Phish out of Water
Even given the daunting drive to St. Louis, Ozzfest was pretty tempting. For pure spectacle, it’s hard to top ghoulish makeup, stilt walkers and prominent pyrotechnics, plus a profanity-spewing, disoriented, decrepit headliner who’s a lot more entertaining than the average drunk on a downtown corner.
But then I thought, to paraphrase Stryper, to hell with the devils. Ozzfest dared to skip Kansas Rock City, where people bleed metal like melting androids. The tour deserves scorn, not support. As a show of protest, I decided to do the least metal thing possible. So on July 17, while Ozzy, Marilyn and Korn were trying in vain to stir staid St. Louis citizens, I made the trek to Verizon for a Phish concert, where people prefer dreadlocks to mullets, vegan “soysages” to raw meat, and twirling to moshing.
Now, I’ve seen local jam acts such as Einstein Electric play clubs, and I’ve seen hundreds of hippies struggling to cope with a minimal twirling radius at cramped Split Lip Rayfield gigs, but this Phish show was an entirely different ichthyological study. Hundreds of tents, erected in the parking lot hours before the show, offered everything from veggie quesadillas to vegan grilled-cheese sandwiches to black-bean burritos — health food at Taco Bell prices. Even more amazing, bottled water and imported beers were readily available for a dollar. “We all buy in bulk,” explained one trustafarian.
The massive marketplace seemed utopian given the astronomical cost of concessions inside big-time venues, but there’s a reason this works only with Phish pholks — no one wants to deal with Ted Nugent fans who are tanked on buck beers.
Phish’s opening number seemed pretty standard — a vice-tight verse-chorus-verse boogie-rock tune. Then, after two minutes, the solos started. Following guitarist and singer Trey Anastasio‘s slow-winding lead, the group’s rhythm section contributed occasional flourishes — some slaphappy bass from Mike Gordon, a few percussive plateaus from Jon Fishman. Pianist Page McConnell supplied the countermelodies, his ragtime accents running parallel to Anastasio’s riffage until the two intriguingly intersected.
One piano plink into the second song, fans roared in recognition. Some screamed louder than others, perhaps because they’d correctly predicted this sequence in their Phantasy league. Yes, Phishers have their own pseudosport that awards points for set-list forecasts, including bonuses for calling openers, closers and covers.
Prog rockers would have thought of this if they considered music more recreational than academic. But while the King Crimson crowd makes time-signature bar graphs, laid-back jammers are batting balloons and engaging in goofy games. Prog-rock groups resemble brilliant yet socially awkward professors, indie-rock acts are the slack motherfuckers in the back of the room, and Phish is the structure-averse teacher who tosses textbooks out the window and says, “Free your mind, man. Let’s groove on this filmstrip.” Just as such teachers seldom overcome the authority-figure stigma, Phish has trouble winning over cynical sorts. At some point, the kids at the cool table decided that short, basic songs were much cooler than long, virtuosic ones, so you’ll never spot scene brats at jam shows.
You will, however, see a correlation between men over the age of thirty and beards that usually occur only in regions ruled by fundamentalists. There are guys in skirts, women whose entire wardrobes consist of precariously placed scarves, and freakier fanatics in Superman tights-and-cape regalia and aluminum-foil suits. These curious characters’ choreography relates only loosely to the songs Phish plays, but when a spastic spin happens to coincide with an abrupt drum fill, it’s a beautiful thing.
Phish plays on a stark-naked stage, without any banners or decorations. Fans face the stage, but they’re not really focusing on the players. More than anything, their attention strays to the bombastic light show. As a crescendo reaches its climax, hundreds of white bulbs flash like a paparazzi attack. At other points, the full-spectrum hues and zippy keyboards can make concertgoers feel like they’re sliding down a rainbow. In these largely wordless compositions, colors communicate emotion.
Even more colors awaited spectators in the parking lot, where a fan-financed fireworks show erupted. The vendors, many of whom never actually saw the show, were waiting with plenty of freshly grilled goodies. It was the most sensational send-off I’ve ever received, certainly more generous than what those Ozzfest deadbeats would have offered.
