Crowd served variety of Phish July 26, 1993 - Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, MA) By Scott McLennan MANSFIELD - On its first major headlining tour, the cult band Phish turned its stop at the Great Woods Performing Arts Center Saturday into a jamming good time for a capacity crowd of third-generation Deadheads. The Vermont-based quartet played two lengthy sets that explored a plethora of musical styles and the boundries of stage antics. The band left its trademark impression of genuine skilled musicianship, taking in jazz, bluegrass, reggae, calypso and country styles, but seemed a little jittery before the big crowd. Phish's collective nervousness was more apparent during the first set. The band's usually flowing style seemed disjointed and almost rushed, as 11 songs were packed into the one-hour, 15-minute set. While this may not seem like an overload of material, bear in mind that Phish's reputation is one for jamming and exploring the intricacies of a tune. While enjoyable, the set seemed almost like a slideshow version of a regular Phishing trip. Guitarist Trey Anastasio was plagued by a poor vocal mix early on. Luckily his tasty guitar licks, the masterful keyboard turns of Page McConnell and bouncy rhythms crafted by bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman made it all bearable until things really hit stride on the fourth tune, "Divided Star." Working without a set list, the band touched on material from all its albums and tossed in choice, zany covers of "Purple Rain" and "Free Bird," which was done a cappella for the final encore. While Phish is dogged by a tag for being a clone of the Grateful Dead, other influences seemed stronger in the band's show. Anastasio copped more than one solo that sounded like something out of the Carlos Santana songbook. And the second-set workout of "Fluffhead" owed more to the Mothers of Invention than the Dead. Phish, though, will remain closely associated with the Dead as long as its fan base consists of tie-dyed twentysomethings sporting retro Haight Street fashions. While the show's first set touched on decent songs (particularly "Rift," and "Bounce Around the Room"), Phish turned the second set into a thematic lampooning of big-time rock 'n' roll. Phish turned in a stellar version of "Maze" before planting tongue in cheek. The parodying took off when the band cranked out a ridiculous amount of dry-ice smoke during a strobe light show flicked on for a lengthy jam performed by Gordon and Anastasio while bouncing on mini trampolines. And you thought Kiss knew how to be over the top. With that segment closed, Phish swung the pendulum of weird the other way by doing an a cappella Hebrew folk tune. And the crowning moment of the set came when Fishman, decked out in a sun dress, stepped to the front of the stage and sang "Purple Rain" in the most "impassioned" anti-Prince monotone he could muster. Fishman ended the song with one of his patented vacuum cleaner solos, in which he blows into the hose of an old Electrolux-type carpet cleaner. Article © 1993 Telegram & Gazette