Rhino starts the celebration a few days before Phish's highly anticipated shows with a 7-DVD collection documenting The Clifford Ball, a landmark concert event that drew more than 70,000 fans to upstate New York in August 1996. It was the largest concert event of 1996 in North America and set the tone for festivals including Bonnaroo and Coachella.

Ray Waddell summed it up in Billboard: "Bonnaroo is a direct descendant of Phish's one-band festival extravaganzas like Clifford Ball…Bonnaroo launched with—and maintains—the same self-contained, immersive experience as the Phish events, as well as its laissez-faire treatment of fans and spirit of community." The Clifford Ball will be available from Rhino Records March 3 for a suggested list price of $99.99.

The Clifford Ball was the first of six two-day spectacles the band staged, which included The Great Went a year later, followed by Lemonwheel in 1998 and culminating in Big Cypress—the largest ticketed event in the world for the millennium celebrations, drawing over 90,000. The Clifford Ball was held in Plattsburgh, New York, at a decommissioned air force base, during which Phish played two marathon concerts including multiple guests.

The DVDs contain all three sets and encores the band played each night, along with bonus footage—more than 9 hours of live improvisation. The bonus DVD presents choice rarities including a soundcheck from August 15, their "Flatbed Jam" performed in the wee hours of the morning on the back of a truck, an interview with longtime Phish artist Jim Pollock, interviews with Phish and more.

The first night provided fans with a preview of several tracks that would appear a few months later on Billy Breathes, the band's eighth studio album. During the show, the foursome convened on a small stage, where they performed acoustic versions of then-unreleased tracks: "Waste," "Talk" and "Train Song."

On the second night, nearly half of the songs featured have never appeared on a studio album, including "Runaway Jim," "Wilson," "Punch You In The Eye" and "Harpua." Between the first and second set, an orchestra played selections by Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky as a glider plane flew over in synch with the music as the sun set.

Disc 1
Day One (8/16/1996) – Set One
1. Chalk Dust Torture
2. Bathtub Gin
3. Ya Mar
4. AC/DC Bag
5. Esther
6. The Divided Sky
7. Halley's Comet
8. David Bowie

Disc 2
Day One (8/16/1996) – Set Two
1. Split Open and Melt
2. Sparkle
3. Free
4. The Squirming Coil
5. Waste
6. Talk
7. Train Song
8. Strange Design
9. Hello My Baby
10. Mike's Song
11. Simple
12. Contact
13. Weekapaug Groove

Disc 3
Day One (8/16/1996) – Set Three
1. Makisupa Policeman
2. 2001
3. Down With Disease
4. NICU
5. Life on Mars
6. Harry Hood
Encore
7. Amazing Grace

Disc 4
Day Two (8/17/1996) – Set One
1. Old Home Place
2. Punch You In The Eye
3. Reba
4. Cars Trucks Buses
5. The Lizards
6. Sample In A Jar
7. Taste
8. Fee
9. Maze
10. Suzy Greenberg

Disc 5
Day Two (8/17/1996) – Set Two
1. The Curtain
2. Runaway Jim
3. It's Ice
4. Brother
5. Fluffhead
6. Run Like An Antelope
7. Golgi Apparatus
8. Slave To The Traffic Light

Disc 6
Day Two (8/17/1996) – Set Three
1. Wilson
2. Frankenstein
3. Scent Of A Mule
4. Tweezer
5. A Day In The Life
6. Possum
7. Tweezer Reprise
Encore
8. Harpua