Phish Strives For Intimacy In Sea of Devotion November 16, 1997 - Greensboro News & Record By Aaron Nathans The waves of fiercely devoted Phish fans were absent one recent afternoon in this lakeside college town, and despite his band's legendary status, Mike Gordon still had to fight for a parking space. The bassist for Phish turned a few heads as he stepped into the Muddy Waters coffee house, ordering a dirty orange carrot-celery-parsley drink. Ten years ago, Gordon and his three band mates saw their careers take off at a bar next door, called Nectar's. They played for a steadily growing pack of fans, many of whom the band members knew by their first names. Some would come from miles away to hear the bohemian rockers with the outlandish sense of humor. Things are different these days, with Phish - which held the largest concert in the country last summer - getting ready to play to 10,000 at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Winston-Salem. Some fans from the early days see the Phish boom as bittersweet; they say they don't recognize the band they once loved. But Gordon, who does most of the group's interviews, said the guiding principles of Phish haven't changed. "It seems like a really big part of the audience is really in tune with it, not just because of a hit song or something like that. A big concert can still feel somewhat intimate, in the same way a small concert can for us," Gordon said. Perhaps the devotion to Phish is a reaction to the entertainment itself, an eclectic mix of alternative rock, jazz, bluegrass and Jim Carrey. Or maybe the thousands come for the atmosphere - a sea of teenagers and twentysomethings sustaining hours of Deadhead dances to a series of extended jams with the aroma of pot floating through the air. Phish has all but been crowned the heir to the crowds and spirit of the Grateful Dead. Both are jam bands, have groupies and are less known for specific songs than for their distinct styles. Phish's music, however, is described by fans as more "frantic" than the Dead's. And like the Dead, Phish grew out of a community. Jerry Garcia and company first made a name in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury; Burlington, a city of about 39,000 on Lake Champlain surrounded by mountains and lush scenery, is the musical place that gave birth to Phish. Music is a part of life in Burlington, where budding musicians play clubs in what Gordon describes as a noncompetitive atmosphere, which he credits for the band's development. The town has yet to be overrun by talent scouts the way Seattle was, but the town gives birth to several compilation discs of local talent each year. Many fans of the early days remember Phish as part of that scene. They remember the group that met at the University of Vermont, playing their first gig at an ROTC Halloween formal in 1983, where the none-too-happy dancers drowned out the band's covers of music from the 1960s and '70s with prerecorded music. It took a few years for even Burlington to warm up to the outlandish style of Phish, which added and dropped members during the early years, but soon clubgoers came to appreciate the band's creativity. Many fans fell away at each step of growth - graduating out of Nectar's to a larger club down the street, playing Boston, going West, signing with a label and making a music video to "Down With Disease" - a single from its 1994 release, "Hoist." "I think that, for a number of reasons, fans of this band feel very protective of them," said Dean Budnick, author of "The Phishing Manual: A Compendium to the Music of Phish." "Whenever they move up to larger venues or put out larger albums that expose the band to a larger fan base, it drives everyone into a snit." Phish has come into its own in the studio as well. The band's latest album, "Billy Breathes," is one in a line of Phish albums that have been certified gold, having sold more than 500,000 copies. It marks a musical turn for a band that is always evolving. "Billy" has a more mellow, almost quiet feel than some of Phish's earlier albums, something to which critics have responded positively. The unexpected is part of the Phish experience. At a Virginia Beach, Va., concert last summer, Budnick reports that LeRoi Moore, the saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band, played two saxes at once. Lead singer Trey Anastasio took the cue and strapped on a second guitar, percussionist Jon Fishman grabbed extra drumsticks, Gordon played two basses and piano man Page McConnell spread out like a flying Superman across two keyboards, playing one with his feet, the other with his hands. "Part of what it is they did differently, their focus was much more on building a relationship with their fans, instead of just going out and selling records," said Jim Henke, chief curator at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. Henke worked for Phish's label, Elektra, in 1993. He said he could envision the day when Phish is inducted into the rock hall. According to "The Phishing Manual," the name Phish (pronounced Fish) is a play off the name of drummer Jon Fishman. The name is also a nod to the altered animal spelling of the Beatles. Anastasio, Fishman, guitarist Jeff Holdsworth and Gordon met at the University of Vermont in the early 1980s. Anastasio and Fishman transferred to the small, progressive Goddard College in Plainfield after meeting McConnell, who transferred there from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. McConnell essentially replaced Holdsworth, who left the band in the spring of 1986. The band members, now in their early 30s, keep in touch with fans with a number of Internet sites. Sometimes a Phish concert gives off more than good vibes. Last year's Clifford Ball, a two-day Phish extravaganza at an abandoned military base in Plattsburgh, N.Y., left the area in shock, with traffic jams and mountains of garbage. Two fans died - one of an apparent drug overdose, the other in a traffic accident - during the event's two days. And that was enough for the Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment Corp. to decide not to have Phish back, or any big rock concert for that matter. There have been reports of chaos at Phish concerts in Indiana and Colorado, and death on the roads to and from concerts at other venues. Gordon said death - even at concerts - is a part of life. "That sort of stuff happens whether or not there's a concert," Gordon said. "If people have a party, stuff like that'll happen. So we really can't feel guilty, but we do feel bad." A band spokesman said the Great Went was moved way up to Northern Maine to keep the crowd a reasonable size. But surrounded in a sea of devotion, Gordon said the point is the music, bringing the crowd - and themselves - to a "vitalizing" place. "We get on stage, we don't know what place we're going. No one does," Gordon said. "I don't know what the song list is going to be, and if we play a song, I don't know if we're going to have a long jam or not. ... So there's a lot of unexpected stuff going on. And that makes it more in the moment." Article © 1997 Greensboro News & Record