Show Review - Trey Anastasio Trio 6/10/23 Denver, CO
Apologies for the delay on this review :) Last night’s Orebolo coming soon!
Trey Anastasio Trio returned to the Mission Ballroom last night for their second of three nights at the Denver venue. While the first night was focused on settling in as a band and had some definite highlights, the Saturday night show was a completely different affair – ferocious jamming and some of the most confident Trey we have witnessed in YEARS.
Opening the show with “I Never Needed You Like This Before,” the trio was immediately displaying confidence with an ease not seen on Friday night. The public debut of “If I Could See The World,” a Lonely Trip song only previously played at The Beacon Jams, gave us our first taste of extended jamming as Trey leaned heavily into the effects and grime. Bassist Dezron Douglas held down a steady pocket with drummer Jon Fishman as Trey took his time to develop an aggressive soundscape.
Next up was TAB classic “Spin,” giving us a cool new angle on the song with Fish on drums instead of Russ. Once again, in the outro jam, Trey absolutely attacked his fretboard, employing liberal use of his whammy pedal as the jam built tension to some incredible guitar peaks. Phish cut “Undermind” was tapped and flipped the dark and grimy tones of the previous couple of songs in favour of the bouncy rhythms. Trey also requested that the stage lights be turned off so he could watch the Mission’s signature disco ball cast cool patterns across the crowd.
“Ghosts of the Forest” led into “The Endless Dream,” another new debut with a propulsive groove and more fretboard fireworks. The tender “mercy” gave way to the next highlight of the show – “On Pillow Jets.” Another new debut with tinges of “Dark and Down” in its jam, Dezron immediately stepped to the forefront of the improv as the band once again found a dark space to jam in. The incredibly difficult part of writing about a show like this is how unique each of the three musicians on stage are and how what they play cannot accurately be described in the written word. I urge anyone reading this to GO LISTEN if you have not already!
The first-set closing “46 Days” began as if it would be an exclamation point on an already-strong frame of music – perhaps a six or seven-minute version. Instead, the improvisational vehicle stretched to nearly 19 minutes long and left jaws on the floor across the venue. Maybe the coolest moment of the jam was when they returned to the main theme of the song and ended – only for Trey and Fish to start into a bluesy shuffle that gave us an extra few minutes of music to end the set.
Set two began with the debut of “Outside the Lines,” which gave way to “Ruby Waves.” The Phish vibes began to creep in with the 2022 jam theme of “Jon Fishman destroys everything in his path while Trey goes wild on effects.” Trey continued to absolutely excel in aggression and confidence throughout “Machine” and “About to Run,” his gritty and thick guitar tone sounding truly incredible.
To close the second set, Trey Trio paired jammy Phish classics “The Moma Dance” and “Twist” together. “Moma” contained two very purposeful modulations by Trey where it seemed as though he was pushing for a segue into another song – one of the only full Type II excursions of the weekend. Without losing momentum and riding on the back of some nice ascending interplay with Dezron, Trey dropped into the set-closing “Twist.” Staying in a spacier zone for much of the jam, Dezron activated his envelope filter and kept the groove anchored as Trey played with textures and effects.
For the encore, the trio uncorked an absolutely relentless “A Wave of Hope,” once again producing that 2022-Phish-like jam of relentless drive among layers upon layers of guitar. Trey made liberal use of his Leslie rotating speaker and delay pedals, adding to euphoric peak after euphoric peak.
So…what was the difference between Friday and Saturday at the Mission Ballroom?
Both shows contained new songs and setlists greatly favouring material written in the last few years over Phish and TAB classics. The main difference was the confidence. Trey walked on stage on Saturday night and played guitar like his life depended on it – some of his most aggressive playing in a long time. Maybe it had something to do with the 28-minute “The Moma Dance” from soundcheck? ;)
This does bode well for Phish tour next month…