Review of Phish at the Greek (Night 1)

A year to the date of Phish’s last appearance in the Bay Area, the Vermont foursome opened the second leg of its summer tour at Berkeley’s Greek Theater on Thursday night.

Phish’s set slightly resembled last summer’s Shoreline stop (“The Divided Sky”, “Halley’s Comet”, “Down With Disease” and “Maze”), but the playing—and of course the atmosphere—were far superior this time around. Many fans expected a bit of rust to have gathered since Phish’s last performance on July 4th near Atlanta, but the band was on point all night, foreshadowing what promises to be a historic week of shows, with two more at the Greek followed by two in Telluride, Colorado early next week.

Opening the night with a buoyant “Possum” and leaping into the funky “Wolfman’s Brother”, the 90-minute first set was paced well, with the awkward stop-and-start transition from “Halley’s” into “Sample in a Jar” standing out as the only gaffe.

After a run of the band’s shorter, sing-a-long numbers (“Sample”, “NICU”, “Bouncing Around the Room”), Phish closed its first set at the Greek since a scorching tour closer in 1993 with “Run Like an Antelope”, one of four songs in Thursday’s show that the band also played that August night in ’93.

“Antelope” has become a go-to first-set closer this summer, finishing off five of the 19 opening segments thus far. Deservedly so, as it’s one of the finest examples of classic Phish: a jaunty opening section precedes a build to a roaring crescendo, finishing off a batch of 10 songs that were enjoyable, yet not terribly adventurous.

The musical bravado that was Phish’s calling card in the mid-1990s surfaced on occasion in the second set, most notably during the set-opening “Disease”. The 15-minute romp featured excellent interplay early in the jam between Anastasio and keyboardist Page McConnell, as the latter traced piano themes around the guitarist’s leads, before moving to the organ as bassist Mike Gordon took the reins, pacing the song with bouncy runs that drummer Jon Fishman augmented nicely, never drawing attention away from Anastasio’s soloing, instead locking into a solid groove while finding spaces for tom-tom fills and cymbal splashes.

Certainly, this “Disease” was the highlight of the evening, as it was the night’s most venturesome offering. Quality takes on “Free”, “Alaska” and “Back on the Train” followed before Fishman led the band into a mid-set “Maze”, which featured formidable solos from McConnell and Anastasio.

“Joy”, the title track from Phish’s 2009 studio album, offered some space to breathe and rest before the double-punch of two of the band’s heaviest hitters: “Tweezer” and “Fluffhead”. “Tweezer” saw Anastasio scatting over a snappy Gordon bass riff and built to a fine peak before mellowing and sliding into the twists and turns of “Fluffhead”.

Arguably Phish’s most difficult composition, “Fluffhead” is an intricate weave of themes and sections that ends with a searing Anastasio solo, and it proved a fitting end to a second set that featured just about everything that Phish faithful long for—precision, humor, and (occasional) transcendence.

Setlist:

I: Possum, Wolfman's Brother, The Divided Sky, Funky Bitch, Kill Devil Falls, Halley's Comet, Sample in a Jar, NICU, Bouncing Around the Room, Run Like an Antelope

II: Down With Disease > Free, Alaska, Back on the Train, Maze, Joy, Tweezer > Fluffhead

E: Loving Cup, Tweezer Reprise

Review of Phish at Walnut Creek

Phish has always been a band that has been greater than the sum of its parts. However, when those parts fire on all four cylinders, as they did during select shining moments on Thursday night at Walnut Creek, it quickly becomes clear why Phish’s legion of devotees remain so loyally entrenched with the Vermont foursome.

Certainly, each member of Phish had his time in the limelight—drummer Jon Fishman added delicate accents to “Light”; keyboardist Page McConnell delivered an exquisite piano outro to “The Squirming Coil”; bassist Mike Gordon bounced through a breakdown in “Free”; and guitarist Trey Anastasio wove colorful leads throughout the night.

Since Phish’s return last year from a self-imposed five-year break-up, the band has been hesitant to fully develop the slew of musical ideas for which it attained such fame in the mid- to late-‘90s. Because of this reticence to stretch their proverbial legs on its traditional jam vehicles (“Moma Dance”, “Halley’s Comet”), the foursome has ratcheted up the group tension-and-release interplay; this hold-it-now-hit-it ideology shined through in each set, highlighted by “The Divided Sky” in the first set and “Light” in the second.

It’s fitting that these two songs were among the standouts, given that “The Divided Sky” was among the first of Anastasio’s major compositions (recorded on 1988’s Junta), and “Light” among his more recent (on last year’s Joy). Fitting because “Divided” features a long, tightly composed section followed by a soaring solo by Anastasio, under which the other three members drive the guitarist along, pushing him to greater and greater heights. Conversely, “Light” feels like little more than a four-chord jam with lyrics intermingled; however, its peaks and valleys were no less impressive than the twists and turns of “The Divided Sky”.

“Light” featured astonishing group interplay, but on a different wavelength than “Divided”—instead of the guitarist dictating the terms, Fishman and Gordon led the way, allowing McConnell and Anastasio to add texture to a 14-minute jaunt through rocking peaks and atmospheric valleys. Some call this type of groupwork “new” Phish; it’s simply the sound of a mature band whose members listen to one another instead of stepping on each other’s toes (as Phish has been known to do at times in the past).

For all Phish’s improvisational skills, however, the band seemed most at home jamming on other artists’ material—the simple blues progression of Traffic’s “Light Up or Leave Me Alone” brought Anastasio to the forefront as McConnell chomped and comped boogie-woogie chords underneath. Similarly, Gordon drove the band through Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie On Reggae Woman” as an encore, slapping slippery bass lines that guided the group to a sublime , just-past-curfew peak.

Also of note were the covers that the band dusted off for the first time in a long time:
Little Feat’s “Time Loves a Hero” (last played 12.31.02), The Mighty Diamonds’ “Have Mercy” (12.11.99) and “Light Up or Leave Me Alone” (12.30.99).

Setlist:

I: Llama, Roses Are Free, Kill Devil Falls, Time Loves a Hero, Alaska, Water in the Sky, Runaway Jim, Moma Dance, The Divided Sky, Cavern

II: Backwards Down the Number Line, Halley's Comet, Light, Fluffhead, Have Mercy, Light Up or Leave Me Alone, Free, Wading in the Velvet Sea, The Squirming Coil, Suzy Greenberg

E: Boogie On Reggae Woman

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