The Story Behind PHISH’s Festival 8 “BOREALIS” (lighted sky sculpture)

October 30, 2010 in art, Music, Technology, With Video

Last year, the Vermont 4-piece, PHISH triumphantly returned to the stage with a full tour, culminating in a 3-day extravaganza over Halloween weekend, entitled FESTIVAL 8.  The event was held at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, Ca, where the band played 8 total sets; including one acoustic set and one which featured them covering the Rolling Stones masterpiece Exile on Main St in its entirety, with the assistance of the remarkable Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.  It was an impressive weekend overall, but one thing that really stood out was a lighted sculpture that took flight and boggled the minds of many of us that were in attendance.  Being the inquisitive and science/astronomy/technology obsessed little gent that he is, our writer ONSEN took it upon himself to track down the creators of the structure and compile the intriguing and fascinating piece that we have presented below for you. Since it was originally written, the 3-dimensional FESTIVAL 8 film was released in theaters, offering many of you who weren’t in attendance at the actual festival to have the opportunity to get a glimpse of the crazy lighted device in action.  For whatever the reason (timing, sloth, misguidance, etc) this article never made it onto the site until now.  Tomorrow night, PHISH will be unveiling and performing another cover of another artists’ legendary work, in their typical Halloween tradition.  This time their performance will be held at the Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall in NJ.  For everyone that’s there, we say, “have a great time, set something on fire for us, and don’t steal anybody else’s shit“.  Posting this article the day before Halloween may mean that we have waited and pushed this topic out right at the very last possible moments of relevance, but I hope that you will feel about it as I do.  This is an interesting piece, presented in a concise, informative, and entertaining fashion by a friend of ours who put in a lot of extra work to bring some fascinating information to light, and it still reads as such.  To you, I say thanks for reading it.  To ONSEN, I say, thanks for writing it.  And to everyone… sorry it took so long.

-DEAD C

{simply click on them to enlarge any of the images below & view at full size}
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Hitler learns the Halloween Phish Album For Festival 8 [VIDEO]

October 8, 2009 in Comedy, Global Destruction, Movies / Television, Music, The Web, With Video

YouTube Preview Image

I just saw this video and actually laughed out loud over it.  I was in the middle of dealing with another post, but I had to drop everything to get this up here now, because:

(A) It’s relevancy is time specific

and

(2) I think people need to see it.

You may have seen the other similar versions of this video with different subtitles related to gaming, football, or even Michael Jackson.  It’s become a growing meme recently, but I feel that this PHISH-related video is still done particularly well.  If you’re curious about the original source footage, it was taken from a 2004 German-Austrian film titled Der Untergang (aka: Downfall).

If you’re feeling left in the dark, you can always check out a couple of our other Festival 8 related posts:

Last Record Left Alive : PHISH Festival 8 Halloween Musical Costume

Where the PHUCK is it Already?! [PHISH's Halloween Festival]

Last Record Left Alive : PHISH Festival 8 Halloween Musical Costume

September 29, 2009 in Music, The Web

Phish-Halloween-card

[Scroll to the bottom for recent Updates as they arrive]

Earlier this year, PHISH posted an animated flash map, which sent their fanbase on an apeshit crazy hunt to figure out the location of the 3-Day Halloween Festival.  The location was finally disclosed as the Empire Polo Fields in Indio, CA but, although it is a major detail, it is only one of multiple questions that has been answered, regarding the festivities.  Slowly more and more information is being released.  The official schedule is up, which involves the bands first ever all-acoustic set (donuts and coffee provided).  The main question that’s been racking everyone’s brain, however, is what PHISH will be playing for their Halloween set.  Now another new interactive, flash animation feature is slowly providing that information as well. Read the rest of this entry →

PHISH Updates: Festival 8 info/site & “Joy” cover art/release date/track list

July 24, 2009 in Music, PSA, The Web

PHISH-Festival-8

So now that all of the ridiculous map bullshit is over and people can finally sleep without wondering if they have to cancel their plans or if they should have never canceled them in the first place, PHISH and their fans, who got sucked into the brilliantly deployed marketing scheme, are finally able to get down to business.   The band has created a website for their latest festival and have broken down the details that so many have been anxiously awaiting.  The boys have also released new information regarding an alternate release date and track list for for their upcoming album ” JOY“, as well as the cover art.  I’m tired of writing about this shit, so I’m gonna just let the press release do all of the talking for me. Read the rest of this entry →

It’s O-PHISH-AL: Halloween Festival is in Cali

July 23, 2009 in Global Destruction, Music, PSA, The Web

Save the Date Indio

Last Saturday, PHISH‘s “Save the Date” map returned the state of Washington and confused the shit out of everyone.  People began to wonder if that meant something specific to Washington Stare or, clearly, just that states could return.  Since then, nothing has happened at all.  NOTHING!  Today the drama and mindgames have finally ended (we hope) as a gigantic drill came in a drained all of the remaining states away, until only the great Northwest was left.  Then the drill came in, threaded a hole through the southern portion of the state, and let the colors drip down south until it refilled the state of Cali.  Looks like all of the speculation was correct from the get go and the 3 day festival will be held at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio.  Although it wasn’t delivered with the dramatic hot air balloon re-entry that everyone envisioned, our recent poll showed that most folks never lost their faith and certainty that Cali, and more specifically Indio, would be the final destination.  This is gonna hit hard for everyone that originally booked hotel and plane reservations for So Cal and then cancelled them, once it was removed from the map.  I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of shit talking from all sides on this one.  With all the stress, anxiety, and speculation, is there really any wonder that there are so many xanny bar addictions on tour?

Everyone seems to know where the show will be held, but there has to be more to come on PHISH.com, because the venue location hasn’t had it’s final announcement yet.  It’s also important to note that,  although Alaksa was taken out, the state of Hawaii was never addressed through the flash animation advertisement scheme.  I hope it doesn’t drift over to California and take it with it.  This should be the end of this shit….right?

To check out our previous post about the “Save the Date” situation, which includes the poll/some background info about what’s been going down with whole scenario/why all signs pointed to Indio in the first place, click here.

Where the PHUCK is it Already?! [PHISH's Halloween Festival] {w/Poll}

July 18, 2009 in Global Destruction, Music, PSA, The Web

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.For the better part of a month, an adobe flash map has been going apeshit on PHISH.com and the phans are going even crazier.  Nothing else has been announced beyond what the image implies: [There will be a 3-Day Festival from Oct. 30-Nov. 1]  “But where is the festival being held?” you ask?   That’s exactly the point; nobody seems to know for sure.  One or more of the states are slowly being blacked out on the map at a time, usually in some elaborate fashion.  Some ways in which they have been removed are: a pinball ricocheting around and smacking into them, a lawnmower or segway(?) passing over, devoured by fire ants, and, sometimes, the States just blow the fuck up like an Al Qaeda attack.  People are checking in daily like the map was a goddamn Christmas advent calendar filled with chocolates.  No other band but PHISH could pull something like this off.  They blow a shit ton of money on a festival, don’t even announce what portion of the country it will be located in, and they still have people going Harriet the Spy on this bitch and scouring the virtual globe, like Carmen San Diego just hopped a cessna after kidnapping their only child.  The thing about them is that, although they are being cocky as fuck with it, they always back it up and the PHISH Halloween shows have become legendary. Read the rest of this entry →