Daily Loaf

Routes Music is a documentary film acting as a roving music census, taking in the true musical passions (and disgusts) of the American people. We’re traveling all across the country, stopping along the way to interview local bands, take footage of live performances and chat with anyone and everyone. Learn more about the documentary here; check out all previous entries here.

“Where eeez yer pipe?”

A 6’4 security guard towered over me, glaring.

“Where eeez yer pipe?” he repeated in a thick Islands accent.

“What?” I replied, not sure he really just asked me what I think he just asked me.

“Where eeez yer pipe?” he asked again.

“My what?” I said again, still shocked.

“Yer pipe. Yer pipe.”

Now he was aggravated. I’m enjoying feigning ignorance.

“I don’t know what you’re saying, man.”

The guard switches tactics.

“Drugs?”

I smile.

“No, no drugs.”

“OK, go ahead.”

So began my very first experience at an extended-day music festival, and only my second time ever seeing the seminal jam band, Phish. Luckily, the rest of the three-day fest at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, Calif. went smoother than my entry.

For Routes Music, Phish Festival 8 is a fitting halfway point – and not just because a shared love of Phish prompted Terrence and Phil’s  friendship. Routes Music is, in part, documenting how musical influences have moved through the generations and Phish is a perfect example of that convergence: a mix of blues, psychedelic rock, funk, reggae and bluegrass that has drawn in fans young and old, hip and hippie.

And who couldn’t be impressed with Festival 8? Putting aside the music — which, with eight sets including a cover of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, is nothing short of impressive – the whole event went off with nary a hitch, especially when compared to the stories of past festivals. Just the choice of venue was a step-up for many fans. There’s a reason why the Empire Polo Club hosts the infamous Coachella Music Festival: soft sod comfortable enough to sleep on, a spacious field large enough to accommodate tens of thousands of concertgoers, and a beautiful backdrop of palm trees and mountains.

So beautiful was this backdrop that AEG Network Live filmed all eight sets for a 3D movie due out in 2010.

Here are some other highlights from my three-day romp through Phish 8:

Costumes. There might have been bigger Halloween parties across the country on Saturday, but I seriously doubt there was one with more creative costumes than Phish 8. After the sun ducked behind the mountains, legions of Phish fans appeared donned as llamas, flamboyant wrestlers (including Hacksaw Jim Duggan!), strobe-lit jellyfish and a particularly disturbing woman with Colonel Sanders’ facial hair.

Sign Language Interpreters. Ever since Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, some promoters have hired sign language interpreters to convey a band’s lyrics to the hearing-impaired. Personally, though, I’d never seen it done before and watching the interpreters sign and dance and sign only added to the sense of community at the festival. I hope to see more of these in the future.

Fire. Complementing the desert backdrop, fire reigned as a theme throughout the festival. Several installations scattered around the grounds featured metal sculptures belching all manner of propane-fueled flames. Then, on the last set of each night, eight 20-foot-tall towers topped with giant lanterns shot flames in bursts to the roaring delight of the crowd.

Lights. Phish has always held themselves to a high standard when it comes to their light show. Initially, I was skeptical that they could pull off an amazing light show in such a large outdoors setting. But lighting designer Chris Kuroda did not disappoint. In an addition to the already-legendary stage lights, Kuroda arranged an accompanying lightshow on the 140 palm trees lining the festival grounds. And that’s not even counting the LED balloons …

Light Balloons. Just when I thought the show ambiance could not get any more trip-tastic, out comes the balloon lights. During the first day’s second set, while the band played “Harry Hood,” the “Balloon Burble” made its debut, floating through the crowd like some Technicolor blimp. Made up of 1,000 extra large helium balloons equipped with LED lights and sensors, the installation can be controlled from remote and made to ripple and glow. As if that wasn’t enough, on Sunday night, a shape-shifting balloon structure appeared and towered above the crowd, morphing into vague representations of llamas, space invader characters and hand gestures. At least, that’s what I saw.

Exile. Phish’s Halloween “costume set” always creates a bit of controversy in the jam-band scene (see Velvet Underground, 1998). But I think anyone would be hard pressed to criticize the band’s choice to cover the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street. From boogielicious blues to roadhouse country, Phish played a highly-danceable tight set with few extended jams. And having Sharon Jones on backup vocals sure didn’t hurt.

Amiable security, police. Drugs always seem to place high on the musical festival to-do list, so I was curious how the Indio community would react to 40,000 music fans bent on having a good time. Would there be roadblocks? Heavy police presence on the grounds? Full cavity searches? Despite some security guards bent on entrapment and warnings from police, there didn’t seem to be any full-scale crackdowns (or egregious drug use, for that matter).

A concert parable: A Phish fan enters the venue and security guards search him. They find a small bag of marijuana and take it. Bummed, the fan enters the grounds, finds his friend and tells him what happened. His friend produces a California medical marijuana prescription card, walks back to the guard and retrieves the confiscated weed.

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