During college, Phish was part of my everyday life. The band’s music was played at parties, in dorm rooms and at bars, and, oftentimes, as I stumbled homeward across the beautiful Chapel Hill campus in the wee hours of the night, Phish tunes were bouncing around in my head.
Looking back, I’m not sure how I missed out on attending a Phish show, but it’s a regrettable fact. Because of my failure as a Phish Head, I was very happy when the Phish Live in Brooklyn DVD was released a few weeks ago. Clocking in at almost four hours, the DVD has plenty of Phish to offer, and because of its length, I’ll be reviewing it in two parts.
At Keyspan Park on Coney Island, with Ferris wheels and roller coasters as a backdrop, beach balls bouncing around in the crowd and wafts of smoke occasionally floating up from the revelers, Phish takes the stage at dusk and opens with A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing. It doesn’t take long for the band to warm up, as Trey Anastasio plays his first solo and Jon Fishman, wearing his patented polka-dot dress, hammers away on the drums.
During the second song, the discordant Dinner and a Movie, Page McConnell’s fingers start becoming limber as he aggressively plays one of his many keyboards. As the sun goes down, the stage lights shine, and the first extended jam of the evening occurs in The Curtain With. Anastasio, looking like a red-headed Eric Clapton, plays as if he’s in a trance, with mouth agape, eyes looking towards the sky and fingers dancing across the frets and strings of his guitar.
On the next track, Sample in a Jar, the band’s sound tightens up into classic rock-n-roll, and the camera zooms in on a bikini-clad girl, dancing with abandon. Which allows me to segue nicely into Moma Dance, a song that opens with heavy bass and truckloads of funk. The moment ends, the moment ends, but Phish plays on, transitioning into the crowd-pleaser, Free, another track on which Mike Gordon’s bass is prominently featured. Gordon’s solo is what I call ‘wonky funk’ – something that simultaneously fires all the music-loving synapses of the brain. And the funk gets even wonkier in Nothing, when Anastasio and Gordon play an extended guitar/bass duet, my favorite part of the first set.
Then the sun sets, rain starts falling and dancing umbrellas bounce through the crowd, bopping up and down to the staccato rhythms of Maze, with bright stage lights reflecting off the tight, wet nylon.
The set closed with the creepy Frankenstein, a Jon Fishman drum solo, and a bunch of excited, wet fans screaming out for more.
Looking back, I’m not sure how I missed out on attending a Phish show, but it’s a regrettable fact. Because of my failure as a Phish Head, I was very happy when the Phish Live in Brooklyn DVD was released a few weeks ago. Clocking in at almost four hours, the DVD has plenty of Phish to offer, and because of its length, I’ll be reviewing it in two parts.
At Keyspan Park on Coney Island, with Ferris wheels and roller coasters as a backdrop, beach balls bouncing around in the crowd and wafts of smoke occasionally floating up from the revelers, Phish takes the stage at dusk and opens with A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing. It doesn’t take long for the band to warm up, as Trey Anastasio plays his first solo and Jon Fishman, wearing his patented polka-dot dress, hammers away on the drums.During the second song, the discordant Dinner and a Movie, Page McConnell’s fingers start becoming limber as he aggressively plays one of his many keyboards. As the sun goes down, the stage lights shine, and the first extended jam of the evening occurs in The Curtain With. Anastasio, looking like a red-headed Eric Clapton, plays as if he’s in a trance, with mouth agape, eyes looking towards the sky and fingers dancing across the frets and strings of his guitar.
On the next track, Sample in a Jar, the band’s sound tightens up into classic rock-n-roll, and the camera zooms in on a bikini-clad girl, dancing with abandon. Which allows me to segue nicely into Moma Dance, a song that opens with heavy bass and truckloads of funk. The moment ends, the moment ends, but Phish plays on, transitioning into the crowd-pleaser, Free, another track on which Mike Gordon’s bass is prominently featured. Gordon’s solo is what I call ‘wonky funk’ – something that simultaneously fires all the music-loving synapses of the brain. And the funk gets even wonkier in Nothing, when Anastasio and Gordon play an extended guitar/bass duet, my favorite part of the first set.
Then the sun sets, rain starts falling and dancing umbrellas bounce through the crowd, bopping up and down to the staccato rhythms of Maze, with bright stage lights reflecting off the tight, wet nylon.
The set closed with the creepy Frankenstein, a Jon Fishman drum solo, and a bunch of excited, wet fans screaming out for more.
