[This is the third of a three-part series exploring Phish's past excursions in Las Vegas, courtesy of user @paulj Paul Jakus, Executive Director of the Phish Studies Association.]

The major constraint on the mid-20^th century growth of Las Vegas was lack of adequate capital: “legitimate” national banks and investors had refused loans to an industry built on gambling, booze, and sex. Crime syndicates, flush with cash and having fewer moral qualms, stepped into the breach. If Mob money were suitably laundered to disguise its source, a “clean” front man could obtain a Nevada gaming license.

Unfortunately, the high interest rates charged on Mob loans sometimes meant skimming casino profits to pay them off. The State of Nevada did not look kindly on its lost tax revenues and often shut down guilty hotel-casinos until new owners could be found. For example, the Aladdin Hotel was shuttered no fewer than four times in the 1970s and 80s.

E. Parry Thomas and Jerry Mack thus welcomed Howard Hughes’ arrival in 1966 as a huge opportunity. Hughes had chosen Thomas to handle his Las Vegas acquisitions, and the bankers soon spearheaded business support for the Nevada Corporate Gaming Acts of 1967 and 1969. These Acts helped ease the arrival of new, clean capital while pressuring the exit of more traditional sources, and corporate money now flowing to Nevada ramped up the competition among hotel-casinos.

Hughes’s great corporate rival of the era was Kirk Kerkorian, an airline mogul who built the International Hotel (now Westgate) in 1969 as the largest hotel in the world. After gaining control of MGM Studios, Inc., Kerkorian’s second largest-in-the-world hotel was the 2,100 room MGM Grand Hotel, opening in 1973. This MGM Grand was later called Bally’s and is now The Horseshoe. In the 1980s, Kerkorian sold these properties (but not the MGM studio) and spent a contractually-obligated industry absence planning his next move.

Meanwhile, former E. Parry Thomas client Steve Wynn had been shaking up the industry, culminating in what historian Eugene P. Moehring has termed, “The New Las Vegas.” Wynn’s Mirage Hotel (1989) was the first true megaresort on the Strip. His reinvention of the Las Vegas resort pushed entertainment out of the building and onto the sidewalk: Wynn properties had an exploding volcano, a buccaneer ship, or dancing fountains out front, each leading indoors to a sumptuous lobby featuring live tigers or sharks. As sidewalks were widened to accommodate crowds at Wynn’s curbside spectacles, other resorts were forced to match his luxurious designs or cede the upscale visitor to Wynn.

Kerkorian responded in 1993. His second MGM Grand Hotel had 5,000 rooms, making it Kerkorian’s third “largest-in-the-world” property.

This hotel endured a few hiccups, though, including a Wizard of Oz theme and a family fun park which were later abandoned. The most serious design flaw was its main entrance. Many Asian visitors—an important gaming demographic—refused to walk through the MGM Lion’s mouth, which is why today’s MGM entrance no longer looks like this:

Corporate megaresorts are expensive enough to require multiple profit centers because gaming revenues alone cannot cover operating and borrowing costs. The MGM Grand’s Garden Arena is one of its profit centers. Just as Phish were wrapping up their 1993 NYE performance in Worcester, Barbra Streisand was, simultaneously, headlining the Garden Arena’s grand opening. In addition to a multitude of concerts, the arena has hosted dozens of high-profile sporting events. During his 1997 bout with Evander Holyfield, boxer Mike Tyson infamously became the arena’s most well-known chomper.

After visiting Las Vegas six out of seven touring years from 1996-2004, Phish had avoided the town during the early 3.0 era. Much as Las Vegas had transformed over the years so, too, had Phish. The summer and fall of 2013 had seen Phish not only regain its swagger, but also find a promising new direction for its improvisational jams. Phish were, once again, in fighting trim and ready to take the town.

Madison Square Garden had long been Phish’s New Year’s Eve venue and, in 2014, Phish found its Halloween venue. Their MGM Grand Garden Arena performance of Disney’s Chilling, Thrilling sound effects album–complete with Zombie costumes, an elaborate stage set, and undead dancers—was a classic Phish curveball: a totally unexpected and radical reinvention of their Halloween musical costume tradition.

Phish subsequently returned for Halloween runs in 2016, 2018, and 2021. While the 2016’s Ziggy Stardust cover marked a return to its standard Halloween format, the Kasvot Växt (2018) and Sci-Fi Soldiers (2021) performances found Phish channeling a profoundly “Vegas” vibe.

No Las Vegas visitor believes that’s the Eiffel Tower standing outside the Paris Hotel, or that the Bellagio’s fountains spout from Lake Como, or that the Luxor pyramid is built on an ancient Egyptian tomb. These are, as Nevada artist William L. Fox writes, “a simulacrum of the original—a fake that is patently fake and thus real on its own terms.”

So, too, were the band’s most recent MGM Halloween costumes, in which Phish reimagined themselves as 1980s Scandinavian rockers, or as a band from 2,600 years in the future. Those bands were patently fake, but also very real snapshots of Phish’s ongoing evolution as an artistic entity, reflecting a commitment to renewal and reinvention.

Neither Las Vegas nor Phish have ever stood still, each ready to redesign or remake itself into something new, even if that means discarding some of its past. In Las Vegas, the venerable and historic Sands Hotel was imploded to become the Venetian/Palazzo, with the Sphere rising behind it.

Sands Implosion video

Las Vegas has maintained its standing as one of the world’s premier entertainment cities by continually redefining itself. Phish’s career has followed a similar path. Art critic Emily LaBarge notes that few artists remain committed to a “…relentless drive to experiment in new mediums…” and are able to defy “…the conventional understanding of any artist’s ‘late career’ as an inevitable tapering off.” Phish’s willingness to look beyond their past accomplishments and take up the technical and creative challenges offered by the visually and sonically spectacular Sphere clearly reflects a continuation the band’s own relentless pursuit of artistic reinvention.

Sources:

Fox, William L. 2005. In the Desert of Desire. University of Nevada Press.

LaBarge, Emily. 2026. The Final, Flying Colors of Matisse’s ‘Second Life’. New York Times (March 24).

Moehring, Eugene P. 2014. Reno, Las Vegas, and the Strip: A Tale of Three Cities. University of Nevada Press.

Wikipedia. Numerous pages.

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