Phish serves up an offbeat platter of unpredictability July 9, 1994 - The Boston Globe by Paul Robicheau PHISH at: Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts, last night. Through tonight. MANSFIELD - There are odd angles to a Phish concert, and the Vermont cult band wasted no time last night in defining the extremes at Great Woods. Opening the first of two nights for a crowd of 16,000, Phish charged into "Llama," an accessible slice of curvy rock energy. Suddenly, guitarist Trey Anastasio hoocked into oscillating feedback. Drummer Jon Fishman grabbed a vacuum cleaner and sucked a drone from its hose. "Llama" had snapped in half, and Anastasio began to ramble about a dentist's chair occupied by a Col. Forbin, who met up with Rutherford the Brave, went on to steal the Friendly Helping Book from the tyrant Wilson with the help of revolutionaries, a Famous Mockingbird and Icculus, whose face grew out of a mountain. The ultimate dream for Phish fanatics and a nitemare for fence-straddling newcomers had descended on Great Woods. Phish would spend the next 70 minutes submerged in the gable of "Gamehendge," a song cycle Anastasio wrote as his college thesis a decade ago. It was only the second time Phish had played that entire cult suite onstage since 1988. For the uninitiated folks who didn't cheer first mention of each character, Anastasio's between-song narrations and the more elementary compositional themes threatened to sink the first set - not to mention the fact that the suite was like Sesame Street-meets-Genesis' "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway." If Phish aspires to old art-rock adventure, this was kid stuff compared to the quartet's more sophisticated recent compositions. But the set drew strength around the tight jams of "AC/DC Bag" (about a robot hangman) and "The Sloth". Related early piece "Divided Sky" also lent more pithy, textural interplay to cap the set. The second set of the three-hour show served more energized - though still offbeat - Phish. The band wove through jazzy, syncopated jams in "Reba," "It's Ice" and "Stash." "You Enjoy Myself" took similar turns, as Anastasio and bassist Mike Gordon hopped in tandem on mini-trampolenes while jamming. Another cue and the band faithfully slid into '70's instrumental classic "Frankenstein," with Fishman bashing the tricky drum fills and Page McConnell adding synthesizer to his keyboard palette. An R&B charge through "Julius" (one of only two songs from the band's latest album) and a bluegrass-opened rare double encore rounded out another one of Phish's unpredictable plates. Transcribed by Marco Walsh