Phish – Post-Gazette Pavillion – June 18

(Editor’s Note:  It’s an atypical Lazy Saturday; Chad (Citizen Dick’s Western Suburban Division co-chair) and I trekked to southwestern Pennsylvania on Thursday to catch Phish, so, in lieu of our usual grab bag of live goodies, we’ve got some thoughts on that experience paired with some tracks from a stellar Phish show from the year 2000.)

Neither Chad nor I had been to a Phish show before Thursday.  We were expecting moments of transcendence, patches in the show where our experiences lined up with those of the band, the crowd and the universe at large, snatches of communal synchronicity that we plucked out of the ether as a collective.  There were several times during the evening when I felt that high level of harmony with everything (“Wilson,” “Piper,” the transcendent “You Enjoy Myself”), where I kind of lost my connection to my id and just drifted along in the Phishian zeitgeist.  So, yeah, I’d say that it was a good show.

Phish played two sets and an encore, sticking to (perhaps), slightly more accessible material in the tighter first set (“Bouncing Round the Room,” “Wolfman’s Brother) and really stretching out during the jam heavier second set.  (The clear exception being the mind numbing “David Bowie” that closed out set one, maybe as a bit of a memo to everyone that the second set was going to be about more meandering.)  The encore featured an amusing diversion in barbershop quarteting and (after some goading from Trey), a Fishman performed “Bike.”  (The hippies with spreadsheets over at phish.net indicate that this is the first appearance of “Bike” in 95 shows, so I feel fairly lucky to have caught it.)  To a large degree, you’d argue that a band like Phish isn’t really about the songs that compose the setlist, but in the skill and cleverness with which they are executed.  To that end, Phish seemed dialed in on Thursday.  Anastasio’s guitar work was stellar and filled with glee and giddiness, McConnell destroyed some funk solos and the rhythm section was lockstep all night.  Overall, I’ll remember the pealing guitar notes in the mid-section of “You Enjoy Myself” more than I will the order or composition of the set.

We spent the night in a campground a couple of miles from the venue; this afforded us the opportunity to both flirt with death on the twisting and turning, unlit two lane Pennsylvanian highway, but to get some more quality time with the assorted flip-flop and ironic t-shirt clad concert-goers.  Two favorites:  (before we left the venue), we had a twenty minute conversation with one of the filthier hippies I’ve seen in a while. (dude’s beard made Fleet Foxes look like they’re covered in peach fuzz.)  He regaled us with stories about his now-empty wine bota and the man’s bulldozers that leveled a forest to construct the venue.  Good times!  Our second clear favorite was the guy trying to high-five oncoming traffic on the way back to the campground.  He was either going to touch a car or break his hand off trying.  Sadly, neither happened.  In much the same way that the show was about more than the songs, the show was also about the folks we were there with.  While bearded hippie and car-toucher-guy were two of our more flamboyant companions, the folks who made it out for Phish were, by and large, fun to look at and interact with.  (Except for the dude puking his brains out by my tent at three in the morning.  That guy wasn’t fun.)

If you’re already a fan, I don’t have to talk you into Phish.  Go see them this summer; who knows when they’ll be back after this stretch.  We can assure you that it will be worth your time.  If you’re here today looking for some uber-hip remix of a grossly over-hyped act, sorry to disappoint.  We’ve got two tracks that Phish played and one that I wish they would have below.  All are from the October 5, 2000 show in Irvine, California.  Enjoy.

“Guyute” – Phish, Live – Irvine – 2000

“Haley’s Comet” – Phish, Live – Irvine – 2000

“Chalkdust Torture” – Phish, Live – Irvine – 2000