Trey Anastasio had a captive audience in the Alabama Theatre anyway, but the room felt especially rapt when he started gushing about the state and his history here.

About nine minutes into his set inside the historic downtown Birmingham venue on March 22, roughly halfway through his spring solo acoustic tour, the jam band icon reminisced about the state where his band Phish played their first of 17 shows more than three decades ago.

“Thank you for having me. I’m so happy to be back. I love this state so much,” said Anastasio, 60, holding an acoustic guitar while sitting in a wooden chair with a single spotlight fixed on his position on stage. “I think we’ve been coming here since 1990. The first time that I played in Alabama, not Birmingham but in Tuscaloosa.”

Sure enough, the eclectic, beloved guitarist and songwriter knows his personal history in Alabama. Phish played their first show at Solomon’s on the Strip on Oct. 20, 1990, a two-setter bookended with a “Funky Bitch” opener and the group’s epic “You Enjoy Myself” to close.

Anastasio even remembered the venue’s name and welcomed anyone who was willing to correct him, as his fan base often does.

“I think the first time we played Tuscaloosa was at Solomon’s. No? Fact-check? Somebody usually calls me out when I get these things wrong,” he said, before again correctly noting the band’s next Alabama show came at College Station the following March, when they opened for Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit (ARU). “We did a lot of touring. We played around here, too. Such good times. We played at College Station. Do you guys know what that is? That was a lot of fun. Really good times.”

A much more intimate setting than the amphitheaters and arenas Phish typically players, the Alabama Theatre and the solo format allowed Anastasio to pace himself during a set full of the famed band’s beloved hits, like “Free,” “AC/DC Bag,” “Prince Caspian,” “Chalk Dust Torture,” “Bouncing Around the Room,” among others, before closing with “Slave to the Traffic Light” and encoring with Jeff Tanksi on piano.

Early on, Anastasio (who was born in Texas) paid the state a huge compliment, drawing favorable comparisons to Vermont, his home where he formed Phish with college friends in 1983.

“It’s the weirdest thing,” he told the room. “I’ve said this to so many people over the years — I feel more at home … Alabama feels more like Vermont to me than any other state. I really mean that.”

Anastasio said he gets that feeling whenever he plays shows, referencing Hangout Music Festival specifically.

“As soon as I cross the border, I feel like it’s very similar. I don’t know, the vibe is the same,” he said. “You have a beautiful state here, and I just want to stay here forever. I’m happy to be back.”

MORE: When Phish rocked Tuscaloosa, my life changed

Saturday marked Anastasio’s first non-Phish show in Alabama since 2018, when he performed at Iron City in Birmingham that April. He has played Alabama five times in total.

Still one of the most popular touring acts in the world who have also sold millions of records, Phish last performed in Alabama in July 2023, when the band visited Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville for a two-night summer tour kickoff.

“As a guitarist, Anastasio is underappreciated outside the jam-band world,” AL.com’s Matt Wake wrote about the Huntsville show. “During the band’s first of two sets at their summer tour opener, he did some acid-blues Hendrix-y stuff that shook my soul. Other times his lines were endearing playfully, skipping between the groove like a dragonfly skimming water surface. It takes a special guitarist to make around thousands of people achieve ecstasy at the same time.”

Anastasio’s solo tour will next hit the Walt Disney Theater at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando on Wednesday. It closes April 5 with a show at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, New Jersey.