A view of Mike Gordon backstage via Phish’s From the Road Twitter

Phish kicked off a multi-part summer tour last night at Bethel, NY’s Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. It was Phish’s first appearance at the five-year-old venue, which is located on the edge of the actual site where the original Woodstock festival took place in 1969. Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon previously performed at the venue as part of G.R.A.B. in 2006.

The band opened its tour with a solid segue from “Tweezer” into “My Friend, My Friend” but truly kicked into gear during a version of “Wolfman’s Brother” that gradually moved into “Walk Away.” While the show did not contain any new songs or extreme bust outs, Phish quietly nodded it its Woodstock surroundings with a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Bold as Love.”

Phish’s second set featured numerous jam vehicles like “Carini,” Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie on Reggae Woman,” “Waves” and Talking Heads’ “Crosseyed and Painless.” Throughout, the band displayed a new, patient style of jamming that mixed some of the ambient textures of its “2.0” years with the precision of its more recent work.

The Vermont Quartet will return to Bethel tonight.

Here’s a look at last night’s setlist as it appears in our Box Scores section

Friday, May 27, 2011, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Bethel, NY

Set 1: Tweezer > My Friend, My Friend, Poor Heart, Roses Are Free > Funky Bitch, Wolfman’s Brother* > Walk Away, Stash, Bouncing Around the Room, Kill Devil Falls, Bold As Love

Set 2: Carini > Back on the Train, Boogie On Reggae Woman > Waves > Prince Caspian > Crosseyed and Painless > Wading in the Velvet Sea > Possum, The Squirming Coil

Encore: Julius

*Streets Of Cairo tease