PHISH SWIMS WITH BERNIE CO-SIGN, BOWL SHOWS, TOUR

Senator Bernie Sanders and jam band Phish have collectively spent the better part of their lives in Vermont, so we were tickled to see the latter co-signing the former in The New Yorker.

“Phish is one of the great American rock bands, and they represent a lot of what I love about Vermont," says Sanders, whose appearance before Clairo's Coachella set last weekend has been the talk of social media. "They create community, experiment creatively and have an enormous amount of discipline around their music.”

Another surprising thumbs-ups came from Ian Mackaye, the singer and guitarist of the hugely influential and very non-Phish-sounding underground rock band Fugazi. Anastasio recalls seeing the group in Burlington, Vermont, back in 1989 and realizing, "These guys are thinking exactly the way I'm thinking." For his part, Mackaye says, “I respect them. They’ve always been iconoclastic... I’ve never seen Phish, but I am not surprised that they were at that show. We could be much farther apart.”

Phish is managed by Red Light’s Coran Capshaw, Patrick Jordan and Jason Colton and booked by Mike Greisch at Wasserman Music. The quartet's spring tour begins 4/18 at Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena and includes three nights at the Hollywood Bowl (4/25-27). A summer run starts 6/20 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

HITS will likely be the ones on the floor holding the giant sign that says "Wash Uffizi Drive Me to Firenze," unless publicists Ken Weinstein and Gabe Tesoriero beat us to it.