Phish – Hampton Coliseum – 1998

[Roland Bru]

Phish is a jam band. As you all know jam bands all have the following mission statement:
1. We cannot write good, catchy songs as such
2. We will play a lot of covers but give them our own unique twist, because of points 3 and 4
3. We don’t play our instruments too well either, and singing is rudimental at best
4. As we do not know too many songs anyway, we’ll make them as long as possible

Phish clearly falls into this category, but, just as clearly, with some exceptions: Trey Anastasio is more than a competent guitar player. Not as easy to recognize as, say, Clapton or Gilmour, but inventive without going overboard with, generally a nice tone. Jon Fishman is a very accomplished drummer.

To prove my point and rest my case, this massive set (6 cd’s, 2 consecutive concerts from November 1997). They play interesting songs by Jimi Hendrix (Bold as love, nice!), Will Smith (Tubthumping, not as bad as you would think), Ween (Roses are free, great!), Dylan (Quinn the Eskimo, swinging!), Stevie Wonder (Boogie on reggae woman, funky!) and lots of their own songs in (near) definitive versions, including Tube, Rift, Divided sky, Wilson, Mike’s song, Possum and Roggae. In my mind, Phish live is best from 1995 – 1998, although their song writing improved after that. They stopped to operate as a band in 2004, but are all (especially Trey) still active.