Last fall, when members of Phish - guitarist Trey Anastasio, drummer Jon Fishman, bassist Mike Gordon, and keyboardist Page McConnell announced the band would take the stage again for the first time in four years, tickets for the three-night stand at Hampton Coliseum in Virginia sold out immediately.

Watch Phish "Slave To The Traffic Light" video from The Clifford Ball DVD:

Phish on amazon.com

Phish on amazon.co.uk

This month, the band announced additional dates, marking a return to the road for one of the most successful touring bands of all time. Tickets for this second touring leg go on sale this weekend.

JEMP Records and Rhino start the celebration a few days before Phish's highly anticipated March 2009 shows with a 7-DVD collection documenting The Clifford Ball, a landmark concert event that drew more than 70,000 fans to upstate New York in August of 1996. It was the largest concert event of 1996 in North America and set the tone for music festivals including Bonnaroo and Coachella.

The Clifford Ball was the first of seven two-day spectacles the band staged, which included The Great Went a year later, followed by Lemonwheel in 1998 and culminating in Big Cypress - the largest ticketed event in the world for the millennium celebrations, drawing over 90,000. The Clifford Ball was held in Plattsburgh, New York, at a decommissioned air force base, during which Phish played two marathon concerts which include several on-stage guests.

The DVDs contain all three sets and encores the band played each night, along with bonus footage - more than 9 hours of live improvisation. The bonus DVD presents choice rarities including a soundcheck from August 15, their "Flatbed Jam" performed in the wee hours of the morning on the back of a truck, an interview with longtime Phish artist Jim Pollock, interviews with Phish and more.

The Clifford Ball DVD Preorder is currently ongoing at Phish Dry Goods.

The Clifford Ball DVD tracklist:

Disc 1
Day One (8/16/1996) - Set One
1. Chalk Dust Torture
2. Bathtub Gin
3. Ya Mar
4. AC/DC Bag
5. Esther
6. The Divided Sky
7. Halley's Comet
8. David Bowie

Disc 2
Day One (8/16/1996) - Set Two
1. Split Open and Melt
2. Sparkle
3. Free
4. The Squirming Coil
5. Waste
6. Talk
7. Train Song
8. Strange Design
9. Hello My Baby
10. Mike's Song
11. Simple
12. Contact
13. Weekapaug Groove

Disc 3
Day One (8/16/1996) - Set Three
1. Makisupa Policeman
2. 2001
3. Down With Disease
4. NICU
5. Life on Mars
6. Harry Hood
Encore
7. Amazing Grace

Disc 4
Day Two (8/17/1996) - Set One
1. Old Home Place
2. Punch You In The Eye
3. Reba
4. Cars Trucks Buses
5. The Lizards
6. Sample In A Jar
7. Taste
8. Fee
9. Maze
10. Suzy Greenberg

Disc 5
Day Two (8/17/1996) - Set Two
1. The Curtain
2. Runaway Jim
3. It's Ice
4. Brother
5. Fluffhead
6. Run Like An Antelope
7. Golgi Apparatus
8. Slave To The Traffic Light

Disc 6
Day Two (8/17/1996) - Set Three
1. Wilson
2. Frankenstein
3. Scent Of A Mule
4. Tweezer
5. A Day In The Life
6. Possum
7. Tweezer Reprise
Encore
8. Harpua

Disc 7
Bonus
1. The Clifford Ball: A Beacon of Light
2. The Flatbed Jam
3. Soundcheck (8/15/1996)
4. An Interview with Jim Pollock
5. Chris Kuroda Split-Screen
6. Phish: On Jamming
7. Phish: The LG

Jemp Records

Phish tour / ticket information

Phish Dry Goods

Phish Official Website

Phish will launch its first summer tour in five years with a two-night stand at the Nikon Theatre at Jones Beach in Wantagh, NY on June 4th and 5th. Yesterday the band resumed rehearsals, which began in November, in preparation for the upcoming shows.

Phish on amazon.com

Phish on amazon.co.uk

An online ticket request period is currently underway at http://www.phish.tickets.musictoday.com. Tickets will go on sale to the general public the weekend of January 30th and 31st, 2009. For information on where to purchase tickets, visit http://www.phish.com/tourdates.

Phish's summer tour will be preceded by a trio of concerts (March 6th, 7th and 8th) at Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The shows at the 13,800-capacity venue sold out just seconds after tickets went on sale last fall. They will mark the group's first concerts since its August 2004 performance at the Coventry festival in Vermont.

On March 3rd, Phish will release The Clifford Ball on JEMP Records/Rhino. This major archival release features the band's entire performance at the 1996 festival, which was the largest concert in North America that year and the first of many two-day festivals staged by the group. Over 70,000 fans turned out for the event, which was held at a decommissioned Air Force base in Plattsburgh, NY. The seven-DVD box set will contain more than nine hours of music, including a bonus disc with Phish's extended soundcheck, its late night flatbed truck jam and a 30-minute featurette with exclusive behind-the-scenes footage. The original multi-track recordings have been remixed for stereo and 5.1 audio. Fans can pre-order The Clifford Ball at http://drygoods.phish.com.

Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983, Phish quickly became renowned for its live performances. "Phish offers something rare in pop: a long, complex, and completely different show every night," said the Village Voice. The GRAMMY®-nominated band became one of the top touring groups in the U.S. and, by 1998, Rolling Stone had proclaimed Phish the most important band of the decade.

Phish - comprising guitarist/vocalist Trey Anastasio, drummer Jon Fishman, bassist Mike Gordon and keyboardist Page McConnell - has released 11 studio albums, five concert videos and a series of 44 complete live concert CDs, including 13 on its own JEMP Records. In addition, the band offers a selection of 88 full concert downloads at livephish.com. LivePhish.com is Phish's digital download store and has been widely hailed as one of the first band sites to offer high-quality, unedited soundboard recordings of full concerts.

Phish June 2009 US Tour Dates:

(Dates and information subject to change.)

6/4 Wantagh, NY - Nikon Theatre at Jones Beach
6/5 Wantagh, NY - Nikon Theatre at Jones Beach
6/6 Mansfield, MA - Comcast Center
6/7 Camden, NJ - Susquehanna Bank Center
6/9 Asheville, NC - Asheville Civic Center
6/16 St. Louis, MO - Fox Theatre
6/18 Burgettstown, PA - Post Gazette Pavilion
6/19 Noblesville, IN - Verizon Wireless Music Center
6/20 East Troy, WI - Alpine Valley
6/21 East Troy, WI - Alpine Valley

Phish Official Website