Have you ever dated a girl who won’t tell you they love you? I mean, you’re fucking them so you guess they do, but they’re not that into you, you’re jumping around like a puppy on dexies, running circles round em, telling your buddies how in love you are and they don’t wanna hold hands because you’re not teenagers and anyway they don’t have to be touched if they don’t wanna.
Phish is the girl, their fans are the puppy on dexies and I am the best friend saying: she just aint that into you. They march on stage at 802pm to a rumbling roar and open with a great eight minute jam on “Heavy Things” (fromm 2000’s -ah, who cares, their albums suck, very Deady, very urban. Guitarist Trey Anastasio smiles from time to time. Nice lighting. That’s it for stage presense. On another number they play chord blocks as key progression -very MORE BASSy. Next.
Meanwhile the fans are flipping out: a buncha twenties, thirty years olds, good looking audience and smart -they recognize songs based on the opening drum pattern. You can get a contact high from entering MSG and all the happy shiny people are dancing in the aisle -apparently security has taken the day off, shakin it like Woodstock refugees, and hold up signs they are happy. Phish sing a song that goes: “Glad you’re Alive”. Yeah, that’s why they broke up for five years till they figured out they couldn’t make a living any other way.
Back on stage there are no short circuit camera’s so you can’t see what Trey is playing but whatever he is he is very, very impressive, from soul james, to shredding, to Hendrix bottlenecks, the man can fucking playing. And the keyboardist Page McConnel is often there for color but when he lets loose can play as well as anybody, espceilly Ran Manzarek (though everybod who does this except for Greg Allman is channeling Ray). The fourty something Trey and his buddy when they’re talking bassist Mike Gordon are all tees and jeans, they dress like they’re Peter fucking Pan in a private van and they don’t talk at all. Nobody talks at all.
Not that the fans, who sing along on cue like it’s midnight at a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, don’t care because, they know, deep, in their souls, Phish really love them. They are Nancy in the musical Oliver singing about Bill Sykes: “AS LONG AS HE NEEDS ME…” before Bill murders her.
Me? I don’t like em but not always… sometumes I like em. When they get their arty improv quirk on I wanna slit my wrist, but when they psychedelic out, when they suburban, when they shred they are pretty good and though they are completely unwatchable you can spend their sets eyeing the girls -of which they are plenty andd many of whom are thrities/forties as opposed to the Decades older Dead concerts.
Phish encore with the Stones “Shine A Light” but they have no inner showmanship, Jagger would blow em all off stage at the age of sixty-seven. They’ve learnt nothing about sharing themselves on stage. Thi is what the fans want, good, let em have it.
I have never felt more like reading a book during a concert in my life.
Sinobi Ninja tonight!!
Comments are closed.