Phish Reunion   

The Phish Hampton reunion has come and gone, leaving a trail of Phish posters in its wake including some amazing fan art, and some great official prints.

Jim Pollock Official Print

First up, a hand-pressed Pollock Hampton poster commemorating all 3 nights. It's a three-colsor block print in an edition of 750, with Pollock's more traditional oil-based inks.

These ink go on thick, often featuring thumbprints on front, and ink from the previous poster on the back.

The posters were in incredibly high demand as evidenced by the immediate sell-out and crushing poster line in the venue on Friday and pre-show sell-out on Saturday.

If you want one of these, you'll probably have to pick it up on eBay or make a trade on EB.

Andy Cruz & Allen Mercer for House Industries Official Print (x3)

Next up are Andy Cruz & Allen Mercer with a set of three official Phish Hampton posters. There are 950 of each huge 24" x 37" print featuring the same image in different colorways.

These are 6 color Serigraphs on 220gsm archival recycled paper, hand embossed and hand-numbered. Like the Pollock, you can search on eBay or set up a trade.

NOTE: My sincere apologies to Andy Cruz & Allen Mercer from House Industries who are the actual artists for this print. I originally and mistakenly credited Daniel Lahoda as the artist of the print when in fact the poster was simply printed at Lahoda Fine Arts in Los Angeles, CA. My bad.

Phish Hampton Fan Art

Finally, we got a growing gallery of Hampton fan art posters. I'm sure you'll be seeing some of them on lot — but others will likely be much harder to come by.

Michael Everett

Ian Cross

Andrew Ibis

AJ Masthay

Early this morning Phish announced their 2009 Summer Tour dates with another very cool announcement video just like they did for the Phish Hampton Reunion shows. This reunion tour video features skywriters spelling out Phish Summer Tour 2009 while Punch plays in the background. The tour dates (immediately below) are great news for East Coast and Midwest fans — not so much for the South and West.

Read on for tour dates, ticket info, and more.

Update (March 17, 2009)
This morning Phish announced 12 more summer tour dates including Red Rocks, Shoreline, Gorge, and SPAC among others. Learn more about Phish's Late Summer Tour 2009 on Jamtopia.

Phish Tour Dates: Summer Tour 2009

• 5/31

  Fenway Park Boston, MA

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• 6/2

  Nikon at Jones Beach Theater Wantagh, NY

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• 6/4

  Nikon at Jones Beach Theater Wantagh, NY

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• 6/4

  Nikon at Jones Beach Theater Wantagh, NY

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• 6/5

  Nikon at Jones Beach Theater Wantagh, NY

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• 6/6

  Comcast Center (Great Woods) Mansfield, MA

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• 6/7

  Susquehanna Bank Center (E-Centre) Camden, NJ

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• 6/9

  Asheville Civic Center Asheville, NC

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• 6/10

  Thompson-Boling Arena Knoxville, TN

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• 6/16

  Fox Theatre St. Louis, MO

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• 6/18

  Post Gazette Pavilion Burgettstown, PA

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• 6/19

  Verizon Wireless Music Center (Deer Creek) Noblesville, IN

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• 6/20

  Alpine Valley East Troy, WI

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• 6/21

  Alpine Valley East Troy, WI

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Search for Alpine Valley Phish tickets on Jamtopia.

Well you win some you lose some. Seems the information I had was bunk, as this morning the band announced the Phish Summer Tour 2009 dates and they'll actually be playing Alpine Valley on June 20 - 21, 2009. And guess what, rooms at the Lodge are already sold out!

Just a few days after the Phish reunion at Brad Sands' wedding I heard from a reliable source that Phish had booked the Hampton Coliseum for a March 2009 reunion, but in light of the mild uproar from the Steve Lillywhite reunion album rumor I was reluctant to post it.

Well now the cat's out of the bag.

The Phish reunion is official, starting with three nights at the Hampton Coliseum — March 6th, 7th, and 8th, 2009.

Here's how the announcement went down…

Early in the afternoon yesterday (Sept. 30) the folks over at Merry Swankster were first to publicly nail the venue and tour dates, in a post that was quickly picked up by Relix. Props for that.

Then, shortly after dusk last night, the Hood blimp was spotted on a reconnaissance mission at the venue (see photo above).

Next, at about 11:45 PM Eastern tonight (Oct. 1) a PTer named tourphish started a 3AM EST Phish Announcement Thread, the content of which would later prove him to be either (a) connected to someone with inside knowledge, or (b) able to predict the future. I'm guessin' he's connected.

Finally, at about 3:15 AM on the East coast Phish.com was updated with a cool time-lapse video shot overhead while an artist paints a large Hampton Coliseum-themed painting announcing the tour dates. My heart was racing right along with the background track. There's was also an official announcement as well as information about how to get Phish tickets.

Meanwhile, if you haven't already booked a hotel room on Coliseum Drive Strip for the Phish reunion you're shit outta luck. All the “good” hotels are already overbooked that weekend.

But perhaps the best news of all was saved for last, at the very end of the official announcement on Phish.com… the band intends to announce additional 2009 tour dates early next year!

Who's got my extra?

Update (October 1st, 3:40 AM): Scotty B over at Hidden Track has a real nice Hampton Reunion post with an archive of Phish Hampton setlists and videos plus some Phish Hampton stats. Nice work Scotty. I've also added links to more Phish reunion coverage to this post.

Update (October 1st, 6:00 PM): Wow. Phish tickets are already showing up on eBay despite not even really being on sale yet. Given that, you can now use the Jamtopia Ticket Finder to research Phish ticket prices and find cheap Phish tickets for Hampton — or at least find the cheapest Phish tickets on eBay at any given time.

Update (October 19th): The onsale date has come and gone, and like most of you I worked both the phones and Ticketmaster.com and have nothing to show for it. Well, almost nothing. I did learn a number of Ticketmaster tips which I'll be sharing in a subsequent post. Meanwhile, the near impossibility of getting these tickets has inspired at least a few rants, including the simply titled “I Hate Ticketmaster” chronicling one fan's attempt to beat the odds.

Developing story here… I've just received word that there was a full Phish reunion at the wedding of Brad Sands and Mariel Speier tonight, at Midtown Loft and Terrace in New York City.

It sucked compared to SCI's future reunion.*
― Michael Kang

The foursome reunited for three songs — Julius, Suzy Greenberg, and Waste — just 1,483 days since they called it quits at Coventry.

Brad Sands is the band's longtime road manager, forever immortalized in Bittersweet Motel when why Trey tells him, “kiss my ass you fuckin' tool.” And hey, there's still a few things on Mariel and Brad's wedding registry so if you're feeling generous, you know what to do.

Scroll down for video, pictures, and other coverage of the Phish reunion at Brad Sands' wedding.

* Just kidding. Props to andyctree for this joke.

Update (October 1, 2008): It's official! Very early this morning the Phish Reunion in Hampton was announced, with the band slated to play March 6-8 at the Hampton Coliseum! See you there.