On Tuesday, May 16, 2000, Phish appeared on Late Show with David Letterman to perform “Heavy Things,” the day Farmhouse was released.
One of Phish’s poppier tunes, “Heavy Things” was the third track on 2000’s Farmhouse, and notably performed live from Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation as part of the ABC 2000 millennium coverage, hosted by Peter Jennings.
Penned by Trey Anastasio and Tom Marshall, the song was first performed live by Amfibian, a slight variation of the tune phans may not be familiar with. An early Trey Anastasio Band incarnation would perform the song in May 1999, and it would not appear in the Phish rotation until September 1999, quickly popping up every few shows that fall and throughout 2000.
Chosen as the radio single for Farmhouse, the song, while enjoyable and rooted in Phish history thanks to the Big Cypress performance (and the cheesecake chant that followed), was not the radio hit the band might have hoped for.
“Get Back on the Train” had a pop and rock feel to it and could have been a more popular choice, while writer Rob Mitchum argues “Bug” could have been the single, have a vibe akin to Coldplay’s “Yellow,” instead of the chosen track. Mitchum shared on his Substack “Their chosen single, Heavy Things, is an instant dud, a soft-rock trifle out of step with modern radio trends; its chart peak would be a middling #22 on the Adult Top 40, basically Dentist Office Radio.” Which isn’t high praise for Phish, but they’re not a band who craved radio hits, so this was par for the course.
The Late Show performance was standard fare for Phish – they appeared on Letterman eight times over the show’s 20+ year run. Letterman comes over at the end to enthusiastically shake drummer Jon Fishman’s hand, praising him “this is the guy doing all the work, this is the guy.”
Other individual song performances on Letterman include “Chalkdust Torture” on December 30, 1994, “Julius” on July 13, 1995, “Character Zero” on March 5, 1997, “Birds of a Feather” on October 27, 1998, “All of These Dreams” on December 19, 2002, a multi-song performance on the Ed Sullivan Theater marquee on June 21, 2004, and “The Line” on June 25, 2014.
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