Trey Goes It Alone in Boston February 22, 2001 - Rollingstone Magazine by Paul Robicheau Phish frontman provides Grammy alternative Phish's Trey Anastasio launched his second solo tour at Boston's Orpheum Theater last night with a testament to grassroots music, overcoming a rough start to secure an alternative to both the Grammy Awards and his main band. "Should we tell them what they're missing on TV tonight?" bassist Tony Markellis said with a glance to Anastasio near the end of the first set. But the full house of 2,800 surely had little interest in the Grammys (where Phish predictably lost to Metallica for best rock instrumental), especially when the band cranked up the nominated "First Tube," which Anastasio's group developed before Phish recorded the song. Markellis and drummer Russ Lawton pumped a crisp groove that could have supported a truck, and guitarist Anastasio leaned into piercing note clusters, building "First Tube" to a peak which was probably too intense for the Grammy crowd anyway. The trio also benefited from the addition of a three-piece horn section, whose melodic icing particularly made a big difference on still-awkward cover choices "Will It Go Round in Circles?" and "Ooh Child," which drew strength from closing jams. But while the night was laced with extended instrumental forays that both meandered and soared in a Phish-like vein, Anastasio took the opportunity to test the waters beyond typical jam-band terrain. For one thing, the band dabbled in R&B/roots styles favored by Markellis, who urged fans to check out his favorite folk and blues clubs around Boston. The balcony visibly shook from the dancing crowd as Anastasio stabbed confident blues licks in "I Done Done It," an R&B chestnut which gave the eighty-five-minute first set a welcome spike in energy. Anastasio also used the horns for a chamber-music feel, giving them the spotlight on "At the Barbeque," a piece which he premiered earlier this month with the Vermont Youth Symphony. In addition to past Phish sax cohort Dave "The Truth" Grippo, the Vermont-bred horn section included trombonist Andy Muroz and trumpeter Jennifer Hartswick, respectively aged eighteen and twenty-one, an incidental nod to Phish's own collegiate roots. Anastasio recalled at one point that seeing Markellis play a Burlington bar in 1983 was added incentive for him to move to that city for his studies. Despite booking the Orpheum for a long rehearsal the night before, Anastasio's group was slow to find its footing on early groove tunes and the Band's "It Makes No Difference," in which fans even cheered Anastasio's cracking falsetto. New original "Burlap Sack & Pumps" picked up the pace with its neo-New Orleans groove, and a hearty Grippo baritone solo that tastefully dipped into crowd-pleasing squeals. Fans grew more restless when the group took an acoustic break, starting with Anastasio's countrified solo take on Phish favorite "Get Back on the Train," rough around the edges but spiced with trills, harmonics and open chords. Anastasio seemed distracted by catcalls a couple of times. When a fan shouted "Frank Zappa!" after "Get Back on the Train," the guitarist obliged with a tease of "Cosmic Debris." But when the band took another acoustic turn in the middle of the 100-minute second set, Anastasio asked the crowd to quiet down. The break was ill-timed, however, as the musicians had just found their groove for a transcendent stretch culminating in a magnificent "Sand," which built a pulsing momentum that rivaled Phish's best live versions. The horns lent spice to Markellis' and Lawton's incessant, chugging undertow, then Anastasio ripped into a solo that went from space-jam jags to full-fledged Hendrixian howls. The following acoustic segment (with a bass/guitar duet that sounded like an offshoot of "The Inlaw Josie Wales") steered the set back to the sense that Anastasio wanted to try his hand at different things -- for better or worse. The soul-rock original "Driftin" showed great commercial potential earlier in the set, despite the cheesy line "We've got the moon and the stars above," and the guitarist drew more worried looks for "Sunday Morning," another dreamy love song, capped by the declaration "Its true!" The stylistic dabbling continued with a ska take on zydeco upstart Chris Ardoin's "Acting the Devil" (where Anastasio delighted in the bouncy chorus "Acting like an angel when I'm around, acting like the devil when I'm not there") and an encore of the reggae-tinged "Windora Bug." The latter developed a life of its own with the playful, overlapping vocal parts of Anastasio and Markellis, a further display of the growing versatility in the Phish guitarist's solo band. He could spend some quality time with these folks beyond their current ten-date tour.