Hampton A Feast For Phish Fans December 30, 1999 - Richmond Times-Dispatch By Matt Weitz Album Review - Hampton Comes Alive If you don't like Mexican food, you shouldn't order the El Diablo Grande two-plate dinner. Likewise, if you don't already love Phish, there's not much reason to pick up the live box set titled (groan) "Hampton Comes Alive." The six-CD collection documents two shows recorded Nov. 20 and 21, 1998, in Hampton, Va. -- captured live on two-track tape, without any editing or post-show sweetening. Well over five hours of music, Hampton does do a good job of capturing the dynamics of a Phish show -- how the music builds and unfolds. It also showcases the band's strengths and weaknesses: a group mind that can often function with dazzling precision, a byzantine creativity, a keen and funny eye for cover tunes and a relationship between band and audience that's tight enough at times to exclude the casual (or unconverted) listener. Case in point: If you're familiar with the band's "Gamehendge" mythos, you'll understand perfectly why the song "Wilson" sounds the way it does. If you're not, it just seems a particularly obnoxious tune. Hampton has 44 cuts, 20 of which have never appeared on a Phish disc. Of those, the covers are the most fun: Stevie Wonder's "Boogie On Reggae Woman" and Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2" join others by the likes of the Beastie Boys, Son Seals and Chumbawumba. More evidence of the group's broad stylistic base can be found in the musical references they drop into their playing, touching -- just for a moment -- everything from the Gershwins to Scott Joplin. For the completist, then, "Hampton Comes Alive" is a clean, band- sanctioned version of the countless bootlegs in circulation. For the curious, however, this monster will probably prove much harder to digest than Phish's other two live albums -- 1995's double- disc "A Live One" or 1997's "Slip Stitch and Pass." Review © 1999 Richmond Times-Dispatch