Note: This article was originally published on The Duckpin in June 2020. Go subscribe to them.
The greatest thing about Phish is that you can’t ever understand Phish. Not truly. Not really. At best, all one can ever do is understand that they are, really and truly, the greatest band ever in the history of Western Civilization and leave it at that.
Phish, September 3, 2021, Commerce City, CO. Photo by the author.
I kid, but I do not, in point of fact, kid at all.
To be sure, I am a connoisseur of music. I understand and appreciate all sorts of bands: The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Rustic Overtones, Taylor Swift, Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, Barenaked Ladies…even Nickelback.
OK, just kidding, not really Nickelback.
The list goes on and on. I enjoy all sorts of different genres and bands, from all over the country and the world. I do not just listen to jam bands, and I am neither a hippie nor am I a liberal. I am a solid New England conservative, in the grand tradition of George H.W. Bush and Margaret Chase Smith.
I do, however, happen to absolutely love Phish (No, they’re not called ‘The Phish’, no matter what Bernie Sanders says).
My relationship with the band goes a ways back. I had two older brothers, who both attended the same New England prep school where Phish happened to play back in the old days: St. Paul’s. They used to bring back tapes that they traded with their friends when I was a kid, and so while everyone else on the bus was listening to Green Day, Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, Presidents of the United States of America, or Barenaked Ladies, I was listening to tapes of old Phish shows.
To be clear, I like a lot of those other bands too: I’m not demeaning them. I just like Phish a whole hell of a lot more, and twenty plus years later, I still do. Here are a few of the reasons why:
Trey Anastasio is absolutely brilliant
Seriously, if you don’t believe me, go on YouTube and look up some of his Trey Anastasio Band performances, his solo acoustic tours, or Ghosts of the Forest. It completely shows off his skills, as a lyricist, a vocalist, and a guitarist. He is a virtuoso, and listening to his pieces - whether from the earliest days of Phish or from his quarantine recordings of the past few months (more on that later) - is to witness a work of art in progress.
He is one of the greatest singer/songwriters working in America today. We used to have a lot of people like him bouncing around, but we don’t anymore. Pop music being what it it is today, many singers relay on others to write their songs. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that: it dates back to the very earliest history of rock and roll and country. Nashville has a whole song-writing machine that provides talented singers with pre-written songs ready to be recorded into top hits.
But that’s not Trey Anastasio, and that’s not Phish.
Trey - along with his childhood friend, Tom Marshall, a genius from New Jersey (be proud, Garden State!) - has been writing the vast majority of the band’s songs since the very beginning. This long-time partnership, dating back to the band’s very earliest days, is on a par with Lennon-McCartney of Beatles fame. The two are a virtuoso, and are probably the greatest living songwriting team in America today.
Trey isn’t just brilliant in his singing and songwriting with Phish, however. Unlike many lead men, he’s able to stretch his virtuoso talent to the absolute limit. Not only does he constantly engage in side projects - whether it’s his solo acoustic tour, Trey Anstasio Band, Oysterhead, or more - he’s always singing and writing. Literally, always.
One of the greatest highlight of my quarantine (not literally, I never had COVID-19, but work was shut down completely for almost a month) is that, since March 18, Trey Anastasio has released an almost an hours’ worth of brand-new music. No, he hasn’t happened to been quarantined with the members of Phish or a whole other band - this is just one of the things he’s been doing to fill up his time.
It’s one of the things that makes him legendary.
Of course, he’s hardly the only artist to take advantage of this time to create something new. Michael Stipe, of REM fame, has released a new song, as have other artists. None of them, though, have released a whole new album’s worth of material in the past three months - at least, not that I’ve seen. These are unlikely to be songs that are instantly abandoned, either: Phish is in the habit of performing songs for several years prior to their official release. That suggests that these new songs are here to stay. Phish will probably bounce them around for a year or two, and then decide whether they’re worthy of a regular role in the rotation at concerts.
Phish loves their fans
It would seem to be an obvious point, and one which we should not belabor, but Trey Anastio - and the rest of their band - really loves their fans. And when I say that, I’m not referring to the standard love between a celebrity and his fans. Trey is not Taylor Swift, and he’s not an It girl. Phish is not a boy band. Over the decades, he’s developed a real relationship with his fans, one that’s followed him through the ups and downs of his own life over the years. It’s part of the reason that he’s always on the road: If not with Phish, then on his own or with various side projects.
Phish fans constantly debate which shows are the best, which songs are the best, and whether the band is truly up to snuff that night. That’s another part of the Phish fandom that makes us thoroughly embedded in geek culture: we love debating the band on a level not seen with most modern rock bands today. Instead, that kind of devotion is more often seen with TV shows, like Game of Thrones or Westworld.
The other members of Phish - Jon Fishman, Page McConnell, and Mike Gordon - all clearly love the fans as well. They appreciate how much their fans love them, and still seem taken aback by it at times, even after more than thirty years of being one of the most successful touring bands on earth. Part of this is because, at their hearts, all of them are basically humble nerds. After all, how many bands do you know that have created an entire suite of songs around an epic tale set in their own invented fantasy land? That might explain why they were less well-known in the past, but today with nerd culture on the rise, it makes them eminently relatable to a wide swath of the American music-listening public, because whether you realize it or not, you probably have a little nerd in you, too.
They’re also incredibly versatile
A common knock against Phish by people who have, apparently, never listened to them is that all of their songs sound the same. That’s understandable, as most people who only vaguely know who Phish is think of them as a jam band, which to them probably means that their songs are purely vehicles for improvisation, and that the lyrics and musical composition don’t really matter that much.
The fact is, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Consider the two songs ‘My Sweet One’ and ‘Carini’, both Phish originals. One is a bit of a bluegrass melody, the other a definite hard rock song. Without recognizing Trey’s voice, you probably wouldn’t even know they were the same band. They also do slower ballads, love songs, country songs, and of course covers (often with bizarre guest starsyou’d never think of - like, say, Kid Rock).
They’re constantly innovating, in hilarious ways
Phish are a bunch of pranksters, and that’s frequently been reflected in their performances. They’re known, of course, for staging massive pranks at their New Year’s Eve and Halloween concerts, which have sometimes even backfired - like this year, when Trey Anastasio was left stranded (about 11:00 minutes in on the video below) on a platform high above Madison Square Garden. Trey not only handled being stranded with aplomb, he also performed a song for his rescuers, even switching to the drums as he descended via Fishman’s platform. For their Halloween concert a few years ago, they invented a whole Swedish metal band who they then ‘covered’, performing a whole album of brand-new material for fans. As per usual for them, they haven’t just abandoned that material as a one-off, either: it regularly hits the rotation in shows now.
They haven't just been innovate with musical pranks over the years, however. It's easy to forget now, but when they first started staging their massive festivals in the late 90s, the music industry as a whole was pretty skittish towards the concept. Woodstock ’94 was a total disaster, so when Phish first began planning their Clifford Ball festival in 1996 they didn't really have much of an example to follow. That was a smashing success, though, followed by equally successful events at the decommissioned Limestone Air Force Base in northern Maine. It's thanks to those successes that Bonnaro ended up working out so well: Many people who'd been involved in those events helped plan it while the band was on hiatus.
Phish was also one of the very first bands to set up their own streaming service upon their return from hiatus. Called LivePhish, it was launched the same year as Bonnaroo and a year after iTunes - but a year before the Apple Music Store. This was back when you mainly added to your music library by either ripping songs directly from CDs or downloading them illegitimately from pirate music services like Napster. Phish’s decision to launch a legitimate streaming service directly for their phans was right in line with their tradition of allowing fans to record shows, and just as contrary to the rest of the music industry at the time. Its success may have helped convince other musicians that perhaps this digital music thing wasn’t so bad, helping to create the industry as we know it today.
Moreover, over the course of thirty years, Phish has never, not once, repeated a setlist. When you consider that most modern rock bands tour in support of a new album, and therefore frequently play the same setlist again and again and again night after night, that’s especially remarkable. Albeit, they do have over 300 original songs, so they have quite the library to choose from, but no matter how you cut it, that’s impressive. What’s equally impressive is that, three years ago, they played thirteen straight showsat Madison Square Garden (one of the most notable venues in the world, even if the Knicks do suck) and never repeated a song. They also have performed at Madison Square Garden more than any other band ever, and they’re second only to Billy Joel as for most performances by an artist.
Even if you’re not a big fan of jam bands, or you don’t think Phish is really your scene, you probably ought to try and give them a listen one of these days. Chances are, you’ll find something to at least appreciate, if not love - though perhaps not. Indeed, I’ve just begun to scratch the surface of the band here - there’s always plenty more to discover, if you do decide to delve in.