Phish set to play their smallest venue in two decades at the Met

Famed jam band Phish will come to Philadelphia in December for a show at the Met, which will serve as the smallest venue the group has played in nearly two decades.

Set for Dec. 3, the show is an exclusive for subscribers to Pandora and SiriusXM, which will broadcast the performance live on its Phish Radio channel. Launched as a permanent channel on the service back in June, the station features tracks from the band’s 36-year career, as well as live broadcasts from its 2019 tour, and recurring shows hosted by band members.

“It’s been fun firin’ up our own satellite channel,” bassist Mike Gordon said. “And what better way to celebrate Phish Radio than putting on a live show?”

The station will give away pairs of tickets to the upcoming Met show, and SiriusXM will extend invites to subscribers who have opted in for promotional emails. Fans can also enter to win tickets to the show via the SiriusXM website, which features a contest with a Phish-related trivia question. More opportunities to win tickets will be announced as the concert approaches, SiriusXM said in a release.

At 3,500 seats, the Met is the smallest venue Phish has played in almost 20 years. Typically when the group comes to the Philadelphia area, they perform at Camden’s BB&T Pavilion, which has a capacity of 25,000. The band is also known for their annual run of late-December shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City, which typically sell out that 21,000-seat arena for four days of performances.

The Met show, Phish’s debut at that venue, will come in the middle of the group’s fall tour, JamBase reports. That trek kicks off Nov. 29 in Providence, R.I., and wraps in early December in Charleston, S.C. Aside from the date at the Met, Phish has no other upcoming local dates scheduled.

As JamBands.com reports, the show is the group’s smallest since a 2000 performance at the Roseland Ballroom in New York as part of a live concert taping for VH1. The venue, which closed in 2014, had a capacity of about 3,200.

In June, Phish passed through Camden for its 13th time, the Inquirer reported. Despite being maligned by some music fans, the Vermont-based group, Phish aficionado (and Federal Donuts co-founder) Felicia D’Ambrosio wrote, has more than a few aspects with which Philadelphians might identify.

“Were our hearts ever more full than while watching Eagles center Jason Kelce in full Mummers regalia lead the championship parade singing, ‘No one likes us, we don’t care!’?” D’Ambrosio wrote. “Just like Phish fans, our permanent outsider status is worn as a badge of honor; armor against a world that finds us distasteful.”