Flipped Over The Phish July 5, 1996 - The Guardian (London) By Staff Like the Grateful Dead, Phish a four-piece from Vermont are trailed around the world by fans. Dan Glaister caught up with them in Italy and, right, offers a guide to obsessive followings Jared and Mike are happy. They are sharing a bottle of beer in the pouring rain outside a locked speedway track in northern Italy. One of their friends bounces over: 'Hey, are we having a good time or what?' He has more reason to be happy. He has a waterproof coat. Mike has come from New York and Jared from Washington DC; with half a dozen like-minded friends they flew to Amsterdam, hired a van and hit the road. But this wasn't just a holiday, and nor are they big speedway fans. Mike and Jared, their friends and some 50 other Americans are enduring a Mediterranean storm outside a speedway track an hour east of Venice. For Phish. Mike and Jared are Phish-heads. Similar yet different to Deadheads, the legendary army of devotees that lived and breathed Jerry Garcia, Phish fans spend their formative years trailing behind the unassuming four-piece from Vermont. A phenomenon at home, outside the US Phish are still relatively unknown. Now, they have come to conquer Europe with their brand of rootsy rock. But Phish and the Grateful Dead don't only have a loyal following and big Internet presence in common (Phishnet, get it?), there is also a leaning towards long improvisations and even lengthier guitar solos. Phish is the great living hope for the great American tradition of touring monsters. The band spends nine months of the year on the road, their time divided between tours and periods spent in the studio. Their workload is rewarded by a fanatical following. They are the inheritors of the Deadhead tradition. Not to be confused with groupies, the followers worship the music. But the Dead is dead: the cholesterol in Jerry Garcia's body finally caught up with him and he checked into the big rehab clinic in the sky. The Grateful Dead limped on without him but Garcia was the Dead, his guitar solos embodied the way of life: languid, and above all, long. And now there is Phish. Outside the gates of the speedway track, Jared and Mike pass the beer bottle and enthuse about their heroes with sobering sincerity. 'I see them whenever I can,' says Mike. 'I see 10 or 15 shows every tour.' How often do they tour? 'Three times a year.' Don't you ever get bored, Mike? 'They're always different. It's great, you never know what's going to happen. They have a list of all the songs they've played and what cities they've played them in and they make sure they never repeat a song.' Never? 'Well if they do, it's different.' But lengthy guitar solos are not the only reason Mike and Jared are here. If they merely wanted to hear different versions of their favourite songs they could swap bootlegs. The large tape machine sitting on the ground beside them confirms that bootlegging is an accepted part of the touring scene, a way of doing a friend a favour, recording a formative moment, or even making a quick buck. Jared and Mike's purpose is different. Depending on who you listen to, they are either pursuing the American dream or indulging in that most healthy of urges, youthful rebellion - before signing up for a university course. 'It's a rebellion thing,' says Trey Anastasio, the band's singer and guitarist. 'Rebelling against your parents. White, middle-class college students have always done it.' We are sitting in a small marquee, a piece of carpet laid over the ground. The rain hammers away outside. Tonight is the first night of Phish's European tour, their first for four years. The stage is not quite built, the PA is not quite ready, the speedway track pretending to be a venue is flooded and the rain shows no sign of letting up. The rebellion, however, is not an expression of individualism. Scholars of American studies, the New York Times recently noted, refer to it as 'communitas' - the desire to share that unique experience with a large group of people also going through the same unique experience. Like most forms of social rebellion connected with pop music, from Teddy Boys to punk, tour culture is a group movement, the group identified by clothing and vocabulary. 'It's cool, dude,' says Ian from Chicago. 'Rome was really cool, but we travelled up here to see Phish and now we're going to stay with them. The whole thing is just cool.' The cool, however, can sometimes get a little out of hand. At this year's new Orleans Jazz Festival 30,000 Phish fans turned up out of nowhere, erecting their tents and setting up their stalls in the carpark outside the New Orleans fairground. The good folk of the annual celebration of New Orleans's musical heritage were not amused. 'I don't think we'll be invited back there,' says keyboards player Page McConnell, 'at least not until we're on the comeback trail.' The parking-lot scene is where the sub-culture really comes into its own. Stalls are selling jewellery, clothing, tapes, food and just about anything else that can be sold. Many of the fans are ticketless, hoping that divine intervention will produce one for the show. The particular manifestation of the divine for Phish-heads is known as 'miracling': groups of fans wander through the parking lot chanting: 'Reap your reward in the next life - miracle me now.' Life is free and easy in the parking lot, out with the camper vans. But there is a downside. 'The one difference we've noticed since the demise of the Dead,' says McConnell, 'is that the parking -lot scene has become pretty out of control. There are people who make their living out of the parking lot and don't even come to see the show.' 'That squeezed the life out of the Dead,' says Anastasio. 'Before Garcia died, our management was trying to address the problem. Months before we do a show we fly out and have meetings with the local police. We also have people whose job is to go in to the parking lot and identify the good and the bad elements.' Tales abound from both sides: horror stories about the scene circulate on local TV news stations, and rumours emerge about organised crime muscling in on the peace -loving hippies' alternative economy. The band's McConnell tells me: 'There were people with tanks and tanks of nitrus oxide which they sell for $ 5 a bag. You can get a lot of five-buck bags out of one tank,' says McConnell. 'We're sure it's linked to organised crime in New York. Sometimes they were selling carbon monoxide, not nitrus oxide. Kids were falling over.' Some of the more staid sectors of the American press have reported robbery, mugging and rape amid the happy hippy parking-lot community. As well as the entrepreneurial part of the American dream, there is the frontier spirit to be satisfied too. 'A lot of Americans never get a chance to see the rest of the US,' says McConnell. 'When kids are 18-24, following a band is a good opportunity to travel and see the rest of the country.' Brad Sands took the American dream a stage further. Made redundant from his computer job in Pennsylvania, he went out West. Arriving early one night for a Phish gig in New Mexico, he landed a job as a roadie. Now he is production co-ordinator and a key member of the band's entourage. 'I sort of brown-nosed my way in,' he says. But what happens when the audience grows up? 'I think in five years' time they'll be coming to shows but they won't be doing the whole tour,' says Sands. 'They'll stay in a nice hotel and just go and see one show.' This show, however, is one that even the staunchest Phish-heads will have been proud to miss. With no let-up in the rain and a sea of mud worthy of Woodstock, Phish missed their slot, while headliners Santana only managed to squeeze in an abbreviated appearance between cloudbursts. But the Phish fans who stuck it out were rewarded as the band joined Santana for some dodgy duetting. As the muddy night wore on, it seemed the guitar solos would never end. Jared and Mike's bootleg will probably be worth a fortune. Stash, a compilation of Phish's best, is reviewed on page 10. Phish play the Shepherd's Bush Empire next Thursday. © 1996 Guardian Newspapers Limited