Phish's free-form approach reels in large, loyal fan base August 4, 1996 - Denver Rocky Mountain News By Michael Mehle Here's a quick quiz to test your knowledge of pop music: Hum a few bars of a Phish tune - any Phish tune. Go ahead, search your memory banks. Cheat, if you must. Flip through your CD collection, scan the radio dial or switch over to MTV. Chances are, it won't do any good. About the only place you'll be sure to hear Phish is at Red Rocks tonight. And Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. The Vermont band sold out four shows - more than 37,000 tickets - in an hour. Half the tickets were sold over the band's hot line to fans willing to drive across the continent to see the combo. Last year, the group packed two shows at Red Rocks, and scores of fans without tickets tried scaling the rocky precipice behind the amphitheater to crash the concerts. Promoter Barry Fey says the decision this summer to have four concerts ''was just an arbitrary number. They could have sold out seven, or eight shows.'' That Phish is a phenomenon is no longer news. All but ignored by radio and invisible to mainstream America, the four-member group has become a touring juggernaut with a large and loyal fan base. But just how big the band - and an expanding stable of groups prone to playing long, loose jams - has grown is turning a lot of heads. Acts that echo an early '70s bent for lengthy, ever-changing instrumentation have become the bread and butter of promoters looking to fill arenas and amphitheaters. Blues Traveler, Widespread Panic, the Dave Matthews Band, the Freddy Jones Band and God Street Wine are all following the Phish example and drawing thousands with shows that offer little rock 'n' roll theatrics but promise a different version of every song each night. There won't be any pyrotechnics, video screens or elaborate stage decorations at Red Rocks the next four nights. The four Phish - guitarist Trey Anastasio, keyboardist Page McConnell, bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman - move about like bassett hounds on a hot summer day. The fans don't seem to care. ''They're unlike any other band that I've listened to,'' says Megan McMillan, a 17-year-old fan making the trip to Red Rocks from Provo, Utah. ''They can all go off on their own jams and come back together in one great moment.'' Adds Fey: ''Don't ask me what any of their songs are, but Phish are tremendous musicians. There's not too much to argue about there.'' But great musicianship hasn't always equalled success in the MTV era. How have Phish, Blues Traveler and the Dave Matthews Band turned the commercial corner concentrating on music first, showmanship second? ''It's the backlash to pop,'' says Bill Bass, a promoter with Small Axe Concerts. Earlier this summer he brought Widespread Panic, a Georgia-based band with an Allman Brothers feel to Red Rocks, and the show sold out. ''It's the antithesis of Michael Jackson,'' Bass says. ''There's nothing structured and everybody looks like they came off the street - because they did.'' Labels and agents began jumping on board last summer after Blues Traveler and the Dave Matthews Band broke out of the group with multi-million selling albums. Other acts haven't been as successful on the charts (Phish's last album, A Live One, sold 375,000, but fans have 20 to 50 bootlegs of the group's live shows). But that shouldn't matter, says Chuck Morris, a local manager who has handled the career of Big Head Todd and the Monsters. ''Some record companies say these bands won't sell platinum (500, 000 albums), but why bother? They don't have to have big records,'' Morris says. ''They'll have longer careers than most people just selling 100,000 to 250, 000 a pop.'' Morris' agency recently signed Leftover Salmon, a Boulder band that mixes bluegrass with long rock jams. The group regularly draws 2,000 people a night across the country and has sold out 25 straight shows at the Fox Theater, despite not having national album distribution. He expects the band to sign a major label deal in the next month, an indication of the industry's new interest in such acts. The most popular theories explaining the resurgence of jam bands center on a passing of the musical torch. Many believe Phish is the heir apparent to the Grateful Dead's legacy and will inherit that group's fans now that Jerry Garcia is dead and the industry's greatest touring force has called it quits. There are obvious similarities: Like Deadheads, Phish fans travel across country to see the band (they'll be camping at the Rooney campground this weekend), and they seem to shop at the same vendors for tie-dye shirts and large, loose dresses. There's also an undeniable affinity for drugs, although the Deadheads preferred marijuana and hallucinogenics and Phish fans have gained a reputation for using the more dangerous nitrous oxide. (Phish has reportedly hired people to comb the crowds and dissuade using the gas.) Yet not every Deadhead is a Phish fan, or vice versa. In fact, arguments between the two camps as to which is the better band are not uncommon. ''I think it's kind of an extended family with the Dead,'' says 20-year- old fan Sarah Scofield. The biggest question is whether Phish, Blues Traveler, Widespread Panic or any of the other jam bands can duplicate the Dead's longevity. ''I think it will keep going,'' McMillan says. ''It's music you can't grow sick of.'' And that's music to the ears of people now banking on the business. Fey, for one, expects bigger and better things in the future. ''Exponentially, in a few years Phish will have 42 shows at Red Rocks,'' the promoter jokes. ''It will be the Budweiser Summer of Phish.'' © 1996 Denver Publishing Company