_Rene Huemer, via Phish From the Road on_ “_Twitter_”:https://twitter.com/Phish_FTR

Phish continued their summer tour on Saturday night with the first of two shows at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD, a venue they hadn’t played since 2015. After a fun night in Raleigh the previous evening, the band opened its Merriweather run with two relatively straightforward and quick-hitting sets, followed by a rare extended encore.

Set one focused on upbeat, uplifting tunes, kicking off with “Blaze On” into “Party Time,” followed by a trio of tour debuts, “Breath and Burning” “Sugar Shack” and “Home.” After “Joy,” the band dug into the first older tune of the night, “Stash,” then closed the set with another “46 Days,” a tune the band has been leaning on this summer.

The second set opened with a “Sand” that dipped into some funky territory before leading into an extended “Mercury” that ended up as one of the night’s highlights and was paired with a strong “Ghost,” marking the only two tunes of the night to hit the 15-minute mark. “Fuego” elicited some crowd singalongs, and the relatively short set then closed out with “Slave to the Traffic Light.” To make up for their extra time, Phish then returned to the stage for a four-song encore, the first encore of that length since July 2016 (via Scott Marks from phish.net). “Twenty Years Later” and “Martian Monster” saw their first placement in an encore, before the band moved into the tour debut of bluegrass blazer “Rocky Top” and rounded out Saturday’s show with “Golgi Apparatus.”

See the full setlist below as it appears in our Box Scores section. Phish return to the Merriweather Post Pavilion stage tonight for round two, their final show before the band’s festival Curveball in Watkins Glen, NY, this upcoming weekend.

Phish
Merriweather Post Pavilion Columbia, MD

Set I: Blaze On > Party Time, Breath and Burning, Sugar Shack, Home, Joy, Stash, 46 Days

Set II: Sand > Mercury > Ghost > Fuego > Slave to the Traffic Light

Encore: Twenty Years Later > Martian Monster > Rocky Top > Golgi Apparatus

Source: Phish.net