LIVE PHISH 14

Being a Phish fan in the 1990s was an exciting undertaking. After its modest beginnings in the late 1980s, by the mid 1990s Phish had enjoyed a groundswell of support and an almost unthinkable level of popularity. All this resulted almost entirely from excitement over their live stage shows, where the band took this popularity as a license to experiment however far they wanted to go. And in the mid 1990s, they took it very far indeed.

Trey Anastasio (guitar, main singer, main composer), Jon Fishman (drums, occasional novelty vocal feature), Page McConnell (keyboards, almost always acoustic or analog), and Mike Gordon (bass, occasional lead vocals) were the central figures of the "jam band" scene - a term that I feel does disservice to the adventurousness of what they were doing. They didn't just "jam" - and furthermore, when they did "jam", it was hardly ever a laid-back solo fiesta, it was spontaneous group composition, complete with development and twists and turns. Another thing they did was perform interesting covers; and sometime in 1994, they got the brilliant idea to use Halloween as an opportunity to put on a "musical costume" and devote an entire set to covering a classic album. Nowadays, bands do this all the time; old bands will even come out of retirement to do a tour recreating that one classic album they had in them. But in 1994, I had never heard of such a thing before.

On Halloween 1994, they decided to cover the Beatles' White Album. While this was a bold and interesting idea in theory, in practice it became a pretty tedious exercise by the end of the set, especially since key pieces like "Revolution 9" were not playable onstage, yet they dutifully faked/forced their way through such moments. Learning from this experience, they made 1995's Halloween show a much more engaging one -- and covered The Who's Quadrophenia album.

The template for such Halloween shows was to perform three full sets, each over an hour long, and have the second set be the "musical costume" set. The first set on this night opened with the old obscurity "Icculus", a ridiculous (ha) mostly spoken number that I can't adequately describe here. This silliness out of the way, they dive right into one of their signature pieces, "The Divided Sky", an extended, complicated piece that I often recommend to prog fans. Following a series of shorter songs, the first set ends with three more extended pieces: "Guyute", a tightly composed multi-part piece about an evil pig; "Run Like an Antelope", my pick for "song I always hope they play" due to it's incredible intensity the band always generates without fail during the long tension/release improvisational section; and finally "Harpua", a silly story song about an epic battle between a dog and a cat, where the story changes a little each night to suit current events or any in-joke the band was enjoying at the time (very much like Zappa's "Yellow Snow" suite, come to think of it).

After a set break, the band tackles the "Quadrophenia" album. Wisely, they added a horn section for this segment of the show, and also gave a lot of the lead vocals to Page McConnell, whose higher voice suits the Who's vocal range much better than Trey's does. As the Who's most progressive rock album, it's a lot of fun to hear Phish reproduce the depth of the studio recording live on stage. "Drowned" went over so well, the band kept it in their set for occasional use in future shows. Jon Fishman's obligatory solo spot, however, nearly derails the whole thing, as he strains his way through "Love, Reign O'er Me". In a way, though, his struggle (as a singer, he's definitely the Ringo of the band) through the song makes it all the more poignant, as Roger Daltrey's rage-with-vulnerability is re-imagined as a vulnerable freak show act... sacrilege to fans maybe, but certainly compelling and kinda fun too.

Set three is mostly taken up by a lengthy (40 minute) rendition of concert staple "You Enjoy Myself" - this song is always played identically for the first 5 minutes (the composed part), and then goes into a long funk jam, often with visual aids (Mike and Trey on trampolines), ending with an a capella "vocal jam" that also varies from night to night. 40 minutes is a bit long for such a song (20 minutes seems to be ideal from my experience), but I'm sure it was a gas if you were there in the arena. Then, slowly bubbling out of the dying strains of the vocal jam, the band eases into a groovy version of ZZ Top's "Jesus Just Left Chicago" and the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" (which they handle quite well). The old Phish standard "Suzy Greenberg" sees the horn section return to the stage, with the horn players each taking solos. Finally, it wouldn't be a Who show without "My Generation", so this song puts an appropriate, if sloppy, cap on the marathon show.

Three stars is about right. A great Phish show, and I'm glad they released it on CD (I had long enjoyed my cassette copy), but really, this is not the place to get acquainted with Phish, nor is it a truly essential album for the average person reading this. If you're a confirmed fan of the band already familiar with some live recordings and albums, by all means bump this up to a four. And if you're a fanatic, well, you need this pronto.