Rowdy Side Show Rivals Phish's Effort December 2, 1995 - The Dayton Daily News By Kevin Amorim All your humble reviewer wanted to do was eat. Not that Phish's Thursday show at Wright State University's Ervin J. Nutter Center wasn't filling enough. Oh, it was. Twenty-five-minute jams that turn out to be intros for three-minute songs. Yow. By 8 p.m., the show was well under way. The pizza at the Italian Eatery stand looked promising. Small enough to wolf down in a few minutes. A Pepsi to wash it down. A good, quick dinner. This is the thought before the girl in the brown overalls and beige shirt starts throwing up in the trash can next to your reviewer. Mmmm. Half of your reviewer's uneaten pizza joins this young woman's dinner in the trash. Thanks. Phish, the four-man phenomenon from Burlington, Vt., continues onward with its psychedelic brand of Grateful Dead grooves. Some of the crowd, it appears, continues upward. Fast Enough For You, a jumpy number from 1993's Rift album, sets many aisle-goers to dancing, which was a big a part of the night's entertainment. Appropriately enough, a few songs later during a cover of Fire - minus the feedback - a fellow in a tie-dye shirt and black wool hat starts moving out of synch, almost in a seizure. It looked like a Hendrix trip might have felt. Dancing is a big part of a Phish show, you know. Some people were doing a spinning, almost lame version of the dreaded Chicken Dance. After the 9 p.m. break, your reviewer's hunger pangs returned. The memory of that pizza had been eclipsed by the 10,184 colorful characters in attendance: the two guys selling sealed two-packs of Camels (in a no-smoking building, ha); all the nose and lip rings; and the woman draped in an American flag smock, speaking loud gibberish while her one friend gave another friend a piggyback ride. Your reviewer returned to another snack stand and purchased a small popcorn and a small Mountain Dew. Standing off by one of the condiment counters, happily munching and minding his own business, your reviewer watches a Nutter security guard carry a girl over his shoulder. Phish - singer-guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, keyboardist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman (who kept his clothes on) - closed its second set with an a cappela version of Amazing Grace. Sometimes the simpler things work. The jam-free Amazing Grace receives the loudest applause of the evening.