Continuing a landmark year and putting an exclamation point on a summer tour of the East Coast and Midwest, Phish made a triumphant return to its festival stomping grounds this weekend with Mondegreen, a four-day festival held at The Woodlands in Dover, DE. Phish powered through eight unique sets spanning 75 different songs, totaling almost 14 hours of music, including a special late-night set of soaring improvisation from behind a shroud of cascading projections.
Mondegreen was Phish’s 11th festival. Dating back to the band’s inaugural festival – 1996’s The Clifford Ball – Phish has a long and influential history of staging summer events that have become prototypes and inspiration for music festivals across the U.S. and beyond.
Beyond Mondegreen’s main events – four concerts from Phish - the weekend offered festival goers a once-in-a-lifetime immersive experience, showcasing a dizzying array of interactive art installations and performances, exclusive pop-ups, a 24-hour live radio station, on-site DJ and comedy sets, and much more.
Mondegreen art directors and curators TRIADIC - a creative house and cultural engine based in NYC, London, and Vienna - collaborated with Phish to bring together a series of large-scale, interactive installations, immersive site-specific commissions, and impromptu performances.
At Mondegreen’s very center rose the towering Heliograph, a retro-futuristic beacon inviting fans to ascend its octagonal tower for panoramic views. The Heliograph played host to nightly DJ sets from the likes of Made Of Oak (Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso) and a special Sunday set from the one and only DJ Questlove.
Leigh Fordham Hall - a circus-like tent and theater - hosted live, bespoke game shows like "Mondegreen" (in which contestants tested their lyrical knowledge and vocal chops by deciphering some of the most infamous misheard lyrics) and transformed daily into a comedy club for Here Come The Jokers: Live Comedy at Mondegreen, featuring sets by Rory Scovel, Dave Hill, Jordan Jensen and Gianmarco Soresi.
Nestled in the forest nearby, The Cerealist Bowl speakeasy offered a realm of strange and surreal encounters, where interactive performances from absurdist troupes of costumed entertainers and a secret sake bar - For God’s Sake - unfolded well into the night.
The parallel reality of Nova Heat by artists Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe was housed in a multi-roomed architectural structure with a planetarium at its core, upon which a kaleidoscopic film projection took viewers through a journey of time and space.
Other installations included Museum Of The Moon by Luke Jerram, a floating 21-foot replica of the Moon with lunar surface mapping from NASA, Lars Fisk’s Dodge Ball, and Dutch artist Henk Hofstra’s Eggcident, which brought humor and urgency to climate change with giant fried eggs sizzling on the concert field.
Above it all rose Olivier Grossetête’s monumental City Hall — an 82-feet grandeur of recycled cardboard and tape inspired in its shape and scale by nearby Baltimore City Hall. Powered by Ben & Jerry’s, City Hall was built with help from festival volunteers, and later dismantled and recycled again.
Other highlights included The Bunny, Phish’s now-legendary festival radio station, broadcast live on SiriusXM’s Phish channel 24 hours a day throughout the weekend, a daily newspaper The Daily Greens, the 103rd Running of the Runaway Jim Memorial 5k road race - in which nearly 3,000 runners participated - an onsite farmers market, spa, tattoo studio, and the Bizarre Bazaar, a bespoke marketplace featuring exclusive pop-ups from the likes of Double Wonderful, famed Phish illustrator and print-maker Jim Pollack, the JEMP Records Basement, where fans found limited-edition and festival-only vinyl pressings of their favorite Phish albums, and non-profit organizations The WaterWheel Foundation, Divided Sky Foundation, GrooveSafe, and PHRE.
Although the menu of activities and attractions on hand at Mondegreen was simply astounding, the real highlights were provided by Phish, of course, who delivered a weekend of incredible music, punctuated by an unannounced third set from the main stage late Friday night.
Obscured by an opaque shroud upon which swirling animations were projected - courtesy of Moment Factory, who most recently worked with Phish as co-creative directors at their April residency at Sphere in Las Vegas - the band built on an ambient theme which slowly crescendoed over the course of an hour as the visuals surged in kind.
The set - like the sights and sounds of the entire weekend - was an unexpected treat for the Phish faithful. And Mondegreen – the band’s long-awaited return to the festival stage - delivered a dream-like memory that many will not soon forget.
Phish will conclude its summer tour with its traditional Labor Day Weekend run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, CO, returning for four nights (August 29-September 1). For complete details and ticket availability, please visit phish.com/tours. Looking ahead, Phish has announced their return to the breathtaking beaches of Mexico for the 8th annual Phish: Riviera Maya, set for January 29-February 1, 2025. Packages are available now at phishrivieramaya.com.
