Attendance Bias

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to today's episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. I have a feeling that, pretty soon, I’m going to have to rename this podcast “Recency Bias,” since I’ve received a ton of requests from people who want to come on the show and talk about shows from Phish’s 2025 summer tour. Not that it hasn’t happened before, but there was somethi...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. It seems like every other tour, we acknowledge that the band is getting older, and how lucky we are to still have the opportunity to see them. While that is undoubtedly true, we don’t always take the time to recognize that we, as a fanbase, are also getting older. As a result, our life...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Several guests have come on the podcast to discuss Phish’s famous Halloween shows, and there’s always plenty to say. Today’s guest, Kevin Rovner of the Kevin Rovner Band chose not only the most controversial Halloween show in Phish’s history–the infamous Wingsuit set from 2013, but he...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Today, we continue and conclude our venue preview series for Phish’s 2025 September run with a look at the Hampton Coliseum in Virginia. I don’t often get nervous or intimidated on this podcast, but occasionally, a topic or show seems too big, too well known, too respected to sum up in...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. Today, we continue our 2025 miniseries where we preview each venue on Phish’s late summer tour by visiting an old favorite: the Ameris Bank Amphitheater in Alpharetta, GA–colloquially known simply as “Alpharetta.” And when I say “an old favorite,” I mean for the band and fans. Today’s guest -Dave Defeo–ha...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. Today, we continue our 2025 miniseries of previewing each venue on Phish’s late summer or early fall tour with a brand new venue–not just new to Phish fans but new to the world–the Coca Cola Amphitheater in Birmingham, Alabama. Today’s guest to give us the inside scoop on the amphitheater is none other th...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. We are at the start of the late summer/early fall 2025 tour, and so it is time to look ahead to the venues Phish will be playing. This run is 8 shows in 4 separate venues, including today’s preview of the Bourbon and Beyond Festival in Louisville, KY on September 12. While the rest of this tour is made up...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to this week’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. I think that all Phish fans, or fans of live music in general, would agree that the venue in which you see a show is inextricably linked to your experience at that show. It’s almost impossible, at least for me, to separate the setting from the experience. We go deep into that idea...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to today's episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Today’s guest is journalist and writer Mike Ayers. Mike’s new book, “Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the ‘90s Jamband Explosion” covers exactly that–it’s an oral history of how a new scene and community developed, grew, and thrived in from the late 80s to the turn of th...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to this week’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Whenever a guest messages me and wants to tell a story about a show from the fall 1995 tour, it’s nearly impossible to say no. And when it’s a guest who has previously been on the podcast, I know it’ll be a compelling conversation. Such is the case today, when Brian Blatt joins me...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. I would imagine that most of us have been there: a Phish show where the first set gets off to a typical start, and then something happens-maybe a bustout or a special guest-that makes the show instantly memorable. Or maybe a show where the weather takes a turn for the worse and the sho...

Send us Fan Mail  Hello everybody and welcome to today's bonus episode of Attendance Bias. Today is a recap episode, so it's going to be a little different from what you may expect from normal episodes. I do have a co-host today that is JW Josh from the Stub Me Down Podcast. He and I tend to do recaps after Phish runs that we've attended either together, or at least both of us atten...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to the last episode of this Attendance Bias mini-series, in which we previewed each venue Phish will play during their upcoming summer 2025 tour: We just took a look at a new venue to the Phish world: Forest Hills Stadium. Today, we turn our attention to an old favorite; a venue that has been a part of the Phish conversation longer than some fans have been...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. Get ready for some venue whiplash; after three nights at the largest indoor venue on the tour in Chicago, Phish leaves the second city to arrive in New York. More specifically, July 22 and 23 at Forest Hills Stadium in Forest Hills, Queens; home to The Ramones, Simon and Garfunkel, and Peter Parker.  If y...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome back to the Attendance Bias mini series of previewing each venue of the Phish 2025 summer tour. By now, we’ve gotten the scoop on the SNHU Arena in Manchester, The Pete in Pittsburgh, the Moody Center in Austin, Folsom Field in Boulder, the Schottenstein Center in Columbus, the North Charleston Coliseum, and the Mann in Philadelphia. We are nearing the end...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. We are just past the mid-point of this Attendance Bias mini-series, in which we preview each venue Phish will play during their upcoming summer 2025 tour. We are coming off our visit to the Palmetto State for the North Charleston Coliseum, and today’s episode is all about a venue that feels like it’s been...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. We are at the halfway point of the tour by now, having just visited the Schottenstein Center in Columbus for the first time, it is now time to visit an old favorite: The North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, South Carolina for a THREE NIGHT weekend run! A city brimming with both American history and Ph...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. We are almost at the halfway point of the tour by now, arriving from Phish’s 3-night holiday weekend stand at Folsom Field to one of the larger indoor venues on tour: the Schottenstein Center in Columbus on the campus of THE Ohio State University. This is Phish’s first time playing at the Schot, and lucki...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. After an odd summertime Texas stop in Austin, Phish is keeping us disoriented this year: it’s now time for a holiday weekend run in Colorado…but not the one we expect. Instead of the end-of-summer blowout at Dick’s over Labor Day Weekend this summer, we are instead celebrating our country’s independence w...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. After two days off and a very very long drive, we are at the third stop of our tour: The Moody Center in Austin, Texas for June 27 and 28. It’s rare that Phish stops in Texas, rare that they stop in Texas for the summer, and even more rare that they’ll play in Austin–it’s been about 15 years since the cap...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. We are fully on tour by now, having visited Manchester, New Hampshire and now on the 9-and-a-half-hour drive to the Pete–that is the Petersen Events Center, on the University of Pittsburgh campus–in Pittsburgh, PA. For whatever reason, the band decided to skip Star Lake in Burgettstown in favor of this mo...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to the first episode of this new series of Attendance Bias: over the next few weeks, we are going to take a look at venue Phish is going to play on their upcoming 2025 summer tour; from old favorites like SPAC and The Mann, to first-time visits for Phish, like Folsom Field and Forest Hills Stadium. Today, I am joined by returning guest Chris Casey and his...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Not many guests have come on the podcast to talk about anything from the year 2000. It’s kind of a lost year when most fans consider the tail end of 1.0. 1999 gets a lot of love, Big Cypress is the unquestioned greatest of all time, but what about those 52 shows that capped the 1.0 era...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. At Dick’s in 2013, Phish famously used the setlist to spell out the phrase: “Most Shows Spell Something.” It was a good goof at the time, but it also inspired thousands of fans to take the message literally and inspect the band’s song choices at any given show and, sometimes, craft a m...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Today, we have a returning guest: published author Rachael Wesley, who–as of today–has released her memoir, “Second Set Chances,” published by Vine Leaves Press.  The last time Rachael was on Attendance Bias, about three years ago, she was working on the sixth draft of what would becom...