[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.

Those familiar with PHISH‘s history know that the Halloween shows tend to be legendary.  Often referred to as “Musical Costumes“, the band played a handful of shows throughout the nineties in which they devoted the second sets of the night to covering a legendary album by another artist.  The first time that they performed one of these shows was on Halloween of 1994, when they covered The White Album by The Beatles.  In 1995, they played Quadrophenia by The Who and, the following year, they pulled out Talking Heads‘ Remain in Light.  After performing The Great Went festival in 1997, there wasn’t a Halloween performance scheduled, but they returned with another Musical Costume of The Velvet Underground‘s Loaded the next year.  Two days after the Loaded show in Vegas, the boys surprised at the E Centre in Utah with a Nov. 2nd performance of Pink Floyd‘s Dark Side of the Moon.  This was the last of these cover shows performed by the band but, now over a decade later, the theme is returning.  This will mark the first time that PHISH has ever played one of their trademark festivals on the West Coast, as well as the first time that they are combining their Halloween tradition in with one of them.

The PHISH website currently features an image of a card/invitation (see header above) which features the text “Play the Last Record Alive“.  Once the picture is clicked, a series of 99 different album covers can be scrolled through and viewed.  Each album is featured in an intricate picture frame and represents a possible album that the 4-piece may be covering at Festival 8.  The album covers are slowly being eliminated, or “killed“, off of the list, as graphics of arrows, axes, or butcher knives draw blood as they are plunged into them, one by one.  Some albums are obviously just fillers, while others are clear possibilities.  It’s obvious that they wouldn’t be covering Rubber Soul, Velvet Underground and Nico, Fear of Music, Who’s Next, Meddle or The Wall, because they’ve already covered albums by The Beatles, VU, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, and The Who.  Then there’s a couple of classic “hippie” albums, like American Beauty and Eat A Peach, sprinkled in, but those are probably only in there to throw off the scent of the young kids that don’t know any better.  Then there are the albums that feature tracks that they’ve covered in the past like Purple Rain, Hunky Dory, and Led Zepplin 1… (possible?).  I’m happy to see crazy shit like Double Nickels on the Dime listed but, just because I’m psyched, doesn’t mean that any one else at the show will want to hear any Minutemen songs.  I just simply find it hard to believe that there’s a large percentage of movie collections with both We Jam Econo and Bittersweet Motel in them.  A Tribute to Jack Johnson?  Amazing album but… never gonna happen because, even if Page could cover the Herbie and Corea roles, nobody’s gonna pull off Miles‘ horn.  Crooked Rain Crooked Rain would be great to hear, especially since Pavement has a reunion planned for next year.  Obviously, there’s 99 albums on this fucking list, so there’s a lot of choices and possibilities here.  I think that a lot of these “filler” albums are placed on here just so that many phans will become aware of them and finally check them out, not because there is any chance for them to be covered, and I think that’s a noble move.  Influential bands like Love deserve that added attention from a larger market.  This theory is further proven to me by the inclusion of the Pork Tornado album, Jon Fishman‘s widely ignored side project.  Some artists, like Hendrix, Bowie, and Zeppelin have multiple albums listed.  Who knows?  I’ll leave the rabid speculation to the forums; I just really hope that they don’t cover Hotel California or The Joshua Tree.  That is, of course, unless I don’t make it to the festival, then I hope that they do because I’m a spiteful dick.

Below is the official schedule for Festival 8.
We have also provided an entire list of the 99 album cover titles below and will be crossing them off of the list as they disappear.

(click image for official festival 8 site)

OFFICIAL FESTIVAL 8 PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

Friday, October 30th, 2009

• 4:00PM – Concert Field opens
• 7:30PM – Set 1
• 10:00PM – Set 2

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

• 12:00PM – Concert Field opens
• 3:00PM – Set 1
• 7:30PM – The Halloween Set
• 10:00PM – Set 3

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

• 10:00AM – Concert Field opens
• 12:00PM – Acoustic Set
• 5:30PM – Set 2
• 8:30PM – Set 3

(click here to link to the Halloween day site)

1. Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street

2. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Damn The Torpedoes

3. Medeski, Martin & Wood – Shack Man

4. Huey Lewis And The News – Sports

5. Talking Heads – Fear Of Music

6. Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man

7. The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground And Nico

8. The Who – Who’s Next

9. The Beatles – Rubber Soul

10. The White Stripes – Elephant

11. Ween – White Pepper

12. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours

13. Primus – Sailing The Seas Of Cheese

14. The Allman Brothers Band – Eat A Peach

15. Manu Chao – Clandestino

16. Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

17. The Roots – Phronology

18. Tom Waits – Rain Dogs

19. The Eagles – Hotel California

20. Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de Lo Habitual

21. Various Artists – Saturday Night Fever

22. fIREHOSE – Flyin’ the Flannel

23. X – Los Angeles

24. Peter Gabriel – So

25. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band – Against The Wind

26. David Bowie – Scary Monsters

27. Elvis Costello- This Year’s Model

28. Bob Dylan & The Band – The Basement Tapes

29. Neil Young – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

30. Duran Duran – Rio

31. Michael McDonald – If That’s What It Takes

32. Pink Floyd – Meddle

33. John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band

34. Pork Tornado – S/T

35. Queen – A Night At The Opera

36. The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds

37. Arcade Fire – Funeral

38. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

39. Violent Femmes – S/T

40. Daryl Hall & John Oates – Private Eyes

41. Ramones – S/T

42. ZZ Top – Tres Hombres

43. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Green River

44. Aerosmith – Toys In The Attic

45. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV

46. The Grateful Dead – American Beauty

47. Devo – Freedom of Choice

48. Eric Clapton – 461 Ocean Blvd

49. U2 – The Joshua Tree

50. Journey – Escape

51. Pearl Jam – Ten

52. The Doors – S/T

53. Rush – Moving Pictures

54. Love – Forever Changes

55. Guns N Roses – Appetite For Destruction

56. Beastie Boys – Hello Nasty

57. KISS – Alive II

58. Bob Dylan – Blood On The Tracks

59. The Jimi Hendrix Experiment – Are You Experienced

60. Blind Faith – S/T

61. Pixies – Come On Pilgrim

62. The Band – S/T

63. Metallica – Master Of Puppets

64. Frank Zappa – Hot Rats

65. Miles Davis – A Tribute To Jack Johnson

66. Rage Against The Machine – Evil Empire

67. The Police – Ghost In The Machine

68. Curtis Mayfield – Superfly (OST)

69. Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic

70. Neil Young – Tonight’s The Night

71. Van Halen – S/T

72. The Modern Lovers – S/T

73. Brian Eno – Before And After Science

74. The Clash – London Calling

75. Nirvana – Nevermind

76. Black Sabbath – Paranoid

77. Boston – S/T

78. AC/DC – Back In Black

79. Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers

80. Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

81. T.Rex – Electric Warrior

82. Chicago – The Chicago Transit Authority

83. Minutemen – Double Nickels On The Dime

84. Television – Marquee Moon

85. Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run

86. Frank Zappa – Apostrophe

87. Pink Floyd – The Wall

88. Yes –  The Yes Album

89. David Bowie – The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars

90. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin I

91. Van Morrison – Astral Weeks

92. Michael Jackson – Thriller

93. Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

94. The Jimi Hendrix Experiment – Electric Ladyland

95. King Crimson – Larks’ Tongues In Aspic

96. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

97. Radiohead – Kid A

98. David Bowie – Hunky Dory

99. Prince & The Revolution – Purple Rain

UPDATE (10.6.09): Cover Art Changes

Apparently, the people in charge of dealing with the Halloween graphics for PHISH.com are also tired of looking at the same fucking album covers over and over again.  Today they decided to mix things up a bit and incorporate some PHISH-related imagery and alter the original album artwork.  Here are the changes, so far,  for those who are interested:

The first sign that something was different was the change in the Blind Faith album from the censored cover to the original more graphic cover art.

Then things began to get a little more interesting.

You’ll notice that in the original cover (Right) Springsteen is playing a Fender Telecaster, while in the PHISH.com image, he is holding a Paul Languedoc guitar just like Trey Anastasio‘s

Tom Petty‘s now rocking a PHISH T-shirt and the Electric Warrior cover was changed from “T.REX” to “T.REY”

RUSH‘s Moving Pictures album now features Trey and Mike moving a keyboard.

Finally, the Hello Nasty sardine can is packed with PHISH members instead of Beastie Boys and the vendor on Pretzel Logic is wearing Jon Fishman‘s viking helmet.

Actually, “finally” probably isn’t the best word to be using… I’m sure that have plenty more of these shenanigans waiting in the wings.

10.07.09

Another album cover has been changed.  Gordo‘s head has been placed over that of Johnny Ramone.

Another strange addition is that several of the albums now contain embedded links , which will take you to youtube videos.

10.9.09

Evil Empire has been changed to read “Page Against the Machine”

Along with taking out Plastic Ono Band, on John Lennon‘s birthday no less, Pork Tornado endured an especially brutal removal involving 6 separate knives.

10.10.09

Another subtle album alteration:  Fishman has now been added to the cover of Exile on Main St.

10.15.09

More album cover changes.  Ghost in the Machine now reads “Story of the Ghost in the Machine“….

and Back in Black changed to “AC/DC BAG“.  We’ve all been thinking it anyway.

10.16.09

The Minute Men’s Double nickels on the Dime cover has now changes.  The review mirror now shows Page‘s eyes instead of the eyes of Mike Watt.  I kind of expected this one and have been checking the rear view to change in some way.  For those of you who don’t understand the title of the album, I figured that I would throw in a little fun fact.  It’s a reference to driving 55 mph (double nickels) on interstate 10(the dime) in Los Angeles.  Do yourself a favor, go listen to Minute Men and/or rent We Jam Econo.

One of these dames is doing her own thing…  (It’s the one with Fishman‘s head.)