Photo: Kravitz/FilmMagic
Fresh off two headlining performances at Bonnaroo last weekend, Phish brought the first half of their first tour in five years to a dynamic end last night at Wisconsin’s Alpine Valley Music Theater. The band took the stage with some special guests — their seven children — before opening with their first rendition of “Brother,” a Middle-Eastern-influenced jam that hadn’t seen the light of day since 2003.

In a fitting Father’s Day tribute that borrowed a joke from a 1992 version where family, friends, and crew members jumped around in a giant bathtub during the performance, the Vermont foursome’s children sat center-stage in a miniature tub for the song’s nonsensical lyric chant, “Somebody’s jumping in the tub with your brother!”

The rest of the lengthy, fourteen-song set included a cover of Son Seals’ “Funky Bitch,” a new ballad, “Joy,” that will probably appear on the band’s upcoming (and still-untitled) album set for release on July 28th, and the return of “The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday,” an late-Eighties composition by guitarist Trey Anastasio. Since its first live performance in 1987, “TMWSIY” has always sandwiched the traditional Jewish prayer, “Avenu Malkenu,” before a reprise of the Phish original. The set closed with a 17-minute version of Anastasio’s newest composition, “Time Turns Elastic,” building to an intense crescendo that left fans awestruck by a band that appears to be firing on all cylinders after the embarrassment of an acrimonious “final tour” in 2004.

Not to be outdone, the second set opened with a rare cover of Talking Heads’ “Crosseyed and Painless,” a tune the band famously covered, along with the rest of Talking Heads’ iconic 1980 album, Remain in Light, for a Halloween performance in 1996. Although rampant rumors of a much-anticipated onstage collaboration with David Byrne at Bonnaroo didn’t come to fruition, “phans” in Wisconsin were treated to a funky, 15-minute version that drifted into a spacey ambient jam before segueing nicely into the band’s own “Down With Disease.” Later in the set, another cover, Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie On, Reggae Woman,” brought a thick, danceable groove before a triumphant version of “Slave to the Traffic Light” closed the set.

Saving the best surprise for last, the band returned for an encore that featured a smoking cover of the Edgar Winter Group’s “Frankenstein,” featuring Anastasio on a five-necked guitar, bassist Mike Gordon on a flame-bedecked bass, and keyboardist Page McConnell on a huge keytar that had previously belonged to James Brown.

Phish return to the stage for a sold-out four night run at Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre, beginning July 30th. The second leg will run through mid-August.

Set List:

Set One:
“Brother”
“Wolfman’s Brother”
“Funky Bitch”
“The Divided Sky”
“Joy”
“Back On The Train”
“Taste”
“Poor Heart”
“The Horse” >
“Silent In The Morning”
“The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday” >
“Avenu Malkenu” >
“The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday”
“Time Turns Elastic”

Set Two:
“Crosseyed & Painless” >
“Down With Disease” >
“Bug” >
“Piper” >
“Wading In The Velvet Sea”
“Boogie On Reggae Woman”
“Slave To The Traffic Light”

Encore:
“Grind”
“Frankenstein”