The Clifford Ball (video)

The Clifford Ball
Directed byMartin Pitts
StarringPhish
Music byPhish
Distributed byJEMP
Release date
  • March 3, 2009 (2009-03-03)
Running time
600 minutes

The Clifford Ball is a seven-DVD box set released on March 3, 2009 by the rock band Phish. It was performed on August 16 and August 17, 1996 at Plattsburgh Air Force Base in Plattsburgh, NY, chronicling the first of ten Phish festivals. The collection received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package in 2009.[1]

Additional footage in this set includes documentaries, the soundcheck from August 15, and footage of the early morning performance of "The Flatbed Jam".

Phish issued the entirety of The Clifford Ball on a 12 LP box set on March 4, 2022. The Flatbad Jam was also made available on a separate LP.[2] The same day as the box set's release, the official audio recordings of the festival were also made available for digital purchase and streaming on the band's LivePhish website.[3]

The event was named after aviator Clifford Ball. The band reportedly learned of Ball from a plaque in a Pittsburgh airport which described him as a "Beacon of light in the world of flight".[4] Phish had previously used the name "The Clifford Ball" as the recording location of the tracks that appeared on their 1995 live album A Live One, as they were unable to secure the recording rights from every venue on the album at the time of its release.[5][6]

  1. ^ "Masaki Koike". Grammy Awards. Retrieved September 7, 2021.
  2. ^ "25th Anniversary The Clifford Ball Vinyl Box Set Announced". Phish. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  3. ^ "Phish Releases Clifford Ball On Streaming Platforms". JamBase. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  4. ^ "FAQ - Phish.net". phish.net. Retrieved 2022-09-02.
  5. ^ Puterbaugh, Parke (2010). Phish: The Biography. Da Capo Press. p. 9. ISBN 9780306819209.
  6. ^ Holland, Walter (2015). Phish's A Live One. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 8. ISBN 9781628929393.