After a successful beginning to their fall tour in October and a blowout Halloween celebration in Las Vegas (see This Month in Phish History, October, 1998), a significant number of fans remained in Sin City to gamble and enjoy the attractions while the band traveled northeast to Utah. They arrived at their hotel in Salt Lake City in the wee hours of the morning on November 1st.

This month in Phish history began with an impromptu appearance by Trey and Mike at an open-mic night at the Dead Goat Saloon in Salt Lake City. Reportedly the crowd at the Dead Goat consisted of roughly twenty people. The duo playing a number of songs by Neil Young, Bob Marley and others, beginning with the original song Driver.

The next day was a high point in the ongoing series of "you snooze, you lose" shows. Over the years, the band has been known to play particularly exceptional shows in order to make otherwise under-attended or remotely-situated gigs more unique. On November 2nd at the E Center in Salt Lake, they decided to keep the Halloween "musical costume" tradition alive for another show - that afternoon, the band requested a copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon CD. Backstage in their practice room, they began to learn the recording, note-for-note. The show began and the first set was full of energy and well-played. Trey was especially talkative with the crowd, and thanked some of the participants from the Dead Goat Saloon. Set two opened with Down With Disease which was followed by The Mango Song, a tune that had been played rarely in recent years. You Enjoy Myself followed and segued into an even more uncommon Harpua. The narration section consisted of a story told by Trey about the main character in the song, Jimmy, and his cat Poster Nutbag, and their journey through the desert to a sold-out show in the hectic city of Las Vegas. Trey referenced the band's first performance in Las Vegas (December 6, 1996) which had also featured the song Harpua, that time with a guest appearance by yodelers and multiple Elvi, and continued with Jimmy getting a ride to Salt Lake City. According to the narrative, the driver of Jimmy's godsend car was listening to Dark Side of The Moon”at which point Phish front-of-house engineer Paul Languedoc began the taped effects that kick off the Pink Floyd CD and the band proceeded to perform the album (which they had learned earlier in the day) in its entirety. Having taken the audience on a most unexpected journey, the band finally returned to the final section of Harpua to finish the set. As icing on the cake, they then ripped through a ragged cover of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. After the show, the band rolled onward to Colorado.

November 3rd was a day off and the band performed in the studios of KBCO in Boulder, Colorado, for a live radio broadcast. The acoustic mini-set consisted of Driver, Wading in the Velvet Sea, Possum and Roggae. The DJ (named "Oz") also chatted with the band about The Story of the Ghost which had been released the previous month. On the following night Phish played at McNichols Arena in Denver. After a day off for travel, the tour continued with a show on the 6th at Madison, Wisconsin's Kohl Center, and three nights at Chicago's UIC Pavilion followed on November 7th, 8th, and 9th. The first set of the first show contained Mike's Song which then flowed into seven more tunes before the band finished the set with Weekapaug Groove.

The show on November 11th at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was Phish's fourth in that city and featured a twenty-four minute long rendition of the classic Halley's Comet to open the second set. On the 13th they performed at the Cleveland State University Convocation Center, and November 14th found Phish at The Crown in Cincinnati where they closed an excellent show with their version of The Police hit So Lonely > Tweezer (reprise). The next night the band played in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where they enjoyed a couple of days off following the show.

On November 18th, Phish played at the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, South Carolina. They opened the Greenville show with their first full version of the Jimmy Smith song Back in the Chicken Shack and closed the set with a slapstick a capella version of Carolina. The show on the 19th in Winston-Salem, North Carolina featured a first-set opening sequence of Cities, The Curtain and Simple. Set two opened with 2001 > Rock and Roll > Taste, and closed with Been Caught Stealin' followed by a YEM encore assisted by special guest vocalist Heloise Williams from the Burlington band Viperhouse. After the show, Trey joined Viperhouse at nearby Ziggy's (see This Month in Phish History 3/92), where he sat in for all of their second set.

When the band pulled into the Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia for shows on November 20th and 21st, they had no idea what a significant weekend it would prove to be. After reviewing the tapes from this memorable pair of performances, the band decided to compile and release the music - uncut and unedited - in a six CD box set entitled Hampton Comes Alive. Of the forty four tracks, twenty have never been released on any Phish album before. The album will be released on November 23rd, 1999 on Elektra Records - look for a special web installation about this release sometime in November. Following the epic Hampton shows, the band took two more days off before resuming the tour in New Haven, Connecticut.

The seldom-played Tela highlighted the show on the 24th at New Haven Coliseum, where set two opened with Ghost > Halley's Comet followed by Tweezer into a long Possum. The encore that night featured longtime friend and collaborator the Dude of Life for unique renditions of Suzy Greenberg and Tweezer (reprise). On the following day, the band returned to the Pepsi (formerly Knickerbocker) Arena in Albany, New York; the second set featured Drowned, Piper, YEM and a rousing Llama closer. After a day off to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends, the band moved on to Worcester, Massachusetts to close the tour with their second three-night stand of the trek.

Worcester has been home to many notable Phish concerts and 1998's sojourn was no exception. Set two of the November 27th show was a mix of fun and serious jamming with the band running through a roster of well-played classics such as Buried Alive, Dog Log, Sanity, Buffalo Bill, Mike's Groove and Antelope as well as Phish's first attempt to cover the English Beat's Mirror in the Bathroom. Entwined throughout those songs was the ongoing theme of the surf classic, Wipeout! The show ended with a triple encore including a hilarious solo by Fish and a Wipeout reprise. The second Worcester show was less thematic, but contained a number of classics, such as Tube, Split Open and Melt, Timber Ho, Loving Cup and Tweezer. The tour ended on November 29th with a show that featured a guest appearance by Burlington blues phenomenon Seth Yacovone who joined Trey on guitar and vocals for a couple of songs, finishing the first set with Phish's debut performance of Layla, sung by Page. The second set opened with Roses are Free (a Ween cover) and included a version of Possum during which the band revisited the Wipeout theme from the first night of the run. Bathtub Gin and YEM closed the set. After completing the three nights in Worcester, the band and crew departed for home to enjoy the holidays. They would reunite a month later to ring in the new year with their first four night stand at Madison Square Garden.