Phish held their first festival, Mondegreen, in over 9 years (6 years since the cancellation of their last fest, Curveball) so naturally, we had to travel back to the US from Portugal to attend! Throughout the 4-day festival, we captured our favorite moments and created mini vlogs designed to give Phish Phans an in-the-moment experience even if they couldn’t attend this epic fest. This blog puts all our Phish Mondegreen content in one place while hopefully sharing glimpses into why we love Phish and the community of fans.
What is Phish?
Phish is an American psychedelic rock jam band with four band members that play music and a lighting designer, Chris Kuroda, who is often considered the 5th member of the band.
The members of Phish that you see on stage are: Trey Anastasio (guitar & vocals), Jon Fishman (drums & vacuum), Mike Gordon (sassy bass & vocals), and Page McConnell (keys, sandwich lover, & songwriter). They play improvisational music together, never playing the same show twice despite playing nearly 2,000 shows together. It’s not uncommon for one Phish song to be over 30 minutes long.
Phish’s music incorporates several genres (which is why they chose a name like Phish – you don’t really know what to expect until you listen). They have quirky songs like Your Pet Cat where fans will meow along, songs that lean more hard rock like Carini, feel good songs where you can’t help but dance along like Everything’s Right and Soul Planet, bluegrass songs like Poor Heart, and songs where you don’t really know what’s going on but you’re down for the ride anyway like the vocal jams of YEM and Fishman’s vacuum solos during I Didn’t Know.
It’s not just the music that makes us love Phish – it’s the community. Just as Taylor Swift fans are called Swifties, Phish fans are called Phans (fans of both are called Swiphties). They are as dedicated (I’d argue even more dedicated) to the band as Swifties are to Taylor.
Phish is one of the only bands where seeing them 30 times is still considered a newbie among Phans; it’s not uncommon to meet people attending their 100th, 150th, or even 300th Phish show. We first got into Phish in 2018 and since then, Mike has seen 37 shows and I’ve seen 28… that means we average 9 shows per year!
Why is this back story even here? Because of the community around Phish, festivals like Mondegreen are like an adult summer camp/Phamily reunion where we camp in the woodlands with our closest friends, most of whom we meet at Phish shows around the world, in line waiting for Phish, or online in Phan-run Facebook groups.
Phish festival Mondegreen
mondegreen (noun) mon·de·green ˈmän-də-ˌgrēn: a word or phrase that results from a mishearing especially of something recited or sung
One key ingredient to Phish is their sense of humor. Many of their lyrics have multiple layers that just make you laugh once you get it. Phish’s festival was called Mondegreen because so many of their songs include mondegreens. For example, their song “Alaska” is also “I’ll Ask Her” or the “The Moma Dance” is “The Moment Ends”. They jam out while jumping on trampolines, weave songs together to melt minds of Phans, and have smiles on their faces throughout the entire show. Even though they have the most unserious moments, they treat their art with serious dedication, which was reflected at every level within Mondegreen.
The Full Monde Glamping Experience
Mondegreen took place at The Woodlands in Dover, Delaware. These grounds have been home to Firefly Festival for years, so it was the perfect spot with built in infrastructure to handle the 50k+ phans attending this year’s Phish festival. This fest had multiple packages for camping, glamping, hotel stays, and day-passes. Here’s a look at our Full Monde Bell Tent setup:
We lived in our 1986 van for three years while traveling to concerts around the US and Mexico, so this was the first time we had even considered a glamping package. Because we moved to Portugal last year, we decided to opt for the Full Monde since we would be traveling internationally to the fest.
It was 1000% the best choice we made, especially because many of our friends also opted for the Full Monde camping option. It meant we were super close to the entrance, had a pre-set tent with A/C, and experienced some exclusive areas like Sharon in the Grove:
The Mondegreen Community Experience
The reason I really started to get into Phish was the community. Mike had met a few really cool people at his first Phish Dick’s (a 3-day run in Denver, CO) while waiting in line. He came home telling me how they all went solo to the concert, ended up waiting in line together for hours, and spent the whole show together dancing away. One of these new friends ended up sending me a tie dye scarf in the mail even though we never even met – she thought I’d like it based on what she and Mike had talked about. Fast forward a couple years, we ended up going to several shows together, Mike car camped outside her house for the Berkeley shows, and we all ended up going to see Phish in Mexico together!
It’s the community, and not just the music, that really keeps Phans coming back show after show. Mondegreen fully embraced this sense of coming together by encouraging fan-run events and gathering throughout the entire festival, starting with the campground setup.
Each campground had camping hubs with general stores for items festival-goers may have forgotten, food and drink options, and shaded seating areas to hang out with Phriends or just get out of your tent for a while. There were also pods throughout the campgrounds, which held community-run events and meetups.
Some pod events included:
- Homocollector meetup for LGBTQIA+ Phans
- Popup open jam sessions
- Uno tournament
- Craft beer exchange
- Late-night dance parties and DJ sets
- Waffle brunches
- Group yoga and therapy sessions
- Meet and greets
- Phish Chicks (women Phan meetup)
- Sticker exchange
- Taylor Swift x Phish Swiphtie meetup
Here’s a mini vlog of the Phan-run Mondegreen Swiphtie Meetup and Sticker Exchange:
Cell phone service was limited for many of us throughout the festival (we didn’t have any service inside the festival and barely any at our campground after Day 1). This made gave Mondegreen throwback vibes to the time before smartphones where you had to coordinate where to meet and when. Our conversations often went something like “Ok everyone that wants to go to the show together, meet at the giant fried eggs at 6pm.” It was funny and liberating to be unplugged!
To keep Phans in the loop, Relix released The Daily Greens each day. This daily newspaper shared highlights and important things to know throughout the festival. We were even featured in the first issue of The Daily Greens because of our Swiphtie and Portugal flags!
Another amazing community project was the building of City Hall out of cardboard by volunteers. This impressive structure looked amazing at night and during sunsets, lasting until Deconstruction Day on Saturday where Phans were notified via the Mondegreen app that anyone was welcome to tear down City Hall in the rain.
The construction of City Hall was the first of many official events hosted by Mondegreen. Many people reached out to us on socials confused that we were attending a 4-day festival with only one band playing each night. People in Phish Facebook groups were concerned leading up to Mondegreen that there wouldn’t be enough to do throughout the fest… and they were proven wrong.
The Phish Mondegreen Festival Experience
Phish Mondegreen was packed with official activities, art exhibits, and places to explore throughout the entire festival. Even though we were there Wednesday – Sunday night, we still didn’t have time to experience everything the fest offered. Here’s our sneak peek of the festival grounds before many people had arrived:
Day 1 was all about exploring the venue and finding all the hidden spots around the festival. Some of our favorites were The Moon Museum and Googly Eye Forest where the artists massively played with the scale of their art to create larger than life pieces.
Here’s a quick look at the Googly Eye Forest:
One of the most Phisy of Phish interactive experiences was The Cerealist Bowl, which took festival-goers into a Alice in Wonderland world on a mission to find The Time Keeper to be invited to the secret room. As crazy as that sounds, it is exactly what it sounds like and we only know a few people that successfully were invited by The Time Keeper.
@kb_ness #phish #mondegreen #cerealistbowl #musicfestival ♬ original sound – Karen Nesser
Phish had activities for every type of Phan: corn hole tournaments, set break yoga sessions, beer tasting, tattoo stations, spa services, guided meditations, and even a 5k through the Dover Motor Speedway (which I participated in 🙂 )!
Although Phish was the only official band at Mondegreen, the festival had late-night comedy acts and DJ sets to keep Phans entertained throughout the day and into the morning hours. Here’s a mini vlog of DJ Questlove’s set at the Heliograph on Day 4:
The Phish Mondegreen Music Experience
Ok ok yes, the festival, camping, and community is what made us super excited for this festival, but the music is the biggest part too! Phish usually plays for over 3 hrs each night with 2 full sets and an encore. What made this different than a typical Phish concert or multi-day run is this fest gave fans the opportunity to listen to the music in whichever way they liked best.
Phans could wait up by the rails for hours to get a close spot, sit on a grassy hill watching from afar, get a look from above on the ferris wheel, or dance around the festival grounds experiencing a different vibe in each area. Mondegreen truly was a choose-your-own adventure type of festival which made it extra fun and Phishy!
We even know a Phan that went back to their campsite during set break, took a shower, and returned to their spot for the second set of the show. They said it was the best Phish experience they’d ever had because of how easy it was to come and go.
Phish ended up playing 6 full sets at night and 1 super set during the day, each with encores!
And of course, one of the best parts of the fest was night 2 where Phish played a secret-not-so-secret, Mondegreen Ambient Jam, with ribboned screens creating an entrancing jam into the morning hours.
I watched most of this set from The Moon Museum where the lighting looked like glittering stars next to a glowing giant moon.
See the full Mondegreen Ambient Jam on Phish’s YouTube channel:
One of my favorite and happiest moments of the fest was the Beach Ball day – it was just so filled with happiness and joy from the Phans. Looking around seeing everybody dancing and smiling from ear to ear really made me realize Mondegreen would be a Phish fest that I’ll remember forever.
Thank you to Phish, everyone that helped put this festival together, and our amazing friends that made this experience one of the best weeks we’ve ever had! Until the next fest, subscribe to our newsletter for music tourism and international living (we share fun festival giveaways from time to time too)!
PS if you want some fun fan-made Phish merch like the Taylor Swift x Phish shirt, check out our online shop Live Music Threads
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