Phish angles for fun with Halloween tradition October 27, 1996 - The Atlanta Journal and Constitution By Steve Dollar When the Vermont rock band Phish plays the Omni on Thursday, the concert promises to be even more unusual than most of the group's typically open-ended performances. It is Halloween, after all, and along with a sold-out house of intensely enthusiastic, "noodle dancing" fans --- so-called Phish Heads, who embrace the band much the way the Deadheads did the Grateful Dead ---the members of Phish will be in disguise. Musical disguise. "We find it very difficult to play for a long time in costume," says drummer Jon Fishman, who co-founded the group while at the University of Vermont in 1983. "So we decided a better costume for us would be to do someone else's songs." Thus a tradition was born. The annual Phish Halloween show, which hits a different city each year, is marked by a complete, nearly note-for- note rendition of a celebrated album, performed in the middle of a marathon, three-set concert. Previously, the band has saluted "The White Album" and "Quadrophenia," works by two groups ---the Beatles and the Who ---whose influence can be heard, along with the Dead, Frank Zappa and Sun Ra, in Phish's ambitious, complex song structures, goofy art-rock conceptualizing and jam-happy genre busting. The irony, of course, is that the band's reputation is built on a willingness to play for the moment, abandoning the rote set lists and studio perfection common to arena-sized rock shows. Though the release of its new CD, "Billy Breathes" (Elektra), will help change the perception, Phish's undistinguished recorded output has been mostly a byproduct of its free-floating live performances, more artifact than art. That's one reason its fans obsessively record (with the band's OK) and trade concert tapes; everything that matters happens onstage. So, for a change, "We try to replicate the (cover) album as much as possible," Fishman continues. "We're jamming some of the songs out longer, but the song parts themselves are the same." Conjecture about which album Phish will choose runs rampant, but Fishman narrows the field a hair. "It's going to be by an American band, an American album, an '80s album. We did a '60s album and a '70s album, and now an '80s. There's one song on it that everyone has heard, but it's not as high-profile as 'The White Album.' But, then again, what is?" The element of surprise helps to define a musical attitude that can seem amorphous to a casual listener. Basically, at a Phish show, anything goes. Fronted by scruffy guitarist Trey Anastasio, with Mike Gordon on bass and Page McConnell on keyboards, the four shift individual roles with the casual ease and sporting spirit of a volleyball game. They might veer, in a few minutes, from a surreal eruption of bluegrass banjo to a mock-operatic flourish to a lengthy guitar solo. Sources, in country music, jazz fusion, reggae and '70s art-rock, flash by as if zapped by remote control. Sometimes, the band comes up with inspired collisions of sounds marked by the offbeat humor of its musical gamesmanship; other times, it merely makes an indulgent mess. "We have the most incredibly patient audience that's willing to let us take as many chances as we possibly can," Fishman says. "We need to approach it that way, too. 'Fearless" is a good description of how one should be when playing music. The one thing about music ---you know Bob Marley said it: 'Hit me with music' ---when it hits, you feel no pain. You can't hurt yourself by falling if you're playing music. You're going to make mistakes, and you're going to have shiny moments of articulating." article © 1996 Atlanta Constitution