The Mockingbird Foundation is announcing its 20th round of Tour Grants, in celebration of Phish's 34 shows this summer and fall. Unsolicited $1,000 checks will be sent to a music program near each venue at which performs, part of a long-standing effort to help bring music from the Phish community to the local communities Phish touches. The $25,000 total continues a celebration of Mockingbird's 25th year, and is being announced in six batches.

The third group of recipients, in celebration of the third leg of the summer tour, are:

• Chelan High School of Chelan, WA (near Gorge Amphitheatre, August 27th, 28th, 29th)
• Carson High School (via Carson City Band Association) of Carson City, NV (near Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena, planned but cancelled for August 31st and September 1st)
• Carson Middle School Bands of Carson City, NV (near Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena, planned but cancelled for August 31st and September 1st)
• Leigh High School (via Leigh Parents of the Performing Arts) of San Jose, CA (near Shoreline Amphitheatre, August 31st and September 1st)
• Adams City High School Band of Commerce City, CO (near Dick's Sporting Goods Arena, September 3rd, 4th, 5th)

Welcome back from tour! Today we've got the 476th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first of September - shout out to @sumac22 for the clip! The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Stay safe!

[This site is run entirely by volunteers as a project of The Mockingbird Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to raising funds for educating children and young adults in musical arts. This post is courtesy of Neve Spicer, who promotes arts education. -Ed.]

Art, music, and film move us, inspire us, and help us to see the world in new ways. Studying the arts does more than just bring us closer to the media we love, it can also be a gateway to personal, psychological, and cognitive benefits -- this is especially true for kids.

Research has shown that participation in arts education during childhood is linked with positive impacts to self esteem, collaborative skill, physical development, and even math and literacy skills. It is valuable contributions like these which are the driving force behind National Arts in Education Week, an annual arts-ed advocacy campaign sponsored by Americans for the Arts.

With a flourish of effects-laden guitar and swampy keyboards, Phish’s triumphant return to concerts comes to a close, thus capping one of the most consistent and entertaining tours in recent memory. The thirtieth show at famed Dick’s Sporting Goods Field was a raucous, but beautifully played, night of music that could satisfy jaded vets and casual fans alike.

I had the pleasure of being in attendance for the tour opener in AR. While a tremendous amount of fun, a little rust was obvious (although I think a number of songs from that show set the table for what would be so successful this summer). I was excited to track this tour, as I knew I would be there for the end, if we got there of course. The concerns that many had were justified, and as other touring acts rescheduled or downright cancelled, Phish kept it up and had no health-related cancellations. That in itself should be cause for celebration.

Getting back to Dick’s is always magic. The routine (I have sat in the same seat since Saturday night of 2014), the Shakedown, the vibe… It came back like riding a bicycle. The undeniable two show punch at Shoreline had expectations sky high, and while not reaching those stratospheric heights, the band delivered three fantastically executed (if a touch uneven in flow at times) shows, culminating in tonight’s closer.

[We would like to thank Denny Kinlaw, user @SaintAndrew, for last night's recap, his first Dick’s show. -Ed.]

Some venues simply flaunt their status as beacons of musical heritage upon the American landscape: the mythic aura of Madison Square Garden, the sublime scale of Alpine Valley, and the dingy intimacy of Hampton Coliseum all come to mind. To enter these venues is to enter into the mythos of rock n’ roll history. For Phish and their fans, these venues represent not only the ascendancy of a band that labored most of its career in the shadows of more commercially celebrated acts—with Phish finally “making it” on the main stages by 12/30/1994 and utterly destroying them by 12/30/1997—but stand out as perennial havens for a band that continues to achieve improvisational high-water marks thirty years into its career. While Dick’s Sporting Goods Park will never elicit the type of hushed reverence these historic venues tend to evoke, nor will anyone ever gasp with stilted breath “It’s magnificent” upon entering Dick's (See Gorge), it simply is the most important outdoor venue for mapping Phish’s shape-shifting achievements in the 3.0 era.