July 21, 1999
'Phish-heads' show their allegiance, but Phish reel in little else

TORONTO -- Q: What did the Phish frontman say two hours into his band's concert?

A: "Thanks and now for our second song ..."

Q: What did the Phish frontman says three hours into his band's concert?

A: "Sorry, we screwed up the intro on that one, we're going to have to start it again."

Q: What did the Phish frontman say at the end of his show?

A: "Thank you! Good morning!"

Okay, so none of the above are actual quotes from Phish's four-hour opus at the Molson Amphitheatre last night.

But these jokes -- told within music industry circles -- give you a pretty good idea of the musical direction of a Phish show.

Even among the Vermont-based band's reverent horde of worshippers, which piled 15,000-strong into the Amphitheatre, there were mutterings: "I heard they're going to play until two in the morning," one good-vibe, tie-dyed type was heard to say.

With a build-up like that, it was surprising when Phish -- singer-guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, keyboardist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman -- wrapped up their opening tune after a relatively conventional five minutes.

Phish didn't even move into their now-legendary "jam-rock" expanses until a good 45-minutes into the set, though they did indeed deliver two sets before respecting the venue's 11 p.m. curfew and packed things in.

In the grooves was an overview of their 15-year recording career, including improvised re-inventions plucked from obvious crowd-favourites like Billy Breathes and from their current disc The Story Of The Ghost.

Still, to paraphrase something Elvis Costello once said about rock criticism, writing about the musical minutiae of a Phish concert is a bit like dancing about architecture.

It's impossible, if not pointless, to round up hundreds of guitar breaks, drum solos, jazz-rock flourishes and complicated time-changes.

Phish are music scholars, which in itself is admirable enough. It's just that what they produce is so selective, so specific, it can be magical to one group of people while sounding like a sterile, soul-less blur to the outsider.

Not exactly a new thing, only this time, the outsider was your humble reporter.

While they've received major props for their daring approach to guitar rock, much of Phish's set was mired in noodling and idle repetition. They've shied away from comparisons to The Grateful Dead. They even seemed surprised when they they adopted the caravans of younger Deadheads who followed that band around until their 1995 dissolution.

Yet to the untrained ear, Phish sound like polished but pale Dead imitation whose songs are lost in all that screwing around.

Like so many cult phenomenons, the most interesting thing at a Phish show -- for the outsider, anyway -- isn't what's going on on-stage, but what's going on among that flailing army of fans appropriately known as "Phish-heads."

That a cult band can draw 15,000 people seemed at first like a big deal, until it became clear that many of people in the audience had followed the band up from the U.S. Many were had no doubt seen the band dozens of times.

There were apparently show-going rules: Long-hair is optional, so is underwear; peace and good-vibes are not a necessity, go ahead and shove your neighbour to get more space; dancing Phishy looked easy enough -- just spin, stop, point in the air, flail, look at your hands in awe. Oh yeah, and Phish goes better with nitrus oxide and pot.

It's a wide cross-section of people, from stock-brokers to students to transients, who move in unison like a cohesive entity. Funny. Then boring. Then scary. But unique unto themselves. Throw-backs to a faded concert-going time, perhaps.

Too bad the music seemed like just a backdrop.

JAM! Rating: 2 out of 5