Phish fans are famously dedicated. What happens when they enter the Sphere?

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Adele, Mariah Carey and Garth Brooks tower over the Las Vegas Strip, peering out from billboards advertising their various casino residencies. But the 20,000 fans marching toward the glowing Sphere last week were there for a band that many Strip visitors have no idea exists.

Over the past 40 years, legions of dedicated Phish fans have followed the Vermont jam band no matter where it goes. This time, it happened to be Las Vegas, for four nights at the $2.3 billion immersive arena. No two Phish shows are the same, and while the band had played Vegas 26 times before, the Sphere offered a game-changing canvas for its signature light shows.

The fans came in sequined, glittery dresses and tie-dye alike, in button-down shirts and overalls printed with the band's red doughnut logo. Once inside, they were greeted with a LED screen the size of a football field.

Over 68 songs over the four nights, co-creative director Abigail Rosen Holmes would use that expanse to drive fans across bold visual worlds inspired by the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas and plasma. As Phish jammed, the Sphere's screens became an art show, taking the audience through flowing streams of color and simple dots of light, around an enchanted lake and a field of psychedelic trees, and through a car wash (yes, a car wash).

“It gives me hope,” said Sean Marmora, 31, who traveled from New Jersey. “It’s inspiring that they’re pushing boundaries and doing things that they have never done before.”

Some displays were more abstract — during “Sand” and “Chalkdust Torture,” specks of light danced on screen in time to the music — while others were easier to discern: “Bathtub Gin” featured computer-generated people on floats made of donuts, pineapples and pizza slices in a wave pool. During “Maze,” a narrow line of video blew up into bits across the screen. For “Leaves,” hundreds of digital balloons joined the very real balloons flying up inside the Sphere.

“It was a very different Phish show, so special in its own right,” said Tim Urbashich, 38, from Wisconsin. “This is a whole evolutionary experience in what’s happening. They deserve visual representation of their music.”

Phish's light shows are typically driven by Chris Kuroda, whom fans have nicknamed CK5 — as in, the fifth member of the band.

Kuroda was still heavily involved in the shows at the Sphere, albeit with a stripped-down light setup offsetting the screen. Phish frontman Trey Anastasio said Kuroda played a key role in fighting against the “tyranny of the wall” of visuals.

On Saturday night, the screen lit a digital version of the band ablaze during “Fuego,” eventually subsiding into a calm blue. As the real band jumped into “Golden Age,” Kuroda lit them in his signature soft purple and yellow spotlights.

Holmes says the production team learned to be looser over the course of the Vegas run, refining and adopting subtle changes to make the visuals more responsive to the music.

“This is such a new and different environment, where we started trying to make everything perfect. And then being more comfortable, taking chances and pushing things a bit further,” Holmes said. “I think Chris Kuroda and I were able to reach further and mesh better as the nights went on.”

As much as the Sphere shows will be remembered for the visuals, though, it’s the music that ultimately makes Phish.

No song was repeated, and the band took advantage of the ability to isolate sounds across the room’s 167,000 speaker drivers. Anastasio says he was proud the band could still go in without a plan. Most large visual concert experiences include a click track to know when to hit certain marks. Phish insisted on being able to improvise.

“I felt like if we didn’t have that element, it wouldn’t be a Phish concert,” Anastasio said.

At the end of Sunday night’s show, Anastasio vowed to return to the Sphere. Phish was only the second band to play it after U2 opened it with a 40-show run. Dead and Company are scheduled to play there this summer.

Meanwhile, Phish will release its 16th studio album, “Evolve,” in July, when it will also launch a summer tour.

“As long as the four of us are together and walking this planet, I would like to think that Phish exists and that we can keep playing,” McConnell said of the band's stamina and longevity.

So much of the band’s time together is spent thinking about processes and new approaches, he said.

“So we don’t exactly know where it goes and where it’s going. But I have a good feeling that it’s going to go on for a long time,” he said. “I really hope it does.”

As long as Phish keeps going, so too will its community. Both Marmora and Urbashich were among the dozens of artists selling their Phish-inspired work at the PhanArt show that pops up at the band's stops.

“We’re all trying here to find something special,” Urbashich said. “You have to open up your mind to the simplest things. It’s so out there and abstract. If you don’t give it patience you might not think it’s what you’re looking for.”

This photo shows Kim Mancini of Reading, Pa. selling Phish inspired posters and stickers during PhanArt on Saturday, April 20, 2024, at the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)

This photo shows fan created clothing with Phish inspired logos during PhanArt on Saturday, April 20, 2024, at the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)

This photo during PhanArt shows a Hunter S. Thompson-inspired "Sphere and Loathing in Las Vegas" shirt created by artist Sean Marmora on Saturday, April 20, 2024, at the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas. The shirt is in celebration of Phish's four-night residency at the Sphere. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)

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)

Mike Gordon, bassist for the band Phish warms up before rehearsing for the group's four night engagement at the Sphere on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)

Page McConnell, keyboardist for the band Phish, poses for a photograph during an interview on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)

Jon Fishman, drummer 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)

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)

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)

This photo shows Phish fans walking through the lobby of the Sphere on Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Josh Cornfield)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Brad Parscale was the digital guru behind Donald Trump's surprise victory in the 2016 election and was promoted to manage the 2020 campaign. But he didn't last long on that job: His personal life unraveled in public and he later texted a friend that he felt “guilty” for helping Trump win after the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

He's since become an evangelist about the power of artificial intelligence to transform how Republicans run political campaigns. And his company is working for Trump's 2024 bid, trying to help the presumptive Republican nominee take back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden.

Here's what to know about Parscale and his new role:

Parscale says his company, Campaign Nucleus, can use AI to help generate customized emails, parse oceans of data to gauge voter sentiment and find persuadable voters. It can also amplify the social media posts of “anti-woke” influencers, according to an Associated Press review of Parscale’s public statements, his company documents, slide decks, marketing materials and other records not previously made public.

Soon, Parscale says, his company will deploy an app that harnesses AI to assist campaigns in collecting absentee ballots in the same way drivers for DoorDash or Grubhub pick up dinners from restaurants and deliver them to customers.

Parscale was a relatively unknown web designer in San Antonio, Texas, when he was hired to build a web presence for Trump's family business.

That led to a job on the future president’s 2016 campaign. He was one of its first hires and spearheaded an unorthodox digital strategy, teaming up with scandal-plagued Cambridge Analytica to help propel Trump to the White House.

“I pretty much used Facebook to get Trump elected in 2016,” Parscale said in a 2022 podcast interview.

Following Trump’s surprise win, Parscale’s influence grew. He was promoted to manage Trump's reelection bid and enjoyed celebrity status. A towering figure at 6 feet, 8 inches with a Viking-style beard, Parscale was frequently spotted at campaign rallies taking selfies with Trump supporters and signing autographs.

Parscale was replaced as campaign manager not long after a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, drew an unexpectedly small crowd, enraging Trump.

Since last year, Campaign Nucleus and other Parscale-linked companies have been paid more than $2.2 million by the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their related political action and fundraising committees, campaign finance records show.

Parscale did not respond to questions from the AP about what he’s doing for the Trump campaign. Trump has called artificial intelligence “so scary” and “dangerous,” while his campaign, which has shied away from highlighting Parscale’s role, said in an emailed statement that it did not “engage or utilize” tools supplied by any AI company.

Parscale-linked companies have been paid to host websites, send emails, provide fundraising software and digital consulting, campaign finance records show.

The Biden campaign and Democrats are also also using AI. So far, they said they are primarily deploying the technology to help them find and motivate voters and to better identify and overcome deceptive content.

Last year, Parscale bought property in Midland, Texas, in the heart of the nation’s highest-producing oil and gas fields. It is also the hometown of Tim Dunn, a billionaire born-again evangelical who is among the state’s most influential political donors.

In April of last year, Dunn invested $5 million in a company called AiAdvertising that once bought one of Parscale’s firms under a previous corporate name. The San Antonio-based ad firm also announced that Parscale was joining as a strategic adviser, to be paid $120,000 in stock and a monthly salary of $10,000.

“Boom!” Parscale tweeted. “(AiAdvertising) finally automated the full stake of technologies used in the 2016 election that changed the world.”

AiAdvertising added two key national figures to its board: Texas investor Thomas Hicks Jr. — former co-chair of the RNC and longtime hunting buddy of Donald Trump Jr. — and former GOP congressman Jim Renacci. In January, Dunn gave AiAdvertising an additional $2.5 million via an invesment company, and AiAdvertising said in a news release that the cash infusion would help it “generate more engaging, higher-impact campaigns.”

Dunn declined to comment, and AiAdvertising did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Parscale occasionally offers glimpses of the AI future he envisions. Casting himself as an outsider to the Republican establishment, he has said he sees AI as a way to undercut elite Washington consultants, whom he described as political parasites.

In January, Parscale told a crowd assembled at a grassroots Christian event in a Pasadena, California, church that their movement needed “to have our own AI, from creative large language models and creative imagery, we need to reach our own audiences with our own distribution, our own email systems, our own texting systems, our own ability to place TV ads, and lastly we need to have our own influencers.”

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Burke reported from San Francisco. AP National Political Writer Steve Peoples in Washington and Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

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This story is part of an Associated Press series, “The AI Campaign,” that explores the influence of artificial intelligence in the 2024 election cycle.

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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

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The Associated Press receives financial assistance from the Omidyar Network to support coverage of artificial intelligence and its impact on society. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org

FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night rally on primary election night in Nashua, N.H., Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. Election experts say they are concerned about AI’s potential to upend elections around the world through convincing deepfakes and other content that could mislead voters. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

Pages from the Campaign Nucleus website are seen on a computer in New York on Thursday, May 2, 2024. Political consultant Brad Parscale’s company, Campaign Nucleus, is boosting fundraising and voter engagement for the Trump campaign and other right-wing causes by leveraging data science to automate how political operatives identify and motivate their supporters. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)

FILE - Brad Parscale, then-campaign manager for President Donald Trump, speaks during a campaign rally at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Oct. 10, 2019. Parscale, the digital campaign operative who helped engineer Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, vows that his new, AI-powered platform will dramatically overhaul not just polling, but also campaigning. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)