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:

“Reba” with Andrew Bird
Can’t you see Bird plucking his violin pizzicato style during the slow and steady “Reba” outtro jam, and taking charge of all the whistling parts? He is known as a master whistler, after all.

“Crosseyed and Painless” with David Byrne
We all want to see Phish play a blazing funked out 30-minute version of the Talking Heads song, but to see them play it with Byrne and his crew of interpretive dancers? I mean, come on. The phanboys would cream all over each other, and the rest of us would all be wishing we’d gone to the damn hot fest just for that moment of Phishtory.

“Life on Mars?” with of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes
Phish does much justice to David Bowie’s psychedelic glam rock ditty. Just imagine it with Barnes on lead vocals and performing as Georgie Fruit performing as Ziggy Stardust. Oh yeah.

“Makisupa Policeman” with Snoop Dogg
The classic Phish reggae number, with Snoop Dogg sauntering on stage smoking and coughing out the key word, “Fatty blunts.”

“Brother” with members of Animal Collective
Who better than Avey Tare and Panda Bear to howl the nonsensical lyrics?

“Harpua” with a guest appearance by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
I forsee a story that has Poster Nutbag befalling a Triumph-caused death followed by an appearance by Triumph, whose musical contribution will include something to the effect of “… for me to poop on!”

“Steep” > into “Swept Away” with members of Grizzly Bear on vocals.
Wouldn’t it be loverly?

“Scent of a Mule,” with William Elliot Whitmore on banjo.
Maybe Whitmore can join Mike on the yodeling part, too.

Other possibilities (songs that Phish has played by artists who will be at Bonnaroo) include “Sabotage” with Beastie Boys (wouldn’t that be a fun one?) and “Take me to the River” with Al Green.

Now, I’d like to take a minute and rant about Music Today, which has not only proven that it sucks as a substitute for Ticketbastard, but which has made me actually want to order via Ticketbastard when possible (I.e., when mail order ticketing turns me down). It makes me feel dirty and annoyed all at once. How is it that I was charged for tickets, oh, I don’t know, more than three months ago, and am barely getting them 10 days before the shows? What if I’d been planning on hitting the whole tour? I’d be shit outta luck. So what’s a ticket buyer to do? Nothing. Bitch and moan (see here). One day I will figure out the right person to bitch to and boy, that person better watch out!

And what does everyone think about the Phish-done version of Trey’s 13-plus-minute orchestral opus, “Time Turns Elastic“? I gotta say, I am diggin’ on it. Makes me real excited to see what other new stuff is on the horizon. (On a side note, Phish soundchecked another new song yesterday titled “Ocelot.”)

Before I go, I’ll leave you with this: if you could talk to a phan from Japan, what would you want to know most about him? I’m asking because the winner of the Hampton PSA contest, Yura Shimizu, responded and won our contest direct from that Asia-based island, and he’s agreed to let me pick his brain. So I wanna know what you wanna know and I’ll put that together with what I wanna know and all together, we will get a peek at what it’s like to be a fan in what seems to be such a far away land. On our last correspondence, Yura told me he’d gotten tickets to Jones Beach, both nights, so maybe we can find out how much he enjoyed the shows, to start?

BREAKING PICTURE:
Just sent from AAAlex from his phone at Fenway. Blurry, but you get the idea.

To check out the Phish Saves America archives — original PSA-generated pics, musings, random video, anecdotes and more — click here. For a primer on how to travel to see music without losing your money and/or mind, click here, and for a quick list of upcoming events worthy of travel, click here.