Phish Finale at SPAC: And then there were nine

by Thomas Dimopoulos

SARATOGA SPRINGS - You can imagine them as young college students, some 20 years ago, huddled in dorm rooms at the University of Vermont deeply immersed in the texts of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and some academic jibber-jabber called synaptic interaction.

All the while they were thinking yes, there has certainly got to be a better way.

So the band of musicians who would be Phish got some instruments, mounted a microphone atop a hockey stick and got themselves a gig at a campus party. There they played 'Proud Mary' over and over and over until the sky opened up and the path appeared to that better way.

Twenty years of shows, albums and personnel shifts later, Phish is calling it quits shortly after
staging a pair of shows at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center June 19 and 20.

The group took the stage Saturday night to a great roar from the faithful, many of whom descended upon the park earlier in the day, turning the evening concert into an all-day event.

Despite the bass-heavy drone that buried everything in its path inside the amphitheater during the show openers 'Reba' and 'Runaway Jim,' the sound balanced nicely deeper into the nearly three-hour set that included a 30-minute intermission. Fans cheered every solo and delighted in every turn of a phrase. In this farewell tour ending a 20-year career, every nuance is a moment to be glorified.

As descendants of the Grateful Dead-meets-Frank Zappa school of rock, Phish invite a mixed response from a community of music fans driven to extremes: You either love them or can't stand them. They are musical heroes to their faithful, post-Woodstock generation collaborators for those who never got to see the real thing.

To outsiders, it is easy-listening music playing in a high-rise elevator whose cables have snapped; it's the car sent plummeting in a surreal, slow-motion descent.

And you can still find area music fans who claim to have been part of the crowd packed into Aiko's to witness the band's appearance at the now-defunct Caroline Street venue in the spring of 1990. It was a year that also showcased a Phish appearance at the Skidmore College gym later in the fall. They first performed at SPAC in support of Carlos Santana two years later.

At their best Saturday night, the band kicked it hard behind front man Trey Anastasio. The guitarist wrung out big, looping notes that hovered in the air like a summer moon. He was accompanied by layers of lights that oozed lavenders, blues and mopey greens and cut the haze with sharp white triangles of light accented with smoky white rings that spun at their core.

Alternately graced with lightning-fast fingers, Anastasio rapid-fired along his fret board,
offering tones for the faithful, who swooned at the grooves.

Among the evening's most memorable moments was the performance of 'Wolfman's Brother'
as a giant balloon that read 'Vibe' made its way around the amphitheater.
Other high points came in Page McConnell's soft piano interlude introducing 'Walls of the Cave,' which grew to a crescendo with Anastasio's roaring guitar supplemented with the strobe effect of the lights.

Phish closed out the second set with a joyous delivery of 'Cavern,' a song dating back a dozen years to the band's club years, while the faithful danced to its bouncy rhythms and mouthed along to its memorable tagline: 'Whatever you do, take care of your shoes.'

The finale was the slow and somber ballad 'Wading in the Velvet Sea,' its drifting melody sending Saturday's crowd off into the night, its metronomic pulse the countdown to extinction for the band they called Phish.

published in The Troy Record and The Saratogian, June 2004.