When is an ice-cream cone just an ice-cream cone? Can milk represent something more? Do the cows represent something more? Why does the milkman have a weird, authoritarian vibe? Is the milk the stolen wages of the proletariat? Holy carp, are Phish really pulling a Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl, so to speak? Have I smoked too much sativa before lunch?
These are just a few of the questions I found myself asking in the wake of Phish’s New Year’s Eve show at Madison Square Garden in New York City — my job is weird — which sparked a rare and befuddling bit of political debate among Phishheads. While I wasn’t in attendance with the wookies, I’ve watched video of the performance many times since then, studying it for clues like the Zapruder film.
The mystery: Did Phish, a mostly apolitical band known far more for zany mythologies and elaborate stage gags, actually make a subtle yet salient point regarding immigration, diversity and the aggression of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers during their New Year’s Eve show? Or are some people reading too much into the antics of a famously obtuse quartet?
Here’s a quick rundown of the NYE scene: After a lengthy set of Phish favorites, they launched into the Rift-era song “It’s Ice,” followed by a cover of the Prince banger “Cream.” They took a set break, during which songs such as Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” and Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” blasted through the arena. When the band returned to the stage, a 1950s-style milkman emerged from the darkness, tolling a bell and summoning a herd of “cows” to him. Dutifully, several cows — people in cow costumes — made their way to the stage while Phish started playing “Harry Hood,” a tune about the Hood Plant in Burlington, which was near their rehearsal space back in the ’80s. Seeing the theme?
As the tune played out and the band bellowed “Harry! Harry! Where do you go when the lights go out?” a procession of dancing milk cartons appeared. Not long after (depending on how you mark time at a Phish show and whether or not you’re hero dosing), a massive container of cream hovered over the stage. As the cream (a long, white billowing tarp) struck the cartons, the dancers shed their costumes.
More milkmen then arrived on the scene, with “IT’S ICE CREAM” emblazoned on their backs, ordering the dancers into a box at the front of the stage. Shenanigans ensued while the band played “Also sprach Zarathustra,” the theme from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Drummer Jon Fishman was strapped to a red, white and blue popsicle/rocket. As guitarist Trey Anastasio started playing “Auld Lang Syne” and the clock struck midnight, the rocket — now with a Fishman mannequin swapped in for the real thing — exploded, showering the audience in confetti. Next came “Tweezer,” with the lyrics “Why don’t you step into the freezer?”
The ice cream box, previously stuffed with dancers clad in white, erupted, spilling out a mass of diversity: a Mexican mariachi band, a crew of striped-shirted French people, lederhosen-clad Germans, even pirates and dancing furries. (OK, they were probably just people in animal costumes.) The milkmen tried to wrangle the joyous, chaotic dancers, but they failed, and the procession streamed out into the crowd. Meanwhile, Phish somehow were still playing “Tweezer.”
To my eyes, free from hours of jamming and substances, this is all pretty clear political theater. It would honestly be a strange look for the band to center on a theme of “ice” on New Year’s Eve at MSG, perhaps their most visible performance of the year, during a time when public support for ICE and its increasingly violent methods are plummeting.
On the other hand, it can’t be overlooked how purely silly Phish can be. The group has a long history of elaborate New Years’ gags and pranks, and, on the surface, 2025’s close-out show was no exception. Prince covers and dance numbers and ice-cream cone-shaped confetti don’t exactly scream “political statement.” And indeed, a few tours through Phish Reddit threads and fan pages make clear that many devotees saw the production as just another of Phish’s tongue-in-cheek love letters to their fans, a way to make a big night even more memorable.
“Sometimes ice cream is just ice cream, dude,” was something of a refrain from many commentators.
Journalist Grayson Haver Currin, who has written about music for the New York Times, Pitchfork and NPR and was at the show, wrote about the dichotomy of a band like the Phab Phour speaking through their art.
“It is possible to see Phish as some great big syndicate of whimsy,” Currin wrote on his Substack, “Out + Back.” “But seeing Phish only that way is a complete canard.”
Currin pointed to a conversation he had with Anastasio not long after meeting him, in which the guitarist spoke about seeing Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont in the ’80s and the profound effect its mix of art and activism had on him. It seemed totally illogical to Currin that the band would put so much thought into an ice-themed NYE show without making it an acknowledgement of the controversy surrounding ICE, which was already causing havoc in Minneapolis by the time of the show — though the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross had yet to occur.
“I don’t think a band reared on the work of Bread and Puppet ignores that in a critical moment in this country’s history,” Currin wrote.
For what it’s worth, the band members returned for their encore dressed as milkmen themselves. As a barbershop quartet, Phish then performed the song “Sincere” from the The Music Man, a famously satirical tune featuring harmonizing on the words “ice cream.” (Then they started playing “Tweezer” again, for fuck’s sake.)
To some Phish fans, it was all a blast, more fun at the party that never really stops. To others, it was a clear call for unity in the face of a rising fascist power grab. Only the four gentlemen known for jamming on trampolines can say what their true intention truly was, but they tend to let their music do the talking.
The original print version of this article was headlined “We All Scream for ICE Cream”
This article appears in January 21 • 2026.
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