Anastasio Plays to the Faithful August 6, 2001 - The Boston Globe by Jonathan Perry MANSFIELD - For the better part of 10 years - 17 if you count back to the band's beginnings, as most of its fanatical fans are wont to do - the members of Phish were just about the unlikeliest rock stars on the planet. Initially a Vermont jam band of humble origins and grassroots networking, the group eventually mushroomed into a phenomenon unto itself, a commercial dynamo that far surpassed even the band's own expectations of what it could be and how many people it could reach. All of which is what's made Phish singer-guitarist Trey Anastasio's first tour as a solo artist far more emotionally charged than it might have been otherwise. With Phish on a self-described "hiatus" after some 1,300 shows together (a decision made by the group last fall), Anastasio has put together a pair of new bands as a way to reignite his creative spark. One of those, Oysterhead, is an experimental trio that includes Primus's Les Claypool and ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland. The other, which he brought to the Tweeter Center for a mostly exceptional show Saturday night, is essentially a seven-piece funk-fusion band that - with its four-piece horn section, bottom-heavy groove, and crackerjack instrumental precision - recalled the brassy punch of Tower of Power, the jazzy psychedelic leanings of Traffic, and, of course, the Grateful Dead. The group opened with "I Done Done It," a bluesy vamp that set the evening's instrumental tone: lots of elastic groove and an emphasis on building thrilling improvisational passages, both harder and softer, from the clay of the players' densely layered rhythmic foundations. As one might expect, this was music designed to enhance the auditory pleasure of those listeners who might have already attained states of altered consciousness. But for those who hadn't, the sensory power and imagination of the music helped to put them there. Although Anastasio was given marquee billing, his station at an unobtrusive stage left suggested the guitarist's preference for blending in as just another element of the ensemble, merely one musical voice in an exhilarating and electrifying array of them. Any lingering fears on his part concerning whether the Phish faithful would respond to this new venture were unfounded, as evidenced by the "Thank You Trey" bumper stickers plastered to the fenders of cars headed southbound on I-95 for the show and the plethora of Phish paraphernalia adorning much of what looked to be a sold-out crowd. Though he said nothing to the audience during a marathon three-hour performance (divided into two sets), dispensing even with the formality of introducing the members of his new band, Anastasio wore an ear-to-ear grin, and that together with his nimble, pungent, and often soaring guitar work spoke volumes about his frame of mind. In fact, he might've been in too good a mood. Although the audience lapped it up, Anastasio's goofy two-step shuffle and hammy bump-and-grind with trumpeter Jennifer Hartswick late in the evening's second set triggered bad memories of corny Tony Orlando-and-Dawn variety show specials. Overearnest humorlessness in a musician is always a bad thing, but excessive cuteness can be nearly as deadly. But the moment was, merciful ly, an aberration in a scintillating, musically voracious performance dosed with highlights: the roiling and ferocious "Last Tube" and its doppelganger, "Last Tube," each of which wove itself into a tighter, harder, hotter ball of electric energy with each passing minute, sounding not unlike a '70s blaxploitation-flick soundtrack as played by art-rockers King Crimson; "Moesha" was an irresistible old-school rock 'n' roll rave-up - Chuck Berry verve filtered through Little Feat bounce. "It Makes No Difference," a blue-eyed soul weeper, made for an understated, welcome change before the band shifted gears and launched its second set with the bold, careening "Mister Completely." The piece was complex and ravishing, a sonic excursion to that remote outpost where jazz, rock, and jam intersect to create something else entirely.