Phish philled San Phrancisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium with a phlood of phrenzied phans for the phirst of two shows Tuesday night. (Phew!)
Concertgoers started lining up at lunchtime to jockey for a good spot in the GA show. By the time the doors opened at 6 p.m., there were over a thousand people in a line that stretched all the way around the Civic Center Plaza.
Full disclosure: I’m not particularly a Phish acolyte. Please hold the hate mail. I think they are an incredibly talented band – all four of the guys in Phish (do I really need to name them?) are uniquely gifted musicians, and I really dig their 2000 album Farmhouse. There is no denying their skill, stature, or influence, and they absolutely deserve to be voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on this year’s ballot.
Having said that, this was only the third time I’ve ever seen Phish. (For reference, I saw the Grateful Dead 250 times, so I know a little something about jam band fanaticism.) Is it going to be a problem for you that I didn’t know a single song title all night on Tuesday? Then you might want to stop reading now.
And by the way, this isn’t going to be a traditional song-by-song review. Google is your friend if you want that kind of thing.
If you’re still reading, you might start to wonder, “Why would Grateful Web send a guy who isn’t in the Phamily to cover a Phish show?!” And you may have a point. When they played “Halley’s Comet” in the middle of the first set on Tuesday, I was making my way through the dense crowd on the floor of the auditorium. I thought all the folks singing along (and that was everybody) were telling me “Harry’s Coming!” Yeah, I’m that clueless. Also, I was wearing earplugs, so that might have contributed to my befuddlement.
But to borrow Bill Graham’s quote about another band that I just namechecked, Phish isn’t just the best at what they do; they’re the only ones that do what they do. So yeah, it may not be my chosen flavor of ice cream, but it’s a damn good flavor. (Oh, wait, come to think of it, Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food actually is my favorite supermarket ice cream.)
It’s not like I’ve never heard of Phish. Way back in 1987, in a Grateful Dead show parking lot in New Jersey, someone from Burlington played a bootleg tape of their favorite local band. “You’ve got to see them! They’re gonna be big!” I just missed seeing them on a trip to northern Vermont a year later; they’d played only days before I arrived. My brother-in-law was a regular at Wetlands in New York City before the band outgrew that storied venue. I know folks who were at that epic 8-hour Phish NYE show in Florida in 1999, just before the band’s extended hiatus. I have friends who do every Phish tour, either on the road or on their couch (via LivePhish.com, Phish’s own concert streaming service).
In other words, I “get it.” Darn good band. Cool fans. And man, the light show!
A friend of mine commented on Facebook that he had never experienced a crowd in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium as thick as Tuesday night’s show. Not even at Grateful Dead New Year’s Eve shows in the 1980s, which ol’ Bill Graham himself famously oversold. (And no, the venue was not named for Bill yet back then.) I’m sure part of the reason is that the Dead put speakers in the hallways, and tons of people were out there dancing.
Phish didn’t put speakers in the hallways at the Civic. That would be like putting speakers in the hallway at a museum. Visuals are an integral part of the show.
Seriously, major props to lighting designer Chris Kuroda and his team; they are superstars! (Does the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have a slot for lighting designers?) The band members may not jump around a lot – perhaps a Grateful Dead similarity, although Phish does have trampolines in their blood – but the rigs above the stage are in constant motion. Sort of like a pile of psychedelic robotic kittens executing Lady Gaga dance routines. (The lights, not the band.)
Okay, I’ll stop making Grateful Dead comparisons now. No, wait, one more. I don’t think Phish sounds much like the Dead (though someone who never listens to jam bands might disagree), but “Roggae” has a significant “Birdsong” vibe. Coming after “Halley’s” toward the end of the first set, the jam was one of my favorite grooves of the night.
Another clear influence (Trey Anastasio has confirmed this) is Frank Zappa. “Split Open and Melt” has a complex syncopation and time signature in the jam that really sparked my jazz-loving soul. Total Zappa-esque singing by Trey in the verses. Weird, crafty, intelligent stuff.
For the most part, however, the band that Phish really sounds like is … Phish. You can hear that sound in the mix of countless jam bands on the scene today, from Goose to Eggy to Pigeons Playing Ping Pong. (Why do so many of these bands have ornithological names? Fair question.) Not unlike the Dead and the Allman Brothers, Phish has made a significant, top-of-the-heap imprint on the world of music loosely known as “Jam.”
Set Two opened with “Carini,” a rocker with a distinctive Led Zeppelin “Kashmir” pulse with a touch of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” in the lyrical phrasing. The rest of the set, true to form for the genre, had longer jams than the first set. Ten songs in Set One, only six in Set Two, and both sets were about equal in duration. It’s not my intent to disparage the band when I say that (true story) I had this thought the last time I saw Phish:
“Wow. They’re still playing the same damn song they were playing five minutes ago – when I had noticed that wow, they’re still playing the same damn song they were playing ten minutes ago!”
I’m not even kidding. At the start of “Ruby Waves,” I left my friends on the floor, wandered into the hallways, hiked up the stairs to the seated level, made a complete circumference bopping through dancers on the walkway inside the arena, and then went downstairs again. Taking my time the whole way, meandering, enjoying myself. And then Trey came back to the refrain again, and I realized he was singing the same damn song.
No hate, just an observation.
You could call it foreshadowing that the music on the PA before the band took the stage to start the show was something by Fela Kuti, whose songs were sometimes so long that you couldn’t even fit live versions of them on one vinyl album side. Like Kuti, Phish songs are often hypnotic. You don’t even realize how far they are traveling until you get to a point where you’re galloping in the midst of a tornado, even though you started your stroll in a mild breeze. How did we get here?! Who cares, just look at those awesome lights!
One of my friends told me on Tuesday night, “This is as good as Phish gets!” Which for him (a mere babe at only about 35 shows) was high praise. I can’t argue with that. As I walked to my car after the “Fluffhead” encore, I wondered if any of the fans exiting the doors behind me were just going to stick around and start the queue for Wednesday night’s show. Because God love ’em, that’s how Phish fans roll.
SETLIST
SET 1:
Buried Alive
Axilla (Part II) >
Mike’s Song (with “Manteca” tease) >
I Am Hydrogen >
Weekapaug Groove
My Soul
Halley’s Comet
Roggae >
Maze
Split Open and Melt
SET 2:
Carini
No Men In No Man’s Land
Ruby Waves (with “Black Magic Woman” tease)
Waste >
What’s the Use? >
Down with Disease
ENCORE:
Fluffhead
