Up until last night, I'd never heard a single song from Phish. This is not to say that I'd never been around their music — having attended college in the Northeast, I'm more than certain that Phish had washed down my ear canal at some point — but I've always felt about them the way a vegetarian feels about Osso Bucco. I'm sure that's a lovely veal shank, and I can imagine why people love it so, but I don't order that kind of thing at a restaurant.

And, by and large, Phish is still not for me. But if you like Music — even if you've never driven a used Volvo, covered something with bumper stickers, owned several pairs of worn-down corduroys, attended an AP anything class, or smoked pot indoors with 20,000 people — you should see them play live at some point. Because Phish plays Music. All of it. At once. Every single kind you could ever think about. Bluegrass and classical and funk and arena rock and country and avant-garde jazz and Afro-Cuban and power pop and folk. Technically perfect. For four hours straight.

(But you must like Music. Not genres of music. Not D.C. hardcore, or East Coast rap, or Mancusian Brit pop. You must like all music. You cannot be an elitist prick who splits hairs.)

And you must like People (and to a lesser extent, Drugs and Computer-Controlled Lighting). Like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, People will be everywhere. Fat people jiggling like holy rollers, arms akimbo, clawing at the sky. Little dudes with glasses firing up bowls every five minutes. Dreadlocked girls twirling in slow circles, totally lost. Married couples groping furiously. (The babysitter came through!) Bathrooms, concourses, aisles, filled with writhing humanity, lit red then green then white, all doing a cross between "the swim" and the Carlton, screaming and throwing glow sticks. Ecstatic mobs hug and kiss each other for no reason other than Trey Anastasio played a minor C chord at the eight-minute mark of a jam. Alien, but intensely meaningful, somehow.

But more than anything else: You must not judge the Music, nor the People — no matter how embarrassed you may feel for yourself or for them — because that is not the Point. The Point is that everything is cool at a Phish show. The Point is no one can judge you here. (Or really, even arrest you: On my way in, I watched a security guard unzip a friend's purse, inadvertently finding the bag of weed she'd misplaced earlier in the evening, and wave her on through.)

The Point is that you go, you listen to four hours of music, you do whatever the hell you want, no one bothers you, and then you can repeat that experience for the rest of your life. I'm not going to, but everyone should go once.

Ecstatic mobs hug and kiss each other for no reason other than Trey Anastasio played a minor C chord at the eight-minute mark of a jam. Alien, but intensely meaningful, somehow.

you should see them play live at some point. Because Phish plays Music. All of it. At once. Every single kind you could ever think about. Bluegrass and classical and funk and arena rock and country and avant-garde jazz and Afro-Cuban and power pop and folk.

I'm fairly certain Phish doesn't play death metal

To be fair Harry, he said you need to go once. Four times is enough to send most music fans over the deep end.

I cannot seem to like or enjoy Phish , although I have tried many times. Does the actual physical presence at a show add that much?

The hippie dream... right.... lodged in the white middle class mostly... if you include all the Dead offshoots I have "gone" over 30 times... or maybe more...

I like sum it up with a Jerry/ Trey comparison... Jerry struggled, with a hunger, searching for apotheosis or resolution... he had death and chaos in his failing and he had bliss and transcendence ready to show at any point... Trey was/is self-satisfied, musically distant, showing off, not one single bit of sex or soul...

There are a number of things wrong with this...

A. Here's a news flash for you and your generation: not only are your experiences not more authentic or pure, they are less so because you feel the need to continually relive them and push them on everyone else.

B. Jerry was a junkie who played music for money and in fact played it quite badly on many many occasions. His soul was pure, sure but he never put his fat foot down to stop the madness and so he became a caricature of himself and his playing became a caricature of Jerry Garcia playing guitar.

C. Trey is 1000% more connected to both his music and especially his fans than Jerry ever was. Jerry never gave two shits about the fans.

B. Keith was a junkie who played music for money and in fact played it quite badly on many many occasions. His soul was pure, sure but he never put his fat foot down to stop the madness and so he became a caricature of himself and his playing became a caricature of Keith Richards *playing guitar.

actually by using your logic one could easily say...




* see years 1982-present

There are a number of things wrong with this...

A. Here's a news flash for you and your generation: not only are your experiences not more authentic or pure, they are less so because you feel the need to continually relive them and push them on everyone else.

B. Jerry was a junkie who played music for money and in fact played it quite badly on many many occasions. His soul was pure, sure but he never put his fat foot down to stop the madness and so he became a caricature of himself and his playing became a caricature of Jerry Garcia playing guitar.

C. Trey is 1000% more connected to both his music and especially his fans than Jerry ever was. Jerry never gave two shits about the fans.

sadly i've still never seen the stones in person, but when i see live footage keith always looks like he's playing some riff for the first time, surprised that two simple chords can be that awesome.

sadly i've still never seen the stones in person, but when i see live footage keith always looks like he's playing some riff for the first time, surprised that two simple chords can be that awesome.

Ha. I fucking hate Deadheads and the whole scene.

Me too (Phisheads too FWIW) .