Phish Rocks the Phuck Out at ACL 2010

Due to their living legend status and cultish following, it’s hard to review a Phish show without stating your credentials up front. It’s intimidating. People live for this shit. So, I’d like to state right here that while I’ve liked Phish since middle school and did in fact experience them live at Bonnaroo in ’09, I consider myself a Phish noob. According to iTunes, two out of my top three most-played Phish songs are from Farmhouse, and one actually is “Farmhouse.” In short, I am very low on the totem pole of Phish credibility, and therefore have probably not earned the right to even review one of their shows, let alone eulogize about why Phish is special.

However, this is my blog, and in this land, I am queen. So here goes, from the mouth of the recently converted: one noob’s tribute to the greatness of Phish.

Phish is special because they picked up where the Grateful Dead left off, forming the axis around which a whole network of smaller jam bands orbit, and channeling the energy of an entirely peaceful subculture based only on a shared love of jamming and everything that comes with it. Of course, things can start to feel exclusive and intimidating, because this is one of those cases where you either get it or you don’t, and the transition from general enjoyment to “getting it” is more like an epiphany than anything else, sustained by the communal energy that surrounds any Phish concert, like walking into a room full of people and suddenly realizing they’re all your best friends. Once you’re in, you’re in for life.

A friend of mine once told me that I’m the kind of person who would accidently join a cult and not realize it until I’d sucked down half the poisoned Kool-Aid. I will not deny that she’s probably right, but again: my review, my rules. If I’m drinking the Kool-Aid, you are too.

From what I gathered, Friday’s performance was a solid (albeit noob-infested) paradigm of Phishness, complete with prime covers of Talking Head’s “Cities” and Velvet Underground’s “Rock and Roll.” According to a 200-person-strong Facebook group called “Texas Needs Phish Too!,” it was the first time Phish has performed in Texas since their September 1999 show at South Park Meadows 11 years ago. As such, the band aimed to please, the audience was dancing and spirits were high—whenever the guy behind us screamed “PHISH IS THE GREATEST BAND OF ALL TIIIIIIIME!” we all raised our fists in solidarity.

At a Phish show, everything makes sense. Yes, Trey’s funky chord progressions and ecstatic noodling will put chills down your spine, but half of what makes Phish so awesome is how much their fans love them. The appeal of their shows is a more purified version of the appeal of music festivals in general. To me, there is nothing more wonderful than the chance to come together with a whole bunch of people who love what I love, and just love that love together under the sun for a few glorious days. That love is music, but it is more than music—it is the very specific culture of the music festival, which is music in its largest and most sociable form, a celebration of music and what music can do, which is to bring people together to dance or bob their heads or shuffle their feet or even just stand still beholding the explosions of sound and spectacle bursting and gushing and coursing around them like a supersonic hailstorm of awesome. Phish provides a special outlet for this love because the live experience is so firmly embedded in the music they produce.

In simpler terms: if you believe, as I tend to, that a band is only as good as their live show, and that a huge part of that live show is shaped by the passion of its audience, then you really just can’t beat Phish.

So Phish, here's to you. I am yours, phorevermore.

Setlist:

1. Down with Disease
2. Cities
3. Possum
4. Wolfman's Brother
5. Chalk Dust Torture
6. Rock & Roll
7. 2001
8. Backwards Down The Number Line
9. Harry Hood
10. Light
11. Suzy Greenberg
12. You Enjoy Myself

Encore:
1. Cavern
2. First Tube

Written by Hilary Cadigan, Photo by Max Blau