Tampa Calling

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 »

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 »

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 »

UPDATE: Yesterday, two Phish tour dates were finally confirmed: June 18 in Burgettstown, Penn., and June 6 in Mansfield, Mass. According to Billboard, Phish has revealed some more dates. The band’s summer tour is set to kick off June 4-5 at Jones Beach in Wantagh, N.Y. Other stops include Camden, N.J. (June 7), Asheville, N.C. (June 9), St. Louis (June 16), Noblesville, Ind. (June 19), and East Troy, Wis. (June 20-21). Phish is also rumored to be headlining this year’s Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tenn. (June 11-14). The Bonnaroo lineup is supposed to be revealed Feb. 3.

In other phantastic Phish-related news, the band is releasing a seven-DVD set featuring 1996’s Clifford Ball, a two-day Phish-only fest held on a decommissioned Air Force base in Plattsburgh, N.Y. The entire event encompasses six sets and nine hours of music, and comes out March 3.

See some Clifford Ball video after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »