Phish tours
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American rock band Phish, active from 1983 to 2004, was one of the most successful live acts in popular music history, forging a popularity in concert far greater than their album sales, radio airplay, or music video presence would otherwise indicate. Phish tours, at the peak of their popularity in the mid to late 1990s, consistently ranked as one of the highest-grossing concert tours in the world. [1] [2] [3]
One of the major factors of Phish's live success was the fact that every show in the band's history contained a completely different song setlist. Throughout 21 years and thousands of shows, the band never played the same concert setlist twice. Additionally, Phish songs were rarely played the same way twice. This unique approach to live performance influenced Phish fans to attend multiple nights on a particular tour, much like sports fans buying season tickets, since they were guaranteed a completely different concert on a nightly basis. Phish fans recorded the band's concerts (with permission) and circulated the music throughout the country. Therefore, fans could collect large numbers of live recordings free of charge, a practice encouraged by the taper-friendly band. Guitarist Trey Anastasio considered it "free advertising" since it enabled the band's music to be distributed and traded all over the United States and, eventually, the rest of the world.
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[edit] 1980s
[edit] 1983
Phish formed in the fall of 1983 at the University of Vermont, and then consisted of Trey Anastasio on guitar, Jeff Holdsworth on lead vocals and guitar, Jon Fishman on drums, and Mike Gordon on bass guitar.
In 1983, the band played at least two shows under the name Blackwood Convention. At this point, the band only played other artists' material, ranging from tunes by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Wilson Pickett, The Who, the Grateful Dead, and others.
[edit] 1984
Phish continued with live performances when Anastasio returned to the University in the fall of 1984 following a suspension. For many concerts, the band was joined by Marc Daubert on percussion. For years, the band's performance from December 1, 1984, was their earliest live circulated recording. The band debuted many original songs that fall, including "Makisupa Policeman," "Slave to the Traffic Light," "Camel Walk," "Skippy the Wondermouse," and "Fluffhead."
[edit] 1985
In the spring of 1985, the band met keyboardist Page McConnell, a student at Goddard College who jammed with the band for a portion of their May 3, 1985 show on the campus of the University of Vermont. By autumn, he was a member of the band.
More originals began to make their way into Phish's concert repertoire, including "McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters," "Anarchy," "Alumni Blues," "Dear Mrs. Reagan," "Dog Log," "Prep School Hippie" "Dave's Energy Guide," "Possum," and the popular classics "Harry Hood," "Run Like an Antelope," and "Mike's Song."
[edit] 1986
Phish continued to perform a greater number of concerts in 1986, debuting a wealth of new material throughout the year, including "You Enjoy Myself," "AC/DC Bag," "Golgi Apparatus," "Lushington," "Sanity," "David Bowie," "Wilson," "Icculus," "I Am Hydrogen," "Halley's Comet," and many other future Phish classics.
In May of 1986, Jeff Holdsworth quit the band; he was not replaced. Holdsworth's retirement solidified the band's classic four-man lineup of Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, Mike Gordon, and Jon Fishman, which remained unchanged for the rest of their career.
In October, Paul Languedoc officially joined the band as sound engineer. He remained with the band for the rest of the career.
[edit] 1987
In 1987, Phish was winding down their college career and preparing to take their live performances to the next level. A wealth of Phish classics made their first appearance in 1987, including "The Divided Sky," "Fee," "Punch You in the Eye," "The Curtain With," "Harpua," "Flat Fee," "Big Black Furry Creature From Mars," "I Didn't Know," "Letter to Jimmy Page," "The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday," "Fuck Your Face," "Suzy Greenberg," "Dinner and a Movie," "The Sloth," as well as many new cover songs. In the spring of 1987, Trey Anastasio submitted The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday as his senior thesis at Goddard College. Many of these songs would make more frequent appearances in concert throughout the year.
The band also played a large number of shows at Nectar's, a bar in downtown Burlington, Vermont, developing and polishing a unique sound that would become their trademark in years to come.
[edit] 1988
In 1988, Phish began touring outside of the Vermont area, performing concerts in New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and other states throughout the year. In March, the band unveiled the first complete performance of The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday. In September, the band hooked up with manager John Paluska, who booked Phish for a concert at Amherst College in Massachusetts. He would go on to manage the band for their entire career.
Musically, Phish was concentrating on large scale composition throughout most of 1988, with multi-part suites and epics acting as centerpieces of the band's live setlists. Many of these extended pieces, including reworked older songs such as "You Enjoy Myself," "The Divided Sky" and "David Bowie," also featured lengthy improvisational excursions.
The band's original repertoire continued to grow, with complex pieces such as "Esther," "Foam," "The Lizards," "Colonel Forbin's Ascent," and "Fly Famous Mockingbird" making their debut along with future favorites "Tela," "Weekapaug Groove," "No Dogs Allowed," and "Contact."
[edit] 1989
By 1989, Phish was on the road full-time since three of the band's four members had graduated college (Mike Gordon would graduate the following year). The year saw Phish aggressively covering the concert circuit in the Northeast United States, especially on college campuses, where the band would find their most dedicated followers. The band's fanbase kept on growing as many fans travelled from state to state and concert to concert, attending multiple nights in a row as Phish continued to change their setlists on a nightly basis.
Phish also unveiled their most ambitious piece to date, the multi-part epic "Reba," as well as other complex and intricately composed songs such as "Split Open and Melt," "Kung," "Bathtub Gin," "The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony," "My Sweet One," "In a Hole," and "The Mango Song." Improvisation seemed to take a backsteat to composition for Phish in 1989, a trend that would continue for the next three years.
Legendary lighting designer Chris Kuroda officially joined Phish on March 30 of the year and would remain with the band through the rest of their career, going on to pioneer new techniques and set new standards in the concert lighting industry.
[edit] 1990s
[edit] 1990
Phish entered the 1990s as a national touring act, performing coast to coast across the United States on somewhat of an endless year-long tour. The band teamed up with friends Widespread Panic, Blues Traveler, and Aquarium Rescue Unit for various concerts in an effort to spread their music to new audiences.
1990 remains one of the most active concert years in the band's history. Phish continued to focus on tight, complex musical composition and arrangement while scaling back even more on long jams and improvisation. As their music became more and more intricate, the looseness and free-form jamming of the 1980s slowly faded away. Though the band continued to unveil jams and improvisation in 1990, they usually appeared within the confines of a particular song.
A large number of original compositions made their debut in 1990, including "Stash," "The Squirming Coil," "Buried Alive," "Bouncing Around the Room," "Magilla," "Destiny Unbound," "Don't Get Me Wrong" (a collaboration with John Popper), "Eliza," "Runaway Jim," "Tweezer," "Cavern," "Horn," "Jaegermeister," "Tube," "The Landlady," "The Asse Festival," "Gumbo," "Llama," and the original arrangement of "Rift."
[edit] 1991
Like the year before, Phish performed throughout 1991 all over the United States, visiting almost every state in the country. The band's dedicated fanbase continued to grow as two major factors helped make 1991 one of the most important years in the band's history.
First, fans of the band launced the Phish.net, one of the very first Internet websites in popular music. The site connected fans and helped spread the word about upcoming concerts, setlists, and band history. It enabled the band to connect with fans from all over the country, and, more importantly, allowed fans to connect with one another. The site allowed Phish to have a large fanbase despite the fact that they were under the mainstream radar.
Second, the band were signed to Elektra Records in 1991. They would remain with the label for the rest of their career. In the midst of their hectic touring schedule, the band found time to record their major label debut, A Picture of Nectar, which was released the following year.
Musically, the band continued the concert formula practiced in 1990, favoring detailed, intricate composition over long-form jamming and improvisation. However, the band toured with the Giant Country Horns - a three-piece horn section - throughout the summer, providing interesting takes on Phish classics and several cover songs.
The band also held their first official concert festival - Amy's Farm - held in upstate Maine at the horse farm of longtime fan Amy Skelton. It was a free show and, like all of their future festivals, was an outdoor campout that closed out the band's summer tour. Phish would go on to host three more summer festivals in Maine.
Original song debuts in 1991 included "Guelah Papyrus," "Chalk Dust Torture," "Setting Sail," "Poor Heart," "Brother," "It's Ice," "Sparkle," "All Things Reconsidered," and "Glide."
[edit] 1992
Phish made their first trip outside of the United Staes in the summer, joining Santana for an entire tour of Europe and performing a select number of dates with Violent Femmes, including the legendary Roskilde Festival with Fishbone, Megadeth, Pearl Jam, and others. They also headlined a select number of H.O.R.D.E. festival dates in the Northeast United States.
The band's ever-growing fanbase enabled them to headline theaters and small arenas throughout the United States in 1992. Though the band scaled back on the number of shows in 1992 compared to the previous two years, they were on the road for most of the year honing their new sound, which combined their classical, intricate compositions with rediscovered improvisation and extended jamming roots. Unlike 1990 and 1991, large scale improvisation returned to the live Phish concert experience in 1992, though the band continued with their performances of heavily composed, intricate compositions as well.
New originals debuted in 1992 included "Maze," "My Friend, My Friend," "Mound," NICU," "Sleeping Monkey," the new arrangement of "Rift," "The Horse," "Silent in the Morning," "Weigh," "Axilla," "Fast Enough for You," "Big Ball Jam," "Faht," "Catapult," "Buffalo Bill," and "Lengthwise."
[edit] 1993
Phish was flirting with mainstream success in 1993, due mostly to the headlining of major amphitheaters and arenas in the summer and fall. Though the band did not completely fill many of the large venues they headlined in 1993, they set the stage for the next several years of the Phish concert experience. In February, the band released their second concept album, Rift, and began playing the aforementioned larger venues all over the United States. Their ever expanding fanbase continued to swell as the band visited a large number of college campuses as well throughout 1993.
Improvisation and jamming made a triumphant return in 1993 as the band balanced long-form experimentation with intricate, tightly composed material. Original song debuts in 1993 included "Sample in a Jar," "Lifeboy," "The Wedge," and "Leprechaun."
[edit] 1994
In many fan circles, 1994 is considered the greatest concert year in the history of Phish. The band was now a major live touring act, accomplishing such milestones as selling out both Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden, making their national television debut on The Late Show with David Letterman, earning radio play and an MTV music video with the song "Down With Disease" from their album Hoist, and beginning their legendary Halloween "musical costume" tradition (where the band would perform an entire album by a different band).
Musically, the band discovered a strong balance between tight compositional precision and lengthy, exploratory improvisation. Additionally, the band's audience was growing by huge numbers, making Phish second only to the Grateful Dead with respect to the live concert cultural phenomenon that surrounded both bands. The group also resurrected many lost classics from their 11 year career, as well as debuting new songs such as "Scent of a Mule," "If I Could," "Wolfman's Brother," "Julius," "Demand," "Dog-Faced Boy," "Guyute," "Axilla (Part 2)," "Simple," "N02" (first featured in the studio on the very first Phish album in 1986), and the anthemic "Down with Disease," often regarded as Phish's most popular song.
After performing two of their albums in concert at a show in Charleston, West Virginia on June 26 (The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday and Hoist), the band jokingly bragged backstage that they could play any album at any time. Taking the idea to the next level, the band promised to play a complete album by another band on Halloween night, taking fan votes on their website. The winning album was the legendary White Album from The Beatles. Several bands would borrow this tradition in years to come, most notably Dream Theater, whose drummer, Mike Portnoy, is an admitted Phish fan.
Several of the year's highlights were complied to form A Live One, the band's first live album, which would be released the following year. The band's MTV video for "Down With Disease," directed by Mike Gordon, would draw immense criticism from a majority of fans who were disappointed to see one of the nation's most underground bands take a shot at mainstream success. Phish would never make another video again.
In the end, 1994 would be remembered by many as the musical peak of the band's first decade, as they would embark on a completely different concert approach in 1995 and years thereafter.
[edit] 1995
Year 1995 marked the end of an era for Phish. Musically, the band continued to peak with their tension and release jamming style while also exploring a more mature songwriting approach that would be fully realized the following year. In addition, the group also experimented with free-flowing, spontaneous, open-ended improvisation - a style that the group embraced in the 1980s but somewhat abandoned in the 1990s as comparisons to the Grateful Dead mounted. Though the method of risk-taking could be attributed to the Dead's approach, the heavier and more rock-based jamming style that defined the group's 1995 improvisation would become its own individual influence on hundreds of bands that would spawn later in the decade. For the first time since 1987, the band took an extensive vacation for the first four and a half months of the year, finally returning in May for their only politically based concert of their entire career - a Voters for Choice benefit concert conceived by Gloria Steinem. The band received mixed reviews for participating in the concert, and never participated in partisan events again. The show itself, however, was widely prasied by fans, as it featured a large number of original debuts and a few rare covers.
The band headlined amphitheaters in the summer of 1995 as their first official live album - A Live One - became the first Phish album to receive gold record status. The album, released on June 28 and featuring a number of highlights from the band's 1994 tours, became the group's most successful album to date. The band experienced an increidble swell in audience numbers following the death of Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia in August and the subsequent demise of the band. Large numbers of Deadheads who "toured" with the Dead suddenly began following Phish. The band was now the premier live touring band in the United States, and the group's fall tour featured several sold-out concerts in large arenas.
That fall, Phish challenged its audience to two games of chess. Each show on the tour featured a pair of moves. The band took its turn either at the beginning of or during the first set. The audience was invited to gather at the Greenpeace table during the setbreak to determine its move. Two games were played on the tour. The audience conceded the first game on November 15 in Florida, and the band conceded the second game at its New Year's Eve concert at Madison Square Garden. These were the only two games that were played, which left the final score tied at 1-1. "What Does Chess Have to Do with Phish? at Phish.net.
In their tradition of playing a well-known album by another band for Halloween, Phish contracted a full horn section for their performance of The Who's Quadrophenia in 1995. On New Year's Eve, the band performed what is considered one of their greatest concerts ever - a three-set marathon live from Madison Square Garden. The show was later released in its entirety in 2005 to celebrate its tenth anniversary. The show was also naed one of the greatest concerts of the 1990s by Rolling Stone magazine.
[edit] 1996..1999
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[edit] 2000s
[edit] 2000
The year of 2000 saw Phish but limited Phish. There was no Halloween show and no "musical costume", no summer festival, and even moreso no new songs — the release of this year's album Farmhouse contained material dating from 1997, the older millennium. The year's tour T-shirt featured a small blue-and-white "Phish 2000" logo (using the 'star i') set on a sea of very bright red background, while Phish fans following Phish drew attention from even minor market, red state media outlets such as the Daily Nebraskan. [4] That summer of 2000, the band announced that they would take their first "extended time-out" a/k/a "indefinite hiatus" a/k/a "trial break-up" at completion of their upcoming fall tour. During the tour's last concert on October 7, 2000 at the fabled Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, Phish played but a conventionally styled show, obstensibly unknowing of the occasion, and left without saying a word as The Beatles' elegiac "Let It Be" played over the PA system.
[edit] 2001-2002
Band on hiatus, nothing to hear, nowhere to go.
[edit] 2003
The year 2003 saw a resumption of Phish with several shows at the start of the year at Phish favorite Hampton Coliseum in Virginia, actually commencing the prior New Year's Eve. Then some Winter 2003 shows in arenas mostly in February, a number of Summer 2003 shows in amphitheatres mostly in July. Later was the short 20th Anniversary Tour in the Northeast in late November/early December, followed by the New Year's Run at AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami to close out the year. For the New Year's Eve show, a MINI automobile was dropped through the stage at midnight, and dozens of marching band members and cheerleaders walked out of the car.
[edit] 2004
The year 2004 saw a few Las Vegas shows at Thomas & Mack Center in April, some June shows in the Northeast and Midwest, and then came August. A short run beginning at Hampton Coliseum ended on 14 August and 15 August at Coventry Festival in Vermont. Trey handed out the famous trampolines to the crowd after "You Enjoy Myself" on the penultimate night, while the final night saw dedications to road crew and appearances by parents. Done, Phish then was.
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
The first Phish concert setlist archive was "The Helping Phriendly Book," a section of the fan-based Phish.net website unveiled on the Internet in 1991. Two books, The Pharmer's Almanac and The Phish Companion, contained detailed collections of Phish setlists, the first appearing in six volumes between 1995 and 2000 and the latter prepared to release a third volume in 2006.
