Trey Anastasio announced an eight-week virtual residency, The Beacon Jams, that will find him playing a string of shows at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.
The run starts Friday, October 9th at 8 p.m. ET and will continue every Friday through November 27th. The shows will air exclusively on Twitch for free.
Each concert will feature acoustic and electric sets, and while there won’t be a live audience, there will be a home audience interaction element. A press release teases “an array of surprises” as well. During The Beacon Jams shows, fans will be encouraged to donate to Phish’s non-profit, the WaterWheel Foundation, as well as its new Divided Sky Fund; all proceeds will go toward helping those affected by addiction and plans to open a treatment center in Vermont.
“When we thought about playing the Beacon, I was reminded of the meaning of the word,” Anastasio said in a statement. “A beacon is a beam of light, often from a lighthouse, which sends it out to sailors who are lost at sea and all alone. They look for the beacon and it guides them home. Sometimes gifts come wrapped in strange packages. A lot of this is thanks to Twitch and our friends and family at MSG Entertainment. When the idea to do these benefits was born, everybody at MSG Entertainment jumped in and partnered with us and the Divided Sky Fund, which is very kind of them. This is an opportunity for forward motion.”
Back in July, Anastasio released a new solo album, Lonely Trip, which he wrote and recorded while in lockdown during the pandemic. “I wanted to connect with our community in some way,” he wrote of the record in a short essay. “The unplanned nature of the recording meant I didn’t have a lot of gear during this process. I had an electric and an acoustic guitar, a small amp, two microphones, some percussion and two keyboards, including an old Kurzweil with very realistic drum sounds on it. Everything was recorded through a Spire 8-track. Lonely Trip is truly a raw, low-fi recording.”
