The Trey Anastasio Band played the first ever show at the Fillmore Auditorium in May 1999, back when promoters handed out free posters and ice-cold apples at the end of each show. The captain of Phish returned Friday, telling the sold-out house he was happy to be back. (Actually his solo troupe played the venue in 2005.) Still, Anastasio, with a rounder sound and a broader crew, promised to “party like itap 1999.”
While Anastasio did not, sadly, conjure any Prince, he led his brass-blasting band through a long night of funky soul, fiery disco and rich jams. While TAB staples like “First Tube,” “Last Tube,” “Sand,” “Money Love and Change,” “Alive Again,” “Gotta Jiboo” and “Mozambique” certainly fueled a mass swooning, the nightap covers stole the show.
Trombone player Natalie Cressman’s soulful, brooding jam in the band’s take on Bob Marley and the Wailer’s “Soul Rebel” marked a highlight of the night. The “MacArthur Park” late in the second set prompted a raging dancefest as Cressman and trumpeter Jennifer Hartswick pushed Anastasio into a funky disco groove in Donna Summers’ version of Jimmy Webb’s seminal tune. A disco ball ricocheted shards of brilliant light across the venue as Anastasio locked with his longtime bassist Tony Markellis in the disco-drenched boogie.
There were plenty of new offerings in the more than three-hour show from Anastasio’s new solo album “Paper Wheels,” his first in three years. “In Rounds,” which Anastasio debuted at the Ogden Theater a few blocks east of the Fillmore in January 2014, featured a Klezmer-Ska theme with the whimsical ditty “skinny little legs / like marionettes / with heads removed / she forgets.” Anastasio’s meandering jam in the new “Sometime After Sunset” echoed with hints of “Harry Hood” while “The Song,” revealed some Anastasio’s most poignant songwriting.
Anastasio returned for an encore laughing, saying he never knows what to play for the closer. After some consultation with his crew, he settled on Phish’s “Ocelet.” Hartswick sent the happy throng home with her earth-shaking rendition of “Dazed and Confused.”
Setlist
I:
1. Intro
2. Drifting
3. First Tube
4. Cayman Review
5. Soul Rebel
6. In Rounds
7. Acting The Devil
8. Money, Love and Change
9. Flying Machines
10. Spin
11. Spin Jam
12. Sometime After Sunset
13. Last Tube
II:
14. Paper Wheels
15. Alive Again
16. The Song
17. Plasma
18. Liquid Time
19. Frost
20. Gotta Jibboo
21. Goodbye Head
22. MacArthur Park
23. Sand
E:
24. Ocelot
25. Dazed and Confused
