LAS VEGAS (AP) — Phish opened its four-night stay at the Sphere Thursday with a four-hour show that used the advanced technology in the $2.3 billion arena to deliver a show that even the band's most ardent fans have never experienced before.
“We came in really wanting to do a show that was a great Phish show,” said Abigail Rosen Holmes, who is running the visual show. She said the band and its creative team wanted to mix the Sphere’s technical capabilities and consider “what can we do for Phish that we maybe couldn’t do for any other artist?”
Click to Gallery
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Phish opened its four-night stay at the Sphere Thursday with a four-hour show that used the advanced technology in the $2.3 billion arena to deliver a show that even the band's most ardent fans have never experienced before.
This image shows the exterior of the Sphere on Thursday, April 18, in Las Vegas. The light displays on the exopshere are created with 1.2 million individual lights, each of which can show more than a billion colors. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)
The group Phish rehearses before the band's four night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
The group Phish rehearses before the band's four night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Trey Anastasio, guitarist and singer-songwriter of the band Phish, rehearses before the group's four-night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
The group Phish rehearses before the band's four night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Abigail Rosen Holmes, show director and co-creative director for the band Phish's upcoming show at the Sphere, works in the control booth during rehearsals on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Abigail Rosen Holmes, show director and co-creative director for the band Phish's upcoming show at the Sphere, works in the control booth during rehearsals on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Page McConnell, keyboardist for the band Phish rehearses before the group's four night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Wires run between sections of light on one of the individual screens behind the stage of the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)
Keyboardist Page McConnell, left, and Trey Anastasio, guitarist and singer-songwriter of the band Phish, rehearse before the group's four-night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
The exterior of the Sphere is pictured on Friday, April 19, 2024, in Las Vegas. The band Phish started its four-night residency on Thursday. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)
Here’s how Phish is creating a set of shows that even fans who’ve seen the band perform hundreds of times won’t have experienced before.
While Phish shows usually get their visual punch from lighting guru Chris Kuroda’s massive lighting rig, these shows are completely different as the band uses custom visuals on the 160,000-square foot 16K-by-16K LED screen.
Three-dimensional blue bars moving and spinning in time and growing to meet beams of light falling from the ceiling. Live video of the band playing, cut into pieces. A wall of psychedelic-colored cars blinking their lights with a long improvisational jam. Easter eggs from Phish’s history — like the vacuum cleaner drummer Jon Fishman sometimes plays — falling from the ceiling. A naturescape that then morphs into a fantasy world.
Holmes sits in the center of the arena controlling the visuals in real-time, mixing the elements created with Montreal-based entertainment studio Moment Factory to match the band’s performance.
Kuroda sits beside her, using six light towers behind the stage plus spotlights to find the right moments to bring people back to the band on stage.
Toward the end of Thursday night’s show, Kuroda started to spotlight individual members of the band, sending a simple black silhouette onto the wall. The silhouette then burst into a reddened field of 20 silhouettes throughout the arena.
There are 1,600 permanent speakers, along with 300 mobile speaker modules, that use a 3D audio beamforming and wave field synthesis technology to spread sound throughout the venue. The system allows for individual instruments to be heard from different parts of the arena. “It’s like pinpoints of sound and thousands and thousands of them,” says Phish’s Trey Anastasio.
There are 17,500 seats inside the Sphere, every one of which will be filled with a Phish fan this week, along with about 2,500 standing on the floor. The seats use haptic technology, so every bass line and drum kick from the band can be felt from your chair — for those actually sitting and not standing up and dancing.
U2 performed 40 shows to open the Sphere. Phish sold out its four shows this week within minutes and considered doing more, but decided they wanted to create four unique visual and music experiences to match the band’s history of never repeating the same show twice.
“I don’t know that we could have done it any other way,” said Page McConnell, Phish’s piano/organ/keyboard player. “We do it for us. We do it for the audience. It keeps it interesting for us and it keeps it interesting for them. And it’s what people like about us.”
There are 1.2 million LED “pucks” that make up the 580,000-square feet exosphere, each of which can display more than 1 billion colors. The display has become an instant tourist attraction in Las Vegas, seen from hotel rooms around the Strip and from planes above. It cycles through various funky visuals, including a giant yellow blinking smiley face and a furry creature. This week it includes a digital billboard for Phish.
This image shows one of the individual screens at the Sphere and the hundreds of light nodes it contains on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. The screen at the Sphere is 160,000 square feet and shows images and video in 16K x 16K resolution. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)
This image shows the exterior of the Sphere on Thursday, April 18, in Las Vegas. The light displays on the exopshere are created with 1.2 million individual lights, each of which can show more than a billion colors. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)
The group Phish rehearses before the band's four night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
The group Phish rehearses before the band's four night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Trey Anastasio, guitarist and singer-songwriter of the band Phish, rehearses before the group's four-night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
The group Phish rehearses before the band's four night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Abigail Rosen Holmes, show director and co-creative director for the band Phish's upcoming show at the Sphere, works in the control booth during rehearsals on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Abigail Rosen Holmes, show director and co-creative director for the band Phish's upcoming show at the Sphere, works in the control booth during rehearsals on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Page McConnell, keyboardist for the band Phish rehearses before the group's four night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Wires run between sections of light on one of the individual screens behind the stage of the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)
Keyboardist Page McConnell, left, and Trey Anastasio, guitarist and singer-songwriter of the band Phish, rehearse before the group's four-night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
The exterior of the Sphere is pictured on Friday, April 19, 2024, in Las Vegas. The band Phish started its four-night residency on Thursday. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to mend ties with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday and offered measured optimism about progress toward a cease-fire deal for Gaza as he neared the end of a contentious U.S. visit that put on display the growing American divisions over support for the Israeli-Hamas war.
At Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, where the two men met face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years, Netanyahu told journalists he wanted to see U.S.-mediated talks succeed for a cease-fire and release of hostages.
“I hope so,” Netanyahu said, when reporters asked if his U.S. trip had made progress. While Netanyahu at home is increasingly accused of resisting a deal to end the 9-month-old war to stave off the potential collapse of his far-right government when it ends, he said Friday he was "certainly eager to have one. And we’re working on it.”
As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahu’s top wishes from the United States. Yet relations soured after Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden for his 2020 presidential victory, which Trump continues to deny.
The two men now have a strong interest in restoring their relationship, both for the political support their alliance brings and for the luster it gives each with their conservative supporters.
A beaming Trump was waiting for Netanyahu on the stone steps outside his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. He warmly clasped the hands of the Israeli leader.
“We’ve always had a great relationship,” Trump insisted before journalists. Asked as the two sat down in a muraled room for talks if Netanyahu’s trip to Mar-a-Lago was repairing their bond, Trump responded, “It was never bad.”
For both men, Friday’s meeting was aimed at highlighting for their home audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage, and can again.
Netanyahu’s Florida trip followed a fiery address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday that defended his government’s conduct of the war and condemned American protesters galvanized by the killing of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the conflict.
On Thursday, Netanyahu had met in Washington with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who appears on track to becoming the new Democratic presidential nominee after Biden decided to step out of the race. Both pressed the Israeli leader to work quickly to wrap up a deal to bring a cease-fire and release hostages held by Hamas.
Trump’s campaign said he pledged in Friday's meeting to “make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East” and combat antisemitism on college campuses if American voters elect him to the presidency in November.
Netanyahu handed Trump a framed photo that the Israeli leader said showed a child who has been held hostage by Hamas-led militants since the first hours of the war. “We’ll get it taken care of,” Trump assured him.
In a speech later Friday before a group of young Christian conservatives, Trump said he also asked Netanyahu during their meeting how “a Jewish person, or a person that loves Israel” can vote for Democrats.
He also laced into Harris for missing Netanyahu's speech and claimed she “doesn’t like Jewish people” and “doesn’t like Israel." Harris has been married to a Jewish man for a decade.
For Trump, the meeting was a chance to be cast as an ally and statesman, as well as to sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.
Divisions among Americans over U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza have opened cracks in years of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of U.S. aid.
For Netanyahu, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect that Trump may once again become president of the United States, which is Israel’s vital arms supplier and protector.
One gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, and in his much hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.
“Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
For the next six months, that means “mending ties with an irascible, angry president," Miller said, meaning Trump.
Netanyahu and Trump last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both men’s political careers. It was an accord brokered by the Trump administration in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.
For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognizing it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hoped would be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.
In public postings and statements after his break with Netanyahu, Trump portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.
He also has criticized Netanyahu on other points, faulting him as “not prepared” for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.
In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday and again Friday at Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu poured praise on Trump, calling the regional accords Trump helped broker historic and thanking him “for all the things he did for Israel.”
Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments — the U.S. officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy that Jerusalem's status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
“I appreciated that,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, referring to Netanyahu's praise.
Trump has repeatedly urged that Israel with U.S. support “finish the job” in Gaza and destroy Hamas, but he hasn’t elaborated on how.
Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, Adriana Gomez Licon in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Jill Colvin in New York contributed. Knickmeyer reported from Washington. Price reported from New York.
Follow the AP's coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Turning Point Believers' Summit, Friday, July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens as he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks while meeting with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - President Donald Trump, right, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office, Sept. 15, 2020, at the White House in Washington. Trump is due to talk face-to-face with Netanyahu for the first time in nearly four years. The meeting Friday, July 26, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago will mend a break that has lasted since 2021. Trump at the time blasted Netanyahu for being one of the first leaders to congratulate President Joe Biden for his election victory. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
