Show Review - Phish 7/5/25 Boulder, CO
Micro-Jams
Phish concluded their three-night stand at Boulder’s Folsom Field last night with another excellent show, emphasizing shorter, dense pockets of improv while continuing an overall well-picked setlist and flow.
A brief weather delay before showtime saw the band take the stage just before 8 with “Buried Alive,” guitarist Trey Anastasio already full of energy as he hopped around the stage during the blazing instrumental.
Leading the band through exuberant renditions of “46 Days” and “Birds of a Feather” from there, Anastasio played with the fervor of someone more than warmed up after settling into the venue on Thursday and Friday before opening up into improvisational territory within “Sigma Oasis.”
While the 10-minute runtime doesn’t necessary scream interesting improv, Phish packed an impressive amount of music into the space with some seriously awe-inspiring Moog One synth work from keyboardist Page McConnell. Modulating multiple times, drummer Jon Fishman kept things rolling as Anastasio exploded through the third amazing peak in as many songs, using some delay to build up to the final white-light moment and return to “Sigma.”
A surprise mid-first-set call for “David Bowie” came with a well-played composed section and fiery jam, though at ten minutes it didn’t go anywhere outside of the typical “Bowie” range. “Evolve” let Anastasio continue to flex his chops with some nimble guitar work on the upbeat solo before the highlight of the first set came in with “Blaze On.”
Beginning in some low-key organ grooving, Anastasio threw in a smooth “Come Together” tease as Fish shifted the beat into a more driving “Stash”-like zone as opposed to the snappy funk of “Blaze On.”
Anastasio layered in some rotary effects into his tone as the band patiently built in this space. Fish went back to some hi-hat work as bassist Mike Gordon anchored the groove, some octave-down guitar emanating from the stage as the band toyed with departing into Type II jamming.
Chunky B3 continued courtesy of McConnell as things turned more percussive, Anastasio beginning to throw in some angular chords as tension built. Releasing things into an airy major key from there, McConnell switched to soft Wurlitzer work and quickly built upon a repeating melody alongside Anastasio. Retaining a loose sense of the earlier slinky groove, Fish continued to push the intensity with regular china cymbal crashes as Anastasio threw in a slick hint of “Mountain Jam.”
Sustaining the peak for several minutes, the band dropped smoothly back into the ending of “Blaze On” to conclude the feel-good 15-minute excursion before a beautiful “The Lizards” led to “A Day in the Life” to close the set, the opening of the Beatles cover met with huge cheers from the crowd as the band played just the second version since 2019.
Returning after an ultra-quick 15-minute setbreak, the band ripped into “Wilson” to start the second set, a fast, high-energy opener usually foreshadowing that the band has big plans for jamming in the next song.
“Fuego” was the choice for the big two-slot and the crowd seemed totally dialed in with the band through the song’s high energy parts before the band embarked on their first of many strong shorter jams in the set.
Breaking from the song proper thanks to some insistent chordal work from Anastasio, McConnell infused some bright piano work into the space as Fish laid into some dense cymbal washes. The whole band moved as one toward outer space as the play got more and more dense. Gordon hammered the low end as Anastasio unleashed some big, almost forlorn Whammy-bent leads while McConnell’s riffing drifted back in the direction of the “Fuego” melody.
Toying with a major modulation from there, the band ultimately resisted the pull of the bliss and followed along Fish’s tightening beat into some cruising funk. McConnell hit the clav as things got gritty, Anastasio offering a contrast to Gordon’s dark synth effects with some upbeat riffing as Fish added in some choice cowbell hits.
It was right back to Friday’s swamp funk motif from there, Anastasio darting in with some sharp envelope filter work as Fish varied the straight-ahead beat with some off-time fills. Mellowing out there and seeming to be ready for takeoff into the next segment of jamming, Anastasio instead slid nicely into the intro of “My Friend, My Friend” to keep the set going.
Almost as soon as the jam began, Anastasio heavily teased “Fuego” (soon to be an internet debate about whether it was played or not based on the discrepancy between LivePhish and phish.net notations), but then took the upbeat melody and turned it dark, filling the air with wild ring modulator and delay tones as the rest of the band continued to hammer alongside him.
With McConnell grounding things on piano, the rest of the band went haywire into some crazy dissonant jamming, Anastasio in particular just whipping up a wild cloud of noise thanks to repeated loops and dive-bomb delay effects.
What used to be a rare sustained segment of evil jamming has become something that Phish loves to stick with for more extended periods of time. McConnell went deep into Moog textures as the band emerged from the murk, Anastasio initiating a nice three-note progression that Gordon quickly latched on to. Beginning in a contemplative space and rising in energy from there, the band built a solid rocking peak in this vein with McConnell continuing to lay into the synth textures with one hand to contrast nicely with the more grounded melodic play happening from guitar and bass.
Dropping back into another couple minutes of funk, the jam was once again bailed on before it could reach truly great status in favour of “Crosseyed and Painless.” This is where my internal dilemma happened – part of me wanted to be a little bit upset at the ripcord but I was also very excited, as always, for what was set up to be a ripping “Crosseyed.”
Infusing the song with a “Happy Birthday” tease in honour of Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA who was in attendance last night, Phish took the normally-propulsive Talking Heads cover into a more spaced-out zone, beautifully evening things out into a hazy zone thanks to a thick carpet of McConnell and Gordon’s synth effects. From there, Fish upped the tempo and began to charge forward aggressively, Anastasio matching him with quick flurries of notes and another smooth “Fuego” tease as the band blew through an excellent high-octane peak.
From there, “Crosseyed” was quickly abandoned in favour of “Everything’s Right,” continuing the flow of the set nicely and diving right back into some beautiful Type II jamming. Picking up where the beautiful outer-space theme had left off in the previous song, Anastasio weaved together gorgeous melody after gorgeous melody while McConnell kept to a mostly-textural role on Rhodes and synth, Gordon really making his presence known with some upper-register melodic play of his own.
Coming back down to earth for a minute, it seemed as though a minor pivot was in order but the band quickly blasted off once again, the pulsating effect of McConnell’s Yamaha CS60 synth matching with more wild tones from Gordon as the band drifted through the cosmos atop the gentle beat from Fish, all the time holding everything together.
The improvisational highlight of the night continued with a short build toward a peak, but unfortunately once again a budding jam was abandoned in favour of concluding “ER” and closing the set with “More” and “Slave to the Traffic Light.”
The encore began with the first “Buffalo Bill” since 2023, appropriate given CU Boulder’s mascot, and a breathtakingly beautiful “Harry Hood,” Anastasio really taking his time on the build and peak, not rushing the conclusion of the song as he can do sometimes.
As we all filed out of the stadium at the end of last night’s show, a few things were on my mind – while none of the three nights at Folsom featured the era-defining improv and massive jams that were present in the first week of summer tour, Friday and Saturday especially were more than just “vibes shows” – the band showed some amazing skill and intention in a lot of the song selection and play. So while there aren’t necessarily Jam of the Year-worthy plays from these shows, they were still high-quality Phish throughout.
That said – the band returns to playing smaller indoor arenas with their next few shows, so hopefully the more comfortable setting will allow them to open things back up into the wild and crazy jamming territory missing from the huge stadium setting.
Watch live on Wednesday from Columbus via LivePhish.com.