Has Phish "never played the same setlist twice"?

Question

There is an enlightening article on the dollars and cents of the band Phish at Priceonomics.com. In the article, the author cites spontanaeity as a big reason for the band's success, and repeats a myth often told in Phish circles:

The band has never played the same set list twice...

A setlist, by the way, is a record of the songs played in chronological order at a single performance. Find a (complete?) record of Phish setlists at phish.net.

After Googling around a little bit, it appears there is little consensus about whether or not Phish has ever performed the same setlist twice, though fans seem apt to perpetuate the myth that they have not.

At the phish.net forum, one user rejects the possibility:

simple answer, no. thread closed.

The evidence he presents (none) is less than convincing, and other answerers at that thread are less sure.

At another fansite, phantasytour.com, a user answers the question:

I'd say no, but I agree, 88-91 are probably the years where you might find it.

For reference, some unofficial stats on Phish:

• The band has reportedly performed 1428 shows.
• The band has reportedly performed more than 800 songs, including nearly 300 original songs.

The fans have had at it. But what do the skeptics say? Has Phish really never played the same setlist twice?

Answer 1

The claim is, at best, speculative, and, at worst, incorrect.

The current records for Phish setlists are incomplete, and the earliest sets may never be recovered.

Phish.net is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive resources for Phish setlists (if not the most comprehensive).

I was able to find one pair of seemingly identical sets:

Feb 1st 1985:

Set 1: Slave to the Traffic Light, Mike's Song > Dave's Energy Guide, You Enjoy Myself, Alumni Blues > Letter to Jimmy Page > Alumni Blues, Prep School Hippie, Run Like an Antelope

and Feb 3rd 1986:

Set 1: Slave to the Traffic Light, Mike's Song > Dave's Energy Guide, You Enjoy Myself, Alumni Blues > Letter to Jimmy Page > Alumni Blues, Prep School Hippie, Run Like an Antelope

Set 2: Tonight, The Pendulum, Babylon is Burning, Dec 1661

It is important to note that the information on Phish.net indicates that it is uncertain whether the Feb 1st 1985 setlist is correct, citing the Feb 3rd 1986 setlist as reason to suspect that it may be a case of it simply being incorrectly labeled. It also contains a suspicious number of first performances, one of which then did not appear again until the seemingly identical set a full year later.

This uncertainty highlights the main issue with the basic claim: there is no authoritative and comprehensive record of phish setlists known.

Part of the difficulty is that the band itself did not keep detailed records of their early setlists, and instead fans are relied upon to fill in the information. In their formative years (the mid 80's), the fan base was small, and not nearly as... dedicated, for lack of a better term... as later fans were. Additionally, the venues for many of their early concerts were extremely informal, ranging from fraternity parties (three in one day, plus a forth show on the same day!), to dormitories, and even college cafeterias. Yet it is these early years that a duplication seems most likely, as the 800+ repertoire was developed over several decades, and therefore the pool of potential songs was at its smallest in their first years.

The author who stated that they have never played the same setlist twice almost certainly was basing that claim strictly on hearsay. No one seems to know for certain what all the setlists are, so therefore no one can say with certainty that there has never been a duplication.

Answer 2

The premise of this is wrong to begin with. The claim the you'll hear many people make is that Phish never does the same show twice. Phish shows are two or three sets. If you just skip past the early years where set lists either don't exist, are incomplete, or questionable and start from where setlists were recorded regularly (probably late '80's), I don't think you'played find a full two or three set show where they played every thing in the same order over the course of the entire show. Plus as everyone knows Phish is an improvisational jam band. Songs aren't always played the same way, and there's always some jamming mixed in throughout shows. With everything in their repitroir I think it is entirely possible that they have never played the same show twice. As someone already noted, this is probably impossible to prove, or disprove for that matter.