PHISH REELS IN LIMIT AT FOX November 27, 1994 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Dennis Jacobs THERE WERE a lot of phishy things going on at the Phox Theatre Wednesday night. Phor starters, there was the concert by the phantasmagoric group Phish. The Phish phenomenon is a bit difficult to explain. Four seemingly nice young fellows joined forces in the mid-1980s to fine-tune their unique fusion of jazz, rock, blues, funk, folk and virtually every other musical genre. They attracted a small, but fanatical, cult following to their shows. They eventually received a recording contract and produced several albums, but their live performances continue to be their claim to fame. Last year, more than 300,000 fans caught Phish at 107 concerts, including 17,000 at a Boston gig. Part of the whopping Phish story is due to the adoption of the band by Deadheads. While there is an undeniable Grateful Dead influence in much of Phish's work, it does not seem enough to justify the presence of the many floundering Deadheads who congested the Fox for this concert. Even the band members are perplexed. "They've been strong supporters," keyboardist Page McConnell once noted of the Deadheads, "and it's great, but we don't totally see it. I'd like to think that musically we're doing things a lot differently than the Grateful Dead." This show, like many other Phish performances, was more of a happening than a concert. The audience members seemed to feed off one another rather than the performers on stage. One wonders why the Fox even assigned seats for the event, since most spectators didn't use them. Instead, they crammed themselves into the aisles, jumping up and down and dancing in the rows. The reputation of the Phish followers having preceded them, there was also firm security outside the theater. A few minutes before show time, a phalanx of Phish fanatics still filed from the Fox entrance to the corner of Olive and Grand. Herded through gates like cattle, they were frisked before entering the concert venue. Reaching the inside of the theater thus became a nearly 30-minute process for some, so many fans arrived with the concert already in progress. The band launched into the folksy "String Of Pearls," shortly after I was finally escorted to my seating area. As lights flashed psychedelic images on sheets suspended behind the band, McConnell sang lead on "Rift," a song reminiscent of the dramatic excesses of '70s groups such as Kansas and Led Zeppelin. McConnell may be the most talented member of this quartet, which also features Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon on guitar and vocals and Jon Fishman (hence the Phish moniker) on drums. It was McConnell's piano flourishes that made the long instrumental portions of the show almost bearable for the non-fans in attendance. As for the fans, they twisted their physiques into fascinating shapes to the beat of the music, regardless of whether it had a rock, folk, jazz, or even country feel. And they became absolutely rapturous when the band members stood motionless, like statues, for an extended period of time. Recognizing "If I Could" from the current Phish LP titled "Hoist," the crowd was filled with fervor. But the show phinally phinished, and the phans philtered philosophically phrom the Phox, pheeling phine.