Tampa Calling

It is finally confirmed. Phish is not lame and did not drop all the most obvious hints about the location of the upcoming “Save the Date” fest so we could figure it out with little or no detective work. They led us all down a false trail, encouraging speculation and spreading rumors so thick and detailed that pretty much everybody and their brothers were convinced that the fest would be held at the Coachella site in Indio, California, also a city known for its date farms. (By date, I mean the fruit.) The rumors seemed so solid that hundreds (including a CL staffer, not myself), booked rooms in the Indio area.

Throughout the past several weeks, to hype up the forthcoming festival set to occur in a mystery location Oct. 30-Nov. 1, Phish anchored their homepage with an interactive pic of the United States, with various flash disasters — swarms of hungry ants, gods blowing storms in from the heavens, even Mike riding doomfully across the country on his Segway — to remove the possibilities state by state. California was still on the map up until today, when it was hijacked by four hot air balloons, casting all previous speculation into the dirt.

My original theory, since Nevada is still on the map, that Phish has decided to take over Vegoose and will either be the headliner on a bill of bands, or the sole band. Vegose is a Halloweentime fest. I guess only time will tell — but you heard the theory here first!

Stay tuned for a complete Phish Saves America wrap of the first leg of the summer fest, with pics and video.

Tonight, May 31, 2009, Phish returns to the road and kicks off the first leg of their summer tour at Fenway Park, home field of the Boston Red Sox and the oldest of all current MLB stadiums. Phish, the band that inspired this ongoing column (and changed the lives of me and everyone who reads this thing and plenty of others who don’t), will hit the stage at 6:55 p.m. and fill upwards of 30,000 fans (including my good friend AAAlex) with joyous satisfaction. (Screenshots of the first-night-back video — with Fenway’s organist playing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” then cracking his knuckles and launching into “Tweezer” while various appropos shots of the stadium flash by — after the jump.) The rest of us will watch from the sidelines, checking the regularly updated From the Road setlists, watching various #Phish Tweets from the show (my own not from the show here), and eagerly awaiting our own upcoming Phish adventures.

With a new spat of Phish shows to be reported on, Phish Saves America (PSA) is officially off hiatus. Not that it was ever really on hiatus, but I’ve admittedly took a bit of a break since Hampton, letting all the little Phish news bites fall through the cracks while I set some things in order. (Translation: I’ve been busy.) But the upcoming weeks will find both me and Tampa Calling contributor B.Treotch (also of Coventryblog.com) at several different upcoming Phish shows, which means plenty of coverage. B.Treotch will be at Asheville (maybe?) and Knoxville, and will serve as Creative Loafing’s on-site reporter at Bonnaroo with various Tweets and whatever else we can manage at the Tennessee fest, and a post-fest wrap with all the media we can manage. I will be road-tripping up to Knoxville in an RV with some Bonnaroo-bound friends and other taggers-on next Tuesday (look out for plenty of Tweeting and a post), then I’ll be hitting the last three shows (in Indiana and Wisconsin, respectively) the following weekend. The Gorge will follow in August if my husband and I can juggle the finances as planned.

But for now, let’s start with something fun — a “What If” of sit-ins that has Phish performing with a select roster of other Bonnaroo artists.

Phish Sit-Ins I’d Like to See at Bonnaroo: Read the rest of this entry »

All photos by Phil Bardi.

I’ve had a long time to muse over the Phish reunion shows, to listen to the live downloads over and over again, to read the reviews and see the pictures and laugh at the outrageous (and in some cases, sad and amazing) stories on the message boards, and to plan out all the ways I can scrimp and save so I can hit some more shows on the second leg of their summer tour in addition to the three (or four, or maybe five) I’ll be hitting up on the first leg.

I had my soul cleansed in Hampton and now I’m ready and hungry for more.

But before I can set my sights on the shows that are to come, I thought I’d share some pics and other odds and ends from the Hampton shows — my observations a few weeks later, having stewed on things a bit.

It was my first time in Hampton, Va. I was underwhelmed by the town itself, though it held a certain charm I equated with its place in Phishtory. We had a prime spot at the Ramada Inn, likely the cheapest and closest hotel to the venue. In fact, our main room (we had two split between a party of four) afforded us a perfect view of the Hampton Coliseum. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to all those who entered the Phish Saves America reunion setlist contest. Unfortunately, none of the entrants managed to guess the opener – and why would anyone guess that Phish would make our dreams come true and kick things off with “Fluffhead”? I even fantasized about it in my last post, never actually thinking they’d do it. Props to Trevor Corbin, who guessed that Phish would play “Fluffhead” the first night, but submitted “Tube” as the first song.

The two closest entries were as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

The internet here is iffy, hence the spotty blogging, but I managed to make it on here for more than a few minutes today and thought I’d offer a quick rundown of events since the last post. Click here to follow me on Twitter and get my more regular, up-to-date check-ins and observations.

1. We traded our Saturday night ticket for a Friday night ticket successfully, and were among the masses of adoring fans when the band played their first show in nearly five years on Friday night. It was incredible, to put it mildly. I laughed (see below), I cried, I hugged my friends, I danced like there was no tomorrow, and had a soul-cleansing good time overall. The band was on, opened with the “Fluffhead” everyone was dreaming about and went on to play some of their toughest composed pieces, Trey hit all his notes perfectly, and overall, the consensus seemed to be the Phish that used to blow everyone’s mind on a nightly basis was 110% back.

2. Spent much of Saturday looking for tickets. About an hour before the show, we found a dude who traded Phil’s Ken Griffey Jr. rookie cards + $450 for two tickets. About five minutes later, we came to the realization that we’d been ripped off and that our tickets were good fakes and close fakes, but fakes nonetheless. We soldiered on, however, hearing stories of hope about previous unluckies who were admitted into the venue anyway, later, after the rest of the crowd had been corralled inside. So, we tried to get in anyway. We were not successful, not even a little; the tickets had “already been scanned.” I did the pathetic, dramatic, crying-in-front-of-security-and-police thing for about an hour to no avail. (No, the police could not or would not do anything even though someone virtually stole $500 from me. No report, no empathy — nada.) Hence, I spent much of last night sleeping in my hotel room, and hit up a McDonald’s later with my post-show phriends to grease away my sorrow.

3. Picked up my press wrist band today, getting the photo pass later for Photographer Phil, and will be enjoying the last of the three shows tonight. A full report of this weekend’s events with pics will be posted here later.

Phil, JJ and I got in to Hampton around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, grabbed our fatty Kia rental (man, do those cars have all the extras!), met up with our Seattle friend Becks in the lobby of the hotel, checked in, and did the usual new in town things. Walked up to the Hampton Coliseum, snooped around, chatted up the security dude, then moseyed back to our hotel, which is about a block away from our hotel. (We have a perfect view of the Hampton Coliseum from our third floor hotel room.) We stocked up on liquor at the state-owned store, got beer and snacky stuff at the grocery, grubbed it up at Applebees (no, we aren’t proud), then threw back a bunch and shot the shit ’til the wee hours at the room.

Here’s the coliseum at three different points:

Read the rest of this entry »

So this is it. The week that it starts all over again. The members of Phish are re-convening for the first time in nearly five years, at the Mothership Hampton Coliseum, with 13,800 of their closest phans looking on. Hopefully, this sad sack included. No, I have not yet acquired my extra tickets — one for Friday, one for Saturday. However, I’m envisioning myself there when the lights go down and the crowd draws in a collective, anticipatory breath, then pushes it out in one long, adrenaline-filled roar of adoration as The Phish comes strolling out on stage at what I forsee will be 8:36 p.m. on Friday, March 6.

Now, onto the contest. If you haven’t yet submitted your Phish contest entry for the chance to win a fatty prize pack — nine Live Phish CDs, a Rolling Stones memoir, the new Brian Wilson DVD, a Phish Saves America print — cast your vote here. If didn’t already know about the Phish Saves America contest, click here.

Here’s my own setlist predictions: Read the rest of this entry »

To check out “Phish Saves America Vol. I: DVD, Reunion, Summer Tour,” click here; for “Phish Saves America, Vol. II: Bonnaroo, ticket woes, Pollock show and contest,” click here.

For those who’ve cast your votes in the Phish contest I announced in my last posting — Thank You! I have made note of your answers and filed your e-mail addresses away so that I can contact you by that means if you happen to win. If you used a fake email address, please make sure to contact me with a correct email and your submission. My email is leilani@creativeloafing.com. Please Note: You do not need to e-mail me your submissions otherwise; please leave it in the comments below.

Now, onto the fun part: the prize. Since I received such an enthusiastic response to the contest, I contacted the fine folks at Phish Inc./JEMP Records to see if they could provide some actual Phish schwag to go into the prize pack. The folks were eager to oblige and are sending me a fatty package of several LivePhish CDs that were put out over the past few years, among them, one of my faves, the legendary 12-7-97 Dayton, Ohio Nutter Center show, the NYE 12-29-97 and 12-30-07 shows at Madison Square Garden, the UCF Arena 11-14-95 show in Orlando, and the 8-13-93 Indianapolis Murat Theater show. Also in the prize pack is the new Brian Wilson DVD, That Lucky Old Sun, a book, Under Their Thumb (about one man’s adventures with the Rolling Stones), a print of the “Phish Saves America” Mt. Phishmore logo (see below, logo art by Phil Bardi), and a few other yet-to-be-announced goodies.

For those who missed the last post about the contest, the rules are relatively simple. Whoever guesses all (or a combination of the most) of my setlist questions about the Phish Reunion shows right, wins the above aforementioned prize package. Here are the questions: Read the rest of this entry »

A weeklyish column about Vermont’s jamband super group; art by Phil Bardi. To read the inaugural post, click here.

For the past eight years, I’ve avoided getting sucked into the musical glamour of Bonnaroo. The majority of my friends have attended at least once, some of them several times, and all extol its stupefying virtues like they’re the ones trying to sell me a ticket.

It’s not as if I haven’t done the big festival thing. I journeyed to the far Northeast for two separate Phish fests. I’ve done three Langerado’s (may that festival rest in peace), the last with four stages spread out over a huge piece of land in the Everglades (the same place where Phish held its renowned NYE concerts). I’ve flown up to Chicago and wandered across the Grant Park stretches at Lollapalooza. I’ve driven to New Orleans and traipsed up and down the festival grounds at the NOLA Jazz and Heritage Fest.

But I could never really muster up enough interest in Bonnaroo to offset my misgivings about it. From its inception, the ‘roo was an overgrown behemoth with too many obstacles standing in the way of me enjoying it: umpteen hours waiting in a line of traffic stretched out for miles due to more than 60,000 people traveling from all over the United States to the same landlocked town in the middle of Nowhere, Tennessee; more hours wasted waiting to get in and get to a site, to camp on a farm in the muggy summer heat and surrounded on all sides by bodies ripening to musky fruition; walking miles to and from the concert area to your campsite, then hoofing it from stage to stage, back and forth, here then there, all throughout the day for four days in a row; having to choose between seeing two acts you really, really love, a decision you have to make over and over again; the godawful mud magically appearing in the middle of a busy thoroughfare, rain or no rain, musky people splashing around in it, because they’re musky anyway, right?

But over the course of several months, Phish has made me re-think my never-gonna-go-to-the-‘roo stance. See, their upcoming Summer Tour includes a headlining slot at the fest and in addition to a regular show, Phish is playing one of the legendary late night slots. A 2 a.m.-set shrouded in mystery and held under the stars by four men who are renowned for coming up with excellent musical surprises, and playing who knows what for Buddha knows how long? I have to tell you, if anything is tempting me to go, it’s that paired with a stellar lineup of other acts I adore or have been dying to see. Read the rest of this entry »

A new weekly column (with media!) about the jam band supergroup; logo art by Phil Bardi.

On October 1, when the members of Phish — guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell — announced they were getting back together right in the middle of what was turning out to be a really difficult year for my husband and I (not to mention for the rest of the country), it was as if they were performing a public service, as if they’d tuned into the collective subconscious and realized that their fans and America as a whole needed something to lift us.

An increased mortgage payment, termites, a car accident, a string of break-downs, the Creative Loafing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stress-related heart palpitations, the gas price hike, Sarah Palin and John McCain and George Bush and all the dark and dreary days of bad news after bad news, of living paycheck to paycheck, the bleak and undeniable truth of our country’s recession — all of it was put into perspective when my four favorite musicians decided that it was finally time to get back together and make great music again.

It sounds ludicrous, of course.  I know there’s other music out there — I’m an unfaltering advocate for most of it. I get on my soapbox all the time to tell whoever will listen to me about it, spend hours at my laptop because of it, and develop enduring obsessions that span the sonic spectrum as a result of it.

But my ability to appreciate and enjoy such a wide range of musical genres and my very career as a music writer can be directly attributed to being turned onto Phish. It’s Phish that gave me new ears and prompted a different way of listening to music, Phish that nurtured my desire to seek out the latest sound and all those sounds I’d never taken the time to check out before and have come to love dearly — The Velvet Underground, Ween, Frank Zappa, Talking Heads. I learned, by way of Phish, that yes, I can travel anywhere I want, that I can hop a plane and fly away for the weekend and see a show and new city (or re-visit a favorite one), I can jump in my car and just go (provided my car works).

Most of all, Phish introduced me to a community of devoted fans who really seem to care about each other, who are a warm, welcoming, good-natured bunch with the tendency to form instant bonds with fellow admitted phans; I’ve met some of my closest friends via our shared love of Phish.

Phish changed my life, made me who I am today — both as a person and as a music journalist — and they are near and dear to my heart because of it. The band’s reunion has given me something shiny and bright to look forward to in the near future. That and the upcoming Clifford Ball DVD Set, a concert doc featuring Phish’s first fest, which was held on a decommissioned air force base in New York. (More on that and a soundboard copy of the fest’s “Harry Hood” at the bottom of the post).

So back to my point. I have a theory that the Phish reunion is not only a great thing for Phishheads but for America as a whole. Here’s why: Read the rest of this entry »