Trey Anastasio at Alpine Valley Music Theatre July 23, 2001 - Chicago Tribune By Joshua Klein When Phish announced its indefinite hiatus, you could almost hear the band's thousands of fans mutter: bummer. After taking over for the Grateful Dead as the jam band of choice, Phish continued to grow in popularity, attracting the great unwashed and the well-to-do in equal quantities as it traversed the country playing prodigious but innocuous noodle rock. Phish may be out of service for the foreseeable future, but the group's legion of Phish heads can now follow de facto Phish leader Trey Anastasio. Anastasio, Phish's guitarist, singer and primary songwriter, has hit the road solo before, but the new, expanded eight-piece band he brought to Alpine Valley Saturday night offered some pleasant surprises. For starters, a four-piece horn section was nicely integrated into Anastasio's compositions. More strikingly, keyboard player John Medeski of the experimental jazz group Medeski, Martin and Wood was on hand to fill in for regular Anastasio sideman Ray Paczkowski. A strong draw in his own right, Medeski made the night all the more interesting, especially considering the material Anastasio decided to unveil. Funk was never Phish's forte. Yet Anastasio dedicated the show to black music in all its permutations, from reggae and ska to soul, jazz and blues. Most intriguing, however, was Anastasio's allegiance to the great Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, whose kinetic compositions provided the blueprint for much of Anastasio's set. With the remarkably restrained rhythm section of bassist Tony Markellis and drummer Russ Lawton holding down the skittering songs, and Anastasio himself frequently just playing rhythm, the horns danced in and out of the music to accent any subtle change in direction. Anastasio, happy to have these new toys to play with, pointed to his band mates like a conductor, directing their entrances and exits through his deceptively simple but often epic songs. Medeski's talents far surpass the late Fela's rudimentary keyboard skills too. A monster on Hammond organ and clarinet, Medeski added shading and feeling throughout long grooves. He hammered and slapped at his keyboards like he was playing bongos, and he frequently faced off with Anastasio to exchange volleys of rapid-fire notes. Compared to these amazing workouts, Anastasio's relentless generic vamps sounded all the weaker. Soloing over an incessantly repeated motif and improvisation are two different things, and too often Anastasio's band seemed stuck in a loop. "Quantegy" was a snooze, and "Moesha" served as a reminder of Anastasio's serious deficiencies as a singer and lyricist. He's not so much untalented as lacking in soul, which certainly hampered his attempts to ape the Stax sound or James Brown's hit-it-or-quit-it turnarounds. Yet Anastasio should be commended for daring to debut 3 hours of relatively new material in such a public arena, with a final encore of "First Tube" the sole dip into Phish waters. While everyone seemed to enjoy the songs, it would take an inconceivable act of sheer malice to sway the average Phish fan from their target of obsession. What made Anastasio's music so intriguing was the prospect of crossover. If he keeps his band as tight as it was Saturday night, then it will be increasingly tough to resist the call of Anastasio's rhythmic revue.