Go Phigure October 18, 1996 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Ed Masley Phish defies the odds to become one of America's hottest touring acts They made their name on the road with a freewheelin' improvisational blend of country, jazz, folk, blues, rock, whatever. Their tie-dye wearin', mushroom-eatin', hacky sack-playin' parking lot congregation takes its name from adding the suffix heads to the band name. Yes, to many, Phish is the Grateful Dead of the '90s. Keyboardist Page McConnell wishes you wouldn't see it that way, though. ''Certainly, you could make that argument and there are plenty of people who do,'' he says. ''I think what we're doing is musically different but I do think it attracts a certain element that is a similar element to the Dead crowd.'' So, is it safe to assume he doesn't enjoy the comparisons? ''It all depends, from day to day, I suppose,'' he says. ''Sometimes they bother me. Sometimes they don't.'' The conversation is slowly grinding its way into the ground. How then, I ask, would you say you're most unlike the Dead? The pause is long and not altogether pleasant. ''Well, we practice, for one thing,'' he answers. I laugh, assuming he meant to lighten the mood. He pauses again, then out comes a sentence you really don't care to hear in these situations. ''How about another subject.'' As much as McConnell would like it, you can't get around the similarities any more than the band's detractors can get around the differences. The Phishheads even buy their tickets through a Dead-like mail-order service. Why? To see a band that does its best to never play the same set twice, kind of like the . . . well, you know. The main thing separating the bands is humor. Phish is phunny. Imagine Mickey Hart in a dress, inserting a vacuum cleaner solo into a song originally sung by a Disney orangutan. It wouldn't happen. And that's just one of the quirky onstage stunts for which the band is practically semi-legend. The moment is pure Jon Fishman, the madcap drummer who greeted the new year sporting a diaper and bonnet, suspended 50 feet in the air and showering 15,000 phans with glitter. ''I think he started doing it at a party sometime in '86 or '87,'' McConnell says of the vacuum solo. ''Actually, my wife takes credit for that. She was the one that actually introduced him to the vacuum cleaner. He'll deny it but . . . '' Though perhaps the most outrageous, Fishman isn't the only nut on stage. They're all a little crazy. Every Halloween - Exhibit A - they cover another band's album in its entirety. It started two years ago with ''The White Album.'' Last year, they added horns and staged The Who's ''Quadrophenia.'' This year, it's anyone's guess. But don't bother sending away for a ticket. The Halloween show sold out in just 12 minutes. Miracle, anyone? Getting back to crazy, how many other bands - Exhibit B - would serenade the crowd with a barbershop quartet rendition of ''Sweet Adeline''? Phish spent the summer in Europe, trimming the annual parking lot ritual here in the States to 11 shows, including the Clifford Ball in Plattsburgh, N.Y., a weekend of three-set nights that drew more than 100,000 phans. On the other side of the pond, they kept the headlining shows to five, spending most of their time in the opening slot for Santana. ''All in all,'' says McConnell, ''we would have rather done a lot more of our own shows, but not being that well-known over there, I guess it helps to get your name around. It was exhausting, to be honest, just 'cause we did so much traveling and not much playing. For us, playing is the reason to be traveling.'' Here in the States, their name is already around. In fact, they're a touring phenomenon. Why then did so many readers scratch their heads and mutter, ''Who the heck is that?'' when the band popped up on the cover of Weekend today? As McConnell explains, ''I think it's just that the fans we do have are truly fanatical.'' Say a Phishhead sees the band 11 nights in different cities. That's 11 tickets, just one fan. ''It partially creates the illusion that there are more people who come to see us than there actually are,'' says McConnell, ''not to say that there aren't a lot of people coming.'' Despite the attendance figures, only two of the first six albums in the band's 13-year history have sold the 500,000 copies it takes to be certified gold. And that's just fine with the Phishheads. ''I think our fans appreciate the fact that it kind of feels like their thing,'' says McConnell. ''Every time it gets a little bigger, a certain percentage of the fans react negatively, even though they're the ones out there promoting us.'' Tuesday, Phish released its seventh album, ''Billy Breathes,'' a surprisingly song-oriented collection that sounds like just the ticket to let the rest of the world in on the Phishheads' little secret. What does the man at the keyboards think? ''There's a sense with every album that this could be the breakthrough record, but after a series of albums that weren't the breakthrough record, I honestly don't have hopes one way or another,'' he says. ''If a lot of people buy it and listen to it, great. But if not, I'm really proud of the album we made and that's what's most important.'' © 1996 P.G. Publishing Company