PHISH PHENOM/ World's biggest jam band has its fans hooked

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Feb 16, 2003 by BILL REED

Phish is huge. And the army of Phishheads that follows the jammy rock band around the country is about to invade Colorado.

For the pop culture-impaired, Phish is the biggest jam band since the Grateful Dead and one of today's biggest rock bands, period.

During the past 20 years, the jolly Vermonters have played Colorado 60 times, from a free show on Colorado College's Cutler Quad on April 20, 1990, to Tuesday's show at Denver's Pepsi Center that sold out "as fast as they could sell the tickets," according to the promoter.

Phish has attracted as many as 135,000 rabid fans to a single camping/concert festival. They've inspired hundreds of Web sites detailing every live set the band ever played - there's even a site dedicated to Phish lighting designer Chris Kuroda.

When the band recently roared back from a two-year hiatus with a New Year's Eve show at Madison Square Garden, scalpers reportedly got $2,000 to $4,000 per ticket.

They've done it all through the magic of their live shows, shunning radio and MTV on their climb to the top.

The quartet - guitarist Trey Anastasio, drummer Jon Fishman, bass player Mike Gordon and Page McConnell on keys - is always good for three hours of improvised musical surprises.

But the Phish experience starts way before the music, as a carnival of Phishheads travels with the band from show to show, setting up a bazaar of the bizarre, with everything from ganja Rice Krispies treats to aura readings outside the concert venues.

It's a place for neo-hippies, dreamy idealists, the Great Unwashed to gather for a few hours, patching together a sense of community and preparing their hearts and minds for an experience with their musical saviors.

The Pepsi Center usually sets times for the doors to open, but for this show it's also specified that parking lot gates swing open at 3 p.m., giving fans about four hours of revelry.

Once the music begins, hundreds of tapers are encouraged to record each show and trade the sets with other fans.

If this sounds a lot like the Grateful Dead's traveling carnival, that's because it is. Except that most Phishheads weren't alive in the '60s and some of the hippie idealism is gone.

"The Dead pioneered it and nobody else even thought of trying it when the Dead were around," says James Webb, who helps book music at Colorado Springs' jam-band haven Utopia Cafe.

"After Jerry (Garcia) died, there were a few years when everything was in limbo, and Phish rose to the top of that. Boom! They were on the scene and they were huge."

Phish dominated jam-based rock before they called it quits for a while in October of 2000. In their absence, the scene embraced dozens of new bands, such as Colorado's String Cheese Incident and Leftover Salmon, and exploded in new directions.

The hiatus also made room for Phix. As the name implies, the Boulder-based Phish tribute band - which plays the Utopia Cafe every few months - formed to give desperate fans a Phish fix.

"I think (Phish) definitely has the potential to get bigger," says Phix guitarist Paul Murin. "They've moved into a living legend status since they went on hiatus.

"I flat-out cannot touch Trey as a technician on the guitar," says Murin. "And the sheer quantity of cool songs they've put out is amazing."

Clear Channel Concerts talent buyer Don Strasburg, the promoter behind this week's Pepsi Center show, isn't surprised at all by that kind of dedication.

"They're the best rock 'n' roll band," Strasburg says. "You play music that well, people respond. It's not rocket science."

As a student at CC, Strasburg was the one who brought Phish to the Springs 13 years ago.

Phish rewards its followers with constant surprises and innovations. The band has played at least 632 different songs on stage, according to the Phish Stats Web site, and a song is never played exactly the same way twice.

On one tour, the band played a slow game of chess with the crowd, the band making one move before each show and the fans banding together to make a move between sets. They've also released beach balls into the crowd - each ball representing a band member - with their solos responding to the way the balls careen amongst the crowd.

"I definitely think (the appeal) has a lot to do with the off-the- cuff nature of their shows," says Murin. "Every single show they did something different that you weren't expecting. And they still have some of that."

The energy between Phish and its fans is palpable at the shows, says Murin, and the band plays that energy like an extra instrument.

Sometimes, though, the music gets lost in the partying. That concerns Webb from Utopia.

"You hate to see that happen to a great band, and I've seen a lot of that with Phish," says Webb, talking about johnny-come-lately Phishheads who show up for the parking-lot carnival but don't care about the music.

"It's not scary. It's just sad, seeing these kids not caring at all, just spun out of their heads.

"It's the kind of scene that doesn't need a lot of scrutiny. But if there are kids flopping around on the lot, and calls for paramedics, and busted windows. ... Then there are cops everywhere, and it's not fun any more."