Phish Hampton

by Dustin Newman
ROCK! V2010
Prof. J. Oakes
Spring 2009
Thu May 7
INTRODUCTIONPhish is, and always has been, the biggest and most popular band in the history of rock that no one seems to know anything about or pay any attention to. Many are surprised to learn that a band that had almost no radio presence, no music videos and generally no popular media coverage during their heyday could sell out arenas in every city they visited. The band—guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, pianist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman—also hosted seven of their own music festivals, akin to Woodstock or Bonnaroo, which each drew roughly 70,000 fans. Whereas the comparable mainstream festivals often feature two hundred or so acts, Phish festivals—each with a different theme that was illustrated by public art installations and psychedelic spectacles—featured only the headlining band playing three sets per day. It is this paradox of enormous success despite a relatively underground existence that led Rolling Stone magazine to label Phish “the most important band of the 1990s.”

INTRODUCTION

Phish is, and always has been, the biggest and most popular band in the history of rock that no one seems to know anything about or pay any attention to. Many are surprised to learn that a band that had almost no radio presence, no music videos and generally no popular media coverage during their heyday could sell out arenas in every city they visited. The band—guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, pianist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman—also hosted seven of their own music festivals, akin to Woodstock or Bonnaroo, which each drew roughly 70,000 fans. Whereas the comparable mainstream festivals often feature two hundred or so acts, Phish festivals—each with a different theme that was illustrated by public art installations and psychedelic spectacles—featured only the headlining band playing three sets per day. It is this paradox of enormous success despite a relatively underground existence that led Rolling Stone magazine to label Phish “the most important band of the 1990s.”

In the way of a brief history, Phish formed in the basement of a University of Vermont dormitory in 1983. They became more widely known in 1988, after venturing away from the eastern seaboard for the first time. 1989 saw the release of their first album, a double-disc entitled Junta. In the years that followed, Phish gained momentum and popularity mainly by touring constantly, playing larger and larger venues until they began selling out arenas in 1994. They carried on, producing a prolific catalog of compositional music over several well-received albums, and playing nonstop until a self-perceived staleness and exhaustion forced them to take a two-year hiatus beginning in 2000. The house lights came on after their final pre-hiatus show in Shoreline, CA to the music of the Beatles’ Let It Be. Phish returned to the stage on New Year’s eve 2002, and resumed their rigorous tour schedule until a serious of factors—including lead guitarist Trey Anastasio’s addiction problems and a midlife crisis of sorts involving four 40-year-old men who never had lives outside of the band—forced Phish to quit for good. Or so we thought.

In the way of a brief history, Phish formed in the basement of a University of Vermont dormitory in 1983. They became more widely known in 1988, after venturing away from the eastern seaboard for the first time. 1989 saw the release of their first album, a double-disc entitled Junta. In the years that followed, Phish gained momentum and popularity mainly by touring constantly, playing larger and larger venues until they began selling out arenas in 1994. They carried on, producing a prolific catalog of compositional music over several well-received albums, and playing nonstop until a self-perceived staleness and exhaustion forced them to take a two-year hiatus beginning in 2000. The house lights came on after their final pre-hiatus show in Shoreline, CA to the music of the Beatles’ Let It Be. Phish returned to the stage on New Year’s eve 2002, and resumed their rigorous tour schedule until a serious of factors—including lead guitarist Trey Anastasio’s addiction problems and a midlife crisis of sorts involving four 40-year-old men who never had lives outside of the band—forced Phish to quit for good. Or so we thought.

HAMPTON, VIRGINIAOne of the most marked characteristics of Phish is the dedication and obsession of its fan community—what New York Times music critic Seth Schiesel calls “perhaps the most fervent fandom in pop music.”  Phish’s announcement in October of 2008 that they would return to the stage a three-night stand the following March sent shockwaves through the fan community. Within hours of the reunion announcement, every hotel within twenty miles of Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia was booked solid. The Coliseum, widely deemed one of the last great rock arenas in the country, is renowned for its superior sound and its all-general admission seating and open floor. Despite the fact that the arena only holds roughly 13,000 people per night, the Associated Press estimated that roughly 75,000 people descended on the town just to be there—to be near ground zero, to be with other fans, and to explore the slim possibility of getting a ticket to get inside.

HAMPTON, VIRGINIA

One of the most marked characteristics of Phish is the dedication and obsession of its fan community—what New York Times music critic Seth Schiesel calls “perhaps the most fervent fandom in pop music.”  Phish’s announcement in October of 2008 that they would return to the stage a three-night stand the following March sent shockwaves through the fan community. Within hours of the reunion announcement, every hotel within twenty miles of Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia was booked solid. The Coliseum, widely deemed one of the last great rock arenas in the country, is renowned for its superior sound and its all-general admission seating and open floor. Despite the fact that the arena only holds roughly 13,000 people per night, the Associated Press estimated that roughly 75,000 people descended on the town just to be there—to be near ground zero, to be with other fans, and to explore the slim possibility of getting a ticket to get inside.

COMMUNITYThe notion of 75,000 fans showing up to an arena that only holds 13,000 at a time demonstrates the unyielding bond of Phish phans. From the standpoint of the fan, Phish’s draw is equally divided between the quality of the music and the richness of the community that surrounds the band. This traveling formidable circus is one of the facets that often leads observers to compare Phish to the Grateful Dead—a band from which Phish derives much of its cultural heritage. In her article on the Grateful Dead entitled Counting Stars by Candlelight, Nancy Reist speaks of the Dead in language that is almost interchangeable with descriptions of Phish’s scene: “the performance itself is only one part of the phenomenon. The interactions between the fans are equally important.” She continues, “Indeed, hundreds of Dead Heads show up for concerts but never actually go inside. Instead, they congregate in the parking lot, forming a Grateful Dead community that follows the band on the road, rather like a traveling band of gypsies.”   This notion of a committed, if not die-hard community of fans in this case is exactly applicable to Phish.

COMMUNITY

The notion of 75,000 fans showing up to an arena that only holds 13,000 at a time demonstrates the unyielding bond of Phish phans. From the standpoint of the fan, Phish’s draw is equally divided between the quality of the music and the richness of the community that surrounds the band. This traveling formidable circus is one of the facets that often leads observers to compare Phish to the Grateful Dead—a band from which Phish derives much of its cultural heritage.

In her article on the Grateful Dead entitled Counting Stars by Candlelight, Nancy Reist speaks of the Dead in language that is almost interchangeable with descriptions of Phish’s scene: “the performance itself is only one part of the phenomenon. The interactions between the fans are equally important.” She continues, “Indeed, hundreds of Dead Heads show up for concerts but never actually go inside. Instead, they congregate in the parking lot, forming a Grateful Dead community that follows the band on the road, rather like a traveling band of gypsies.”   This notion of a committed, if not die-hard community of fans in this case is exactly applicable to Phish.

Given this obsessive network of fans who organize their lives around Phish’s tour schedule, it is easy to understand, respectively, the sheer heartbreak every one of these people felt in 2004 when a near-death Anastasio told the world “we’re done” and the subsequent elation—what Schiesel called “unfettered, triumphant cascade of joy”—when the band announced their reunion.

An unnamed staff writer at Glide magazine, in his review of the trio of shows at Hampton, wrote what is probably the best description of what Phish means to their fans:

“This weekend was about everyone’s stories being interwoven with their own, connected by being part of something bigger, a participatory séance, the resurrection of a lost world. This weekend was about thousands of people at the exact same time falling back in love with something they once adored so much…the sheer madness of this weekend was much more than just the music. It’s the anticipatory stomach churn before the show. It’s the house lights going down. It’s the conversations you haven’t had in nearly half a decade. It’s the snippets of other people’s conversations you haven’t heard in nearly half a decade. It’s the jargon. It’s the lingo…”


This impassioned albeit accurate account of March 6,7 and 8 2009 displays, if nothing else, the passion with Phish fans approaches their favorite band.

CHECK OUT ROLLING STONE’S PHISH FAN PROFILE SERIES

MYTH/LORE

An important part of Phish’s aura and their appeal to adherent fans is the mysticism that surrounds the band and everything they do. One of the great unknowns in the ether as anticipation mounted in advance of the reunion at Hampton was how, it at all, the band would continue with the legendary quirks and mythic acts that had always been part of it’s live show. Fans were simultaneously reassured and confused when the band announced the reunion not with a press release or a letter, but with a cryptic video which showed an unidentified painted gradually forming the image of Hampton Coliseum’s famous façade while never-before-heard spacey, psychedelic Phish music played in the background. (See Above)

Part of Phish lore lies in a rock opera written by Anastasio called The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday which follows a cast of recurring characters through an epic, fantastical journey through fictional nations and dimensions. As far as song choice was concerned, the band gave the audience a taste of these mythic songs but left a fair amount of them for the upcoming summer tour.

Phish has always prided itself on existing as an antithesis to the classical conception of a rock band. The four members are all brainy and dorky in their own rites. Phish’s four members, individually and collectively, formed an image that challenged the conventional notion of the rock-star-as-god aesthetic. Trey, Mike, Page and Jon are more akin to cult leaders than rock stars. Yet, the obsession that fans exhibit as they harp on every note, word and movement of each of the four members is certainly similar to quintessential rock-star status.

Fans at Hampton were pleased to see that Phish brought back their dorky anti-rock gags with the reunion of the band. Drummer Jon Fishman wore the same pink and green muumuu dress he wore at virtually every Phish show of the previous decade. The band performed all four songs that incorporate oddly hilarious synchronized dances by Trey and Mike. During the fan favorite You Enjoy Myself, the two did their famous routine jumping and turning in tandem on two mini trampolines. At the end of this song, entire band dove into a several-minute-long vocal jam in which one voice sounded like the drone of a didgeridoo, while the three others yelped and sung frenetically. Punch You In The Eye saw the reincarnation of the salsa dance during a bossa-nova breakdown in the song. Most notably, Fishman received cheers as he stepped out from behind the drum kit to derive the strange yet familiar sound of blowing and sucking the hose from an antiquated vacuum cleaner during I Didn’t Know.

Strange and quirky gags such as these are part of what give Phish its peculiar and lovable character. They help in creating the rock stars-as-anti-rocks-stars image. They tell the audience that yes, in fact, Phish is comprised of four dorks and that it is ok for all 13,000 fans in the room who lap up every bit that it’s OK for them to be dorks too. These communications between musician and fan perpetuate the mythic, symbolic, and ritualistic connections that allow Phish to transcend space, time and reality to provide unadulterated moments of pure joy for all parties involved.

THE MUSIC

…And then where was the music. Anastasio, who is the principle songwriter and composer for the band, has always been known as an inventive musician who created his own style by combining established genres—straight-ahead rock, bossa-nova, funk, jazz, psychedelia etc—with intricate, virtuosic compositions. Many of Trey’s songs feature composed sections that feature complex if not esoteric musical elements. Atonal fugues, palindromes and wild time signatures are all commonplace in his writing.

The three Hampton concerts—comprising six sets, almost twelve hours and 84 individual songs—did not disappoint musically. As the lights went down on March 6th just before 8pm, the band quietly began a sixteen-minute version of Fluffhead—one of Anastasio’s most complex compositional pieces. If anything challenges the classical conceptions of an arena rock concert, it is opening the first show back in nearly five years with a sixteen-minute opus of palindromic scales and complex time signatures. It is also worth noting that the band had not played the song since 2000, four full years before their breakup. Following Fluffhead came fan favorite Divided Sky, clocking in at a mere fourteen minutes, which features an ambient, almost silent section of inward reflection followed by a long palindromic composition. It was an opening tour de force, demonstrating to fans and critics alike that Phish still has the chops and the patience to pull it all off.

Nancy Reist talks about the musician as a shaman—the “technician of ecstasy.” The members of Phish jumped right back in, assuming the role as spiritual shaman to each emotional fan in the room. In another tenet of Grateful Dead tradition that translates precisely to Phishdom, Reist writes, “Dead Heads often speak of the concerts as being magical, transforming experiences which help them make decisions, solve problems and cope with the stress of life.”  Longtime Phish fans often cite this transcendental, emotional aspect of the music and the experience as perhaps the best part of seeing the band. In this case of a first show back in nearly five years, emotions were particularly high for band and fan.