Phish covers lots of ground for fans who have done the same August 5, 1996 - Denver Rocky Mountain News By Michael Mehle Phish Grade B Phish performed at Red Rocks Sunday. The band also plays today, Tuesday and Wednesday. All shows are sold out. The band includes Trey Anastasio, guitar; Page McConnell, keyboards; Mike Gordon, bass; and Jon Fishman, drums. On the main street of Morrison on Sunday, it was like a scene out of Independence Day. Life forms from far away had come to take over the town, and there was little that residents could do to ward off the invasion. They call themselves Phishheads or Phish Phans, and their Volkswagen buses, Jeeps and cars with plates from across the country lined the shoulders of every road in and out of town. Every third car came with a dog inside, and fans trying to pay for their travels hawked such diverse wares as T-shirts and trail mix from the sides of the packed streets and highways. The chaotic scene made driving through the six-block town a 30-minute exercise in patience. Yet the Phishheads come in peace - their only mission being to catch one of four shows by Phish, a four-member band from Vermont that has built an ardent fan base that follows the band wherever it goes. Sunday, 9,400 fans packed every inch of Red Rocks for the first show, a melange of four-part vocal harmonies, ever-changing rhythms and intertwining instrumentation that takes off in every imaginable direction. The foursome proved equally capable of ripping through a tight, soulful rocker or taking off on a 15-minute jam in which Celtic rhythms bled into disjointed jazz measures, then into distorted, dissonant crescendos. Songs such as Free bounced with energetic beats and sing-along choruses while songs such as Reba careered through time signatures that challenged the crowd's dancing ability. The latter can sound like needless noodling - jazz fusion taken to interesting extremes - but fans hang on every beat and chord change. The band was at its best in moments like the opening of the second set, when the catchy shuffle of AC / DC Bag was stretched to a blistering jam with shifting tempos and guitarist Trey Anastasio's nimble fretwork. For the audience, the evening was like a game of Name That Tune. Cheers went up three notes into each song. Dozens jotted down set lists to be input into the Phish.Net web site. The group isn't much to watch on stage. Moments when Anastasio or bassist Mike Gordon break into a dance are legendary among fans because they rarely happen. The crowd itself is far more entertaining. Still fighting for its identity, the Phish following is a tie-dyed, long-haired bunch often lumped in with Deadheads. They danced with limbs like wet noodles, their wrists stretched out and flopping about as though they were kneeding bread dough. They left late Sunday for campgrounds surrounding Morrison and Evergreeen knowing the next three shows will be nothing like the first. As for the residents of Morrion, they can have their town back Thursday. © 1996 Denver Publishing Company