Phish box set brings back the bliss
Published in Advocate Weekly, 12/8/11
Photo: Brantley Gutierrez
"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive," Wordsworth wrote of the French Revolution. "But to be young was very heaven!"
Allow me to hyperbolically apply the same equation to the act of seeing Phish play at the Hampton Coliseum in 1997.
After an ear-bending series of artistic advances for three years previous, 1996 had proven an anticlimactic period of retrenchment. The next year was a thrilling advance, with two small-venue European tours injecting a fresh sense of spontaneous musical intimacy to the band’s interplay, paired with the psychedelic free-rock chops it had been honing since the early ‘90s. And by now Phish’s nascent interest in rhythm-based jamming had matured into a headlong infatuation with funk-rock. Guitarist and primary songwriter Trey Anastasio later described the style, aptly, as "cow funk" -- the result of four white guys from Vermont getting heavily into James Brown records, while experimenting with slower tempos and meditative, deep grooves. (Alas, it inspired a seemingly unending parade of flaccid-funk groups that mistook dynamic stasis for the pocket.)
To an avid fanbase that had chronicled for years, in real-time, the band’s every evolution, it all felt like an enormous jump forward into the future. And the music was triumphant.
Which brings us to the bliss and the "very heaven" business. In fall of 1997 I was a college student and rabid Phish fan. Having discovered the band in earnest in 1995, I was a newbie by any standards -- but a very well-studied one, and able to grasp the historical significance of what was happening. And I was a student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and it just so happened that the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Va., was a very convenient place to go for two shows in November, amid a tour that still stands among the band’s best. The venue was already emerging as a fan-favorite. (It enjoys near-mythical status today.) It was general-admission, had a very patron-friendly staff and was surrounded by cheap motels. A two-day, weekend Phish visit amounted to a sort of neo-hippie Mardis Gras. For me, it was my first time becoming immersed in the scene to this great of an extent -- making the hotel rounds, attending a boisterous in-person gathering of online fans, networking among groups of friends and ending up in the prime seats just to the side of keyboardist Page McConnell. It was conjunction of the band’s evolution and my own personal history, a confluence of the personal and the cultural that can’t be planned.
The two shows (Nov. 21 and 22) proved instant classics. They finally saw official release this week, along with the equally superb show the following night in North Carolina, in a seven-CD box set called, simply, "Hampton/Winston-Salem ‘97."
Today these shows are almost exactly as old as the band’s primordial first gig was by the time Phish rolled into Hampton in 1997. And so it’s hard to hear them in context, either as a Phish fan or a general music lover. Now, the soft, fuzzy corners of Phish’s style often sit poorly with me; I frequently want something harder-edged, perhaps more nervous or hungry or at least with less big-bellied satisfaction.
And even the hardcore Phish fan of a newer vintage may not quite grasp the import, say, of the spine-tingling moment early in the version of "AC/DC Bag" (found here on Disc 2) when Anastasio forgoes his usual concluding solo and the band takes a left turn into free territory. (The excellent sound of this release offers thrilling new details, like the guitarist’s shouted cue "Stay in F!" that prompts a similar experiment in "Halley's Comet.") Similarly, the choice to open the second night of Hampton with "Mike’s Song," a much-cherished tune that had only been a show opener once before (in Amsterdam earlier that year), felt world-shaking at the time but may seem merely cool today.
One can nitpick and point out that only a few portions of these shows would rank in isolation among Phish’s very best work (chiefly the "Bag," in my opinion). But taken together, in its own place and time, this all made for one of those experiences where nostalgia is hardly required -- its own mythology sprung forth instantly. They are three excellent shows, played on three consecutive nights, in a prime era of a great band’s history. As a young fan soaking it up with enthusiastic ears, it was bliss indeed. And although these CDs don’t necessarily transport me to "very heaven," they prove a vivid post card from the scene.
Phish’s "Hampton/Winston-Salem ‘97" is now available from JEMP Records. Jeremy D. Goodwin can be reached at [email protected]. He is looking forward to four Phish shows at Madison Square Garden in December, but not sure if any Wordsworth quotes will apply.
The original version of this article misstated the number of CDs present in "Hampton/Winston-Salem '97," and misidentified the song in which Mr. Anastasio exclaimed "Stay in F!"
Allow me to hyperbolically apply the same equation to the act of seeing Phish play at the Hampton Coliseum in 1997.
After an ear-bending series of artistic advances for three years previous, 1996 had proven an anticlimactic period of retrenchment. The next year was a thrilling advance, with two small-venue European tours injecting a fresh sense of spontaneous musical intimacy to the band’s interplay, paired with the psychedelic free-rock chops it had been honing since the early ‘90s. And by now Phish’s nascent interest in rhythm-based jamming had matured into a headlong infatuation with funk-rock. Guitarist and primary songwriter Trey Anastasio later described the style, aptly, as "cow funk" -- the result of four white guys from Vermont getting heavily into James Brown records, while experimenting with slower tempos and meditative, deep grooves. (Alas, it inspired a seemingly unending parade of flaccid-funk groups that mistook dynamic stasis for the pocket.)
To an avid fanbase that had chronicled for years, in real-time, the band’s every evolution, it all felt like an enormous jump forward into the future. And the music was triumphant.
Which brings us to the bliss and the "very heaven" business. In fall of 1997 I was a college student and rabid Phish fan. Having discovered the band in earnest in 1995, I was a newbie by any standards -- but a very well-studied one, and able to grasp the historical significance of what was happening. And I was a student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and it just so happened that the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Va., was a very convenient place to go for two shows in November, amid a tour that still stands among the band’s best. The venue was already emerging as a fan-favorite. (It enjoys near-mythical status today.) It was general-admission, had a very patron-friendly staff and was surrounded by cheap motels. A two-day, weekend Phish visit amounted to a sort of neo-hippie Mardis Gras. For me, it was my first time becoming immersed in the scene to this great of an extent -- making the hotel rounds, attending a boisterous in-person gathering of online fans, networking among groups of friends and ending up in the prime seats just to the side of keyboardist Page McConnell. It was conjunction of the band’s evolution and my own personal history, a confluence of the personal and the cultural that can’t be planned.
The two shows (Nov. 21 and 22) proved instant classics. They finally saw official release this week, along with the equally superb show the following night in North Carolina, in a seven-CD box set called, simply, "Hampton/Winston-Salem ‘97."
Today these shows are almost exactly as old as the band’s primordial first gig was by the time Phish rolled into Hampton in 1997. And so it’s hard to hear them in context, either as a Phish fan or a general music lover. Now, the soft, fuzzy corners of Phish’s style often sit poorly with me; I frequently want something harder-edged, perhaps more nervous or hungry or at least with less big-bellied satisfaction.
And even the hardcore Phish fan of a newer vintage may not quite grasp the import, say, of the spine-tingling moment early in the version of "AC/DC Bag" (found here on Disc 2) when Anastasio forgoes his usual concluding solo and the band takes a left turn into free territory. (The excellent sound of this release offers thrilling new details, like the guitarist’s shouted cue "Stay in F!" that prompts a similar experiment in "Halley's Comet.") Similarly, the choice to open the second night of Hampton with "Mike’s Song," a much-cherished tune that had only been a show opener once before (in Amsterdam earlier that year), felt world-shaking at the time but may seem merely cool today.
One can nitpick and point out that only a few portions of these shows would rank in isolation among Phish’s very best work (chiefly the "Bag," in my opinion). But taken together, in its own place and time, this all made for one of those experiences where nostalgia is hardly required -- its own mythology sprung forth instantly. They are three excellent shows, played on three consecutive nights, in a prime era of a great band’s history. As a young fan soaking it up with enthusiastic ears, it was bliss indeed. And although these CDs don’t necessarily transport me to "very heaven," they prove a vivid post card from the scene.
Phish’s "Hampton/Winston-Salem ‘97" is now available from JEMP Records. Jeremy D. Goodwin can be reached at [email protected]. He is looking forward to four Phish shows at Madison Square Garden in December, but not sure if any Wordsworth quotes will apply.
The original version of this article misstated the number of CDs present in "Hampton/Winston-Salem '97," and misidentified the song in which Mr. Anastasio exclaimed "Stay in F!"
