“Everyone is so appreciative of the fact that Phish is still playing after the improbability of the last 41 years,” explains Magdalena Kazmierowski, a rather recent convert from California who has missed one show since she started following the band on tour in 2021. “You see how the band continues to care for the fans. It’s tapping into that same energy the band puts out and making it your own.”

Next month, Kazmierowski will launch PHEMA, or Phriendly Helping Emergency Mutual Aid Network. Her plans are ambitious. Online, PHEMA will serve as a hub for preexisting resources in the Phish orbit, plus a bulletin board so that people can ask for or offer assistance. She’s partnered with another organization to provide discounted health care. And at concerts, she aims to run a table that extends whatever support she can corral at each stop—vision testing, mental-health services, even auto repair.

“I heard about that this morning. It’s unbelievable,” Anastasio says, a few hours after I spoke to Kazmierowski for the first time. “We’ve always been surrounded by these really smart people with high levels of integrity and morality who get shit done. The community built itself, and we were lucky enough to be the soundtrack to this thing.”

gq