Phish jams a lot of rock into Arena November 27, 1995 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Ed Masley The '90s jam-rock revival doesn't get much better than Friday night's Phish show at the Civic Arena -- unless, of course, you happen to have a tape of the band's Halloween performance of the Who's ''Quadrophenia'' in all its rock operatic glory. They're ambitious that way, these Phish people. Last Halloween, they tackled the Beatles' ''White Album.'' And Friday night at the Arena, they all but leapt off the barriers commonly separating jazz, rock, blues, country, classical and bluegrass in a freewheeling improvisational joyride. It works because unlike so many of their retro contemporaries, the guys in Phish have the musical chops to back up even the silliest ambitions. The constantly shifting textures of their epic, genre-hopping jams at times recall the late Frank Zappa leading Sun Ra's Arkestra through a hillbilly deconstruction of the collected works of Syd Barrett. Although Trey Anastasio's avant-guitar heroics tended to dominate the proceedings, it was keyboardist Page McConnell who turned in the evening's most magical performance with a brilliantly absurd neo-classical piano solo. Elsewhere, his organ swells suggested the Spencer Davis Group on a particularly ambitious day trip, while Anastasio did his best to obscure any such pop-oriented connection. And thanks in no small part to cross-dressing drummer Jon Fishman, Phish rocked with an intensity rarely seen on the modern jam-rock circuit. Just when it seemed as though an improvisation had finally reached its logical peak, Fishman was there on the snare, pounding it all into post-climactic overdrive with a beat that thankfully owed more to garage punk than the rain forest. Best of all, they're genuinely funny, ending the first of several goofy country numbers with a musical quotation from ''Shave and A Haircut.'' Later, they went unplugged for a bluegrass stomp highlighted by Fishman's little mandolin solo that couldn't. Anastasio's hilarious scat singing guitar solo gave way to a brilliantly staged goof on Eastern European folk-dancing. And as for Fishman's star turn on lead vacuum cleaner, the tape marked 11-24-95 won't even begin to do it justice.