should be played more, that song rocks. Great to hear it. And a solid 46 days to close it all out was a good choice.

Consensus: Its a good Phish show, but one of the "weaker" and more "forgettable" shows inside Madison Square Garden in recent memory. They cant all be 12-31-23 after all. This one reminded me of 12-28-18 , but not that bad.

Set One: B-
Set Two: C
Overall: 3.75

I really enjoyed this show, attendance bias withstanding. It was a totally average show, minus the bustouts, and there was a little rust (especially with the vocals). But when Phish plays a show in 2024, it has to be absolutely incredible to be even slightly noteworthy...if this show was played in, say, 2012, it would be a different story. The vibes/energy in the building were great, and the lights and sound were immaculate. Felt above average for an opening night. SIMPLE was ironically the longest song of the night, with a really great little jam...Trey was obviously having a great time. FARMHOUSE placement was definitely interesting...the jam was super beautiful. Trey and CK5 also shined very bright on KDF...peaks were great. REBA and ANTELOPE jams were nice... especially the latter, absolutely relentless. My only real gripe with this show were BOTT and AXILLA...both great songs, but they felt unnecessary. If those 13 minutes had been put towards a longer jam in WOPE, this show would probably be viewed in a more positive light. Also, Axilla was pretty sloppy...especially on Fish's part. But still great tunes. ROUND ROOM was a completely unexpected bustout and a pleasant tune...very sloppy but who cares, it's Round Room. That was only the 3rd performance in the last 20 years. I absolutely love IAWITW and this version lived up to the song's rep - and in fact saved the set, imo. Rocked the house. TWIST is a fine song...and this jam was pretty cool. Brief, but went to a really nice, chill place...sounded like the late 90s ambient shit for a bit. BLAZE/CAVERN/BOWIE was a great ending trio - nothing spectacular or noteworthy in the slightest, but totally fucking rocked. MIST is pleasant in the encore...FYF kicked ass...46 DAYS shredded my damn face off. The band was in pretty good shape. So grateful they're still playing for us. LOVE AND LIGHT

We’re back at the Garden for our annual New Year’s run, and hopes are very high. This year has been nothing but top tier sauce, so I expect nothing but the same for these shows. Tonight’s setlist is pretty weird, which is fine by me. A lot of unique choices.

Simple is a great way to start a show. This is a very tight groove; nothing too spectacular, just a fun time, very positive. Check out Mike’s fuzzy groove around 8:30-9:30. Right from the get-go, Mike takes the lead in Free, and lays down some real funky shit in the jam. He pretty much controls the whole thing. He and Trey work together really well here. Farmhouse is pretty mellow, and has a nice ‘lil jam hidden in there. I like this one, lots of pleasant winter vibes. Poor Heart is our grass tune for tonight, and this one is very fun, as always. Tube is standard, but still a solid groove. Kill Devil Falls is slightly above average, the jam mainly stays in type-1 territory, and is a fun time overall. No highlights, no complaints. Driver is a nice touch, and is wonderfully played by all. I would like to see this one more often. This Reba is great. Listen to Fish in the composed section, his playing is so delightful. The jam is slow, and takes its’ time to get to the peak. It’s a little average, but an average Reba is still beautiful. Bring back the whistling! Oblivion is really short this go around, and is quite standard. Trey has a rough start, but he kills his solo. I also think Page is great here. Pretty forgettable version, but you gotta have your veggies > A perfect Antelope. Mike does some cool stuff in the intro. The hype at the end of the intro is nuts, the crowd gets so amped up. This jam is so nice, everyone is playing with a lot of complexity, and makes for a very structured experience. Like a spider web; there may be thousands of little tiny strings, but they’re all weaved together to make one beautiful collage. I love Fish’s percussion rinse with his cymbal during the Gear Shift section. This is a perfect climax to a set. I like this one a lot.

We start up set 2 with an average Back on the Train. Great energy, but nothing spectacular. We get even more energy with a sloppy Axilla 2, but I think the sloppiness is saved by the badass outro > An average Wave of Hope with a nice type-1 jam. Skippable, but well played > An increasingly rare Round Room! This one is just ok, but I’ll always love this one! Maybe with a little practice, this one can come back to be a major vessel for jams. I Always Wanted It This Way is really, really awesome. It sounds like a spaceship, booting up and taking off for a journey across time and space. Page dominates every second of this jam, and he unleashes some of the coolest sounds I’ve ever heard. Fish is also really good here. Check this one out > A chill, patient Twist; the guys are taking their time, which allows them to really flesh out and create some unique material for the jam. Mike is really awesome here, and Page does some really great stuff at 6:00-7:30, he does a really great job at establishing atmosphere. This one is short, but pretty great > The Mango Song, which is mostly sloppy, but has a nice Page solo at the end > An extremely cheerful Blaze On. Trey and Page go ham > Cavern, which is standard, but Trey does some cool stuff between verses > An average Bowie to end out the show. I’m not one of those people who thinks they should shelf this one, but this particular Bowie was a little unnecessary. However, I think Mike and Fish are great here, they carry the jam in a lot of cool places.

Mountains in the Mist is standard, but we needed a slower tune. I love the lyrics to this one so much, and the playing here is very pleasant. We get our third Gordo song for the night with Fuck Your Face. This a sweet bustout, and this one rips so, so hard > A red hot 46 Days. Everyone is going full throttle, Charlie’s Angles 2. I mean, damn, what a good way to end a show.

This is not a bad show by any means, but it’s mostly veggies. There are no major jams to come back to here, but I think it still does its’ job at getting people pumped for the rest of the weekend. The setlist is very crammed thematically, and leads to a rollercoaster of different emotions, which makes for a slightly overwhelming and forgettable show. Not bad, but certainly forgettable. Also a fairly pedestrian show considering the hellbending nature of this year’s other shows. If you really want to, check out the Antelope, IAWTW > Twist, or the FYF > 46 Days, but you won’t be missing too much. Love these guys, can’t wait for the nights to come.

I grew up and still live in the Pacific Northwest. My first Phish show was 10/17/2014 Eugene. Basically my entire conscious life, I've been intrigued by the idea of going to see Phish at the Garden for a New Year's Run. But it has always seemed so far away, both in regards to distance and practicality. The cost of finding hotels, transportation, flights, and tickets on the post-market made it seem far out of reach. But that all changed once my twin sister began living in Brooklyn - I could save lots of money for the lodging and would be able to commute easily in for the shows. After flying solo to Dicks and meeting up with friends and Phishcord users there, it made me think that I could start to pull off an MSG trip if I could get it done for relatively cheap. A friend at Dicks suggested, why not put in for the lottery and see what happens - you could always sell if it didn't work out. Somehow, I got a 4-day pass in the lottery. The "holy shit" moment begun. Soon, I was able to weave together travel plans, flights, and it was a go! I was sitting on MSG NYE Phish tickets!

So I flew out from PDX to JFK early in the morning of 12/28, just full of anticipation. Part of the reason why I was so willing to get this done and do it *now* is because Phish is playing so well lately - Mexico, Summer Tour, the Dicks run being easily the best shows I've seen (and one of the best weekends of my life), with N2 in particular my best of around 15 shows. So while I tempered my expectations, I knew the potential was there for a killer run. And boy, did they deliver.

I was able to meet up with my sister, drop my bags, and soon headed into the city for the shows. I was so pumped! Stopped at a liquor store and was taking swigs on the subway. Just getting into the Garden was magical - the weather was cool, crisp, but most importantly clear - it was honestly warmer than expected for the entire week in NYC. Stepping into the Garden was an ethereal experience. I've heard so much, I've read so much, and it was just otherworldly. I really leaned into the history of it all, soaked in all the vibes, and had some pre-show meetups with Phishcord and Phish.net users prior to things really getting good. Made friends with my rowmates in Section 211 and had great seats given the situation - they felt like right on top of the action, it wasn't obstructed, and the vibes were immaculate.

The lights went down and I was beside myself. I knew it was going to be a good run after the crowd erupted during the "We've got skyscrapers" line in Simple.. great opening jam and you could tell Trey was rearing with energy. Trey was very animated all throughout this evening, moreso than the next two nights. He was ready to rock this place down. While I don't know enough about crowds to speak on different noise/energy levels of different arenas, I could tell that the MSG crowd throughout this run was very plugged in and "on top" of the action.. we were all ready to express our joy in any way possible. I love getting Free in the first set of a show (or at any point in the show, honestly) and the Simple > Free was a great way to start off the entire run. Farmhouse next, actually a pretty good placement for it - that's another thing that Trey and the band have been really good at lately is song placement - compare to early 3.0 or really even late 1.0/2.0. Poor Heart was a nice treat - I will always take Phishgrass at a show and this is a song that needs to hit the rotation for it. Perfect spot for the energy it brings, and same with Tube. The KDF got out a bit and I recall really enjoying it. Driver was an absolute treat - I absolutely fucking love this song and it was the first song of the run that I had not caught live before. Such a cute ballad. Reba was very welcome and was played well, the jam was vibrant and felt right. Oblivion next - the Evolve album is one of Phish's late-stage best and I was so happy this has turned into a jam vehicle - lucky enough to catch one at Dicks this year. While it didn't jam much this time, I got to loudly belt out the lyrics and spread the new-era Phish love to my surrounding row-folks. Antelope was a perfect choice to close and I feel like this was an above-average 4.0 version on relisten.

Set 2 I was again, so excited for anything that was about to happen. MSG was just so magical I am starting to see why people buy bot accounts to vote down every show outside of its confines! This is a very good version of BOTT to start the second. It's worth a relisten and I enjoyed it very much. Axilla wasn't anything new for me, and neither was Wave of Hope, but I really enjoy Wave of Hope and it was nice to get. The jam was solid and then all of a sudden comes a familiar riff... My first thought was, is this a Mock Song? But then it sort of had the repeating circular sound and I immediately yelled out for Round Room! Wow, what a treat. I never expected to get a Driver but damn did I really never expect to get a Round Room.. They have played MSG so much and it's never come out so I just didn't even mentally have it on the radar. Not many people around me knew what it was which was surprising. Solid treat, and then they went into IAWITW.. which absolutely slaps. Had only gotten one of these prior, at the Gorge 2021. Looking back on the NYE gag, it is possible that this could have been an early indication, or a practice run for some of the more EDM-styled jams to come? We will never know. I think the IAWITW > Twist are the best musical pieces of the night - there was this moment in Twist where Trey was really animated, dancing, and just sitting on the groove. It was special. After the end of Twist, it sort of petered out, and then the opening notes to Mango Song dropped... One of the best crowd moments of the first show was when the realization for that hit. Always special to get one of those live, and then I thought Blaze On was pretty juicy. Cavern and Bowie were fairly standard but always nice. It was actually somehow my first David Bowie live, so that was nice. Loud ovation for the band after it closed.

Was excited again for the encore. Mountains of the Mist is beautiful and I think Trey has sort of settled into a sometimes-pattern for encores, where the slower tune goes first, and then a rocker to close. Nothing new I suppose but this was a solid rendition. Fuck Your Face was out of left field. That was incredible.. I again also never thought I would get one of those live but it was perfect. Mike was fucking jacked for this song, he was hyped up (as much as he shows) and he was loud on the vocals. 46 Days in the show-closer spot was special. They were definitely trying out some new stuff there, and it's one of the best jams of the show. Tons of energy in the building.

Also, it's somewhat unrelated but this was the first show in the second post-Trump era. For that reason, I wasn't surprised at the Mango Song being played. Also, earlier in the day, El*n Musk was on a coke rant on Twitter and one of his replies to someone even more racist than him was that they should "Go fuck yourself in your face".. this was making the rounds, I saw some Phish folks on Bluesky referencing it prior to the show, and for that reason I wasn't exactly surprised that it came. I think both of those songs were oblique references as Phish loves to do...

For me, that was a special show. I was enthralled from the first note to the last. My first Garden show was so incredible. I would do anything to get back there.. Maybe it's not out of the cards to return. Musical highlights: Simple > Free, Antelope, BOTT, IAWITW > Twist, 46 Days. This left us absolutely wired for the next couple shows as they were almost guaranteed to bring the hype...

I don't generally write reviews on here---(...cuz what's one more opinion drifting around in the Phish-iverse...)---but this show felt special for various reasons: (1.) 'Twas my first MSG show; (2.) The band didn't nail every note, which (by many phans' standards apparently) makes it a "bad" show(?), whatever that means, but any lack of accuracy and speed was more than made up for with offerings of soul currency...(... so whatever hate you might wanna direct at "Twist" should humble itself by relistening to that jam in the middle...); (3.) The song selection was both bangin' and unexpected. I’ll wait while you look up previous showings of "Round Room"... and, how about that "I Always Wanted It This Way"!? It was exactly how I've always wanted to hear that song played live; (4.) This night felt representative of the modern Phishtory era – like a Classic TAB show featuring The Chairman of the Boards and lots of alternate takes on classic hits. (If you don't like this show, I feel like that's more of a "You" problem and less of a Phish problem.... 8^) (Summary.) I would gladly travel backward(s) in Timespace to revisit this evening of music...!