Phish Sphere Shows Revel in the Vegas Venue's Unreal Possibilities

Original source (on modern site) | Article images: [1]

Most big live-entertainment venues weren't built with music as the first priority. The arenas and stadiums where you can catch the biggest acts are by and large optimized for sports, not sound. In this regard, and in many other ways, Sphere—the "The" is very much not Sphere's preferred nomenclature—is a world apart. Madison Square Garden boss James Dolan spent $2.3 billion to build this high-tech temple to audio and visual obsessiveness in Las Vegas, and after five years of construction it finally opened last September, with a U2 residency that was repeatedly extended to a total of 40 nights.

Even before you get anywhere near it, Sphere commands attention. The venue's instantly iconic "exosphere" utilizes 580,000 square feet of LEDs to display high-definition video art and advertisements day and night. You'll first glimpse it from afar, bulging up like a mysterious alien orb between hotels on the Strip, or reflected, glimmering, in a glass façade. "Whoa—Sphere," you'll find yourself acknowledging, to no one in particular. Sphere claims you can even see Sphere from space, although this may or may not be true.

Sphere is all superlatives, and it's challenging to write about the place without getting lost in hyperbolic white noise. But it really is a one-of-a kind live-music Valhalla, and there really is no large-scale concert experience to rival it anywhere on this planet. Scoff at the hype all you want: Sooner or later an artist you really dig will announce a Sphere residency, and you'll inevitably find yourself struggling to decide how much money you can justify spending on a night inside this marvelous thing.

The second band to headline Sphere was Phish, another institution equally unburdened by definite articles. Over the course of its 40-year career, the Vermont quartet has staked out a subculture of its own making by doing things its own way, focusing most of its energy on the live concert experience as opposed to album sales, cultivating an obsessive fan base through tireless touring and an uncompromising commitment to improvisation. Mainstream culture may have filed Phish under "jam band" long ago, but at its core the outfit is really a theatrical rock band, purveyors of psychedelia mutated by eclectic influences ranging from prog to bluegrass to barbershop, not to mention the occasional use of vacuum cleaners as wind instruments.

Phish booked just four nights at Sphere, far fewer than the market craved; face-value tickets for the Thursday-to-Sunday run sold out in nanoseconds, as did Ticketmaster's extortionary "platinum" tickets, for prices that made most responsible adults ask themselves questions like, "Christ on a cracker, is this really worth over a grand a ticket?" (Or as slightly less responsible parents might have wondered, "But when you think about it, is college still worth the investment?")