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Mon. November 02.1998 11:35 PM EST |
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Phish Cover Velvet Underground Album At Halloween GigContinuing annual Oct. 31 tradition of reinterpreting influential albums, jam band chooses Loaded. by Correspondent Jonathan Seff |
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Phish's Las Vegas Halloween show spanned three sets in almost four hours. |
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LAS VEGAS -- The closely guarded secret of which album Phish
would cover at this year's Halloween show was finally revealed --
right on the night of the gig. Thanks to the Phishbill (Phish's version of Playbill)
So ended the mystery of what the Vermont-based post-pyschedelic quartet would do for this year's edition of its Halloween concert tradition. Over the past few years, with the exception of 1997, the jam-oriented band has covered an influential rock album in its entirety each Oct. 31. Previous choices have included the Beatles' "white album," the Who's Quadrophenia and Talking Heads' Remain in Light. The performance of Loaded comprised one set, leaving two of the evening's three sets to be filled by guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, keyboardist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman. The result was more than three hours of music. Following the concert opener, "Axilla I," and extending through the initial four songs of the first set, the sound and presentation of the band were a bit lackluster. But with the funky "Sneaking Sally Through the Alley," an Allen Toussaint cover brought out of a nine-year Phish hiatus last December, the band found the groove it had been stewing in for the past 15 years. Phish tried a couple of early-concert mood-lifters: an Anastasio and Gordon dance routine and McConnell's stage-wandering vocals on "Lawn Boy." After the first set, Robbie Thorne, 49, sporting a tie-dyed shirt and neatly trimmed beard, reflected on his first experience with Phish. "The crowd is great and everyone seems to be really enjoying the music," he said. "And as someone representing the older generation, I can say some of their stuff, the harmonies, reminds me of older music. It's great." Thorne's garb -- reminiscent of hippie-era threads worn by fans of Phish avatars the Grateful Dead -- blended well with the surrounding visuals. The scene was comprised of a sea of people bathed in muted colors, writhing, twisting and flowing in response to the equally serpentine music. True to the spirit of Halloween, fans in costume made up the bulk of the audience. People were dressed as cards, cows, carrots and clowns. Elvis Presley and Hunter S. Thompson look-alikes -- reflecting the Las Vegas setting -- were spotted in the crowd. (Dressed-up Phish fans, whether costumed as sheet-wearing ghosts or appearing naturally with beards, dreadlocks and handmade patchwork clothes, were not found only inside the venue, however. The hotels, casinos and streets of Vegas were overflowing with motley Phishheads.) Anastasio got into the festivities late in the evening when he donned a monster mask. And those unfamiliar with the band might have thought that Fishman's pink-on-blue polka-dotted dress, a sharp contrast to the jeans and T-shirts worn by the rest of the band, also was something special for the evening. In fact, it is normal show attire for the drummer. Although much of the Las Vegas crowd knew little of Loaded except for "Sweet Jane" (which was first played by Phish in Maryland in August), the novelty and the distorted sonics of the set kept the applause coming. The crowd remained enthusiastic through the rest of the night. "They've really turned a corner musically," 23-year-old Jesse Ritvo said in the airport the next morning, waiting to catch a plane to San Francisco. "I feel a lot closer to the music." Even though Phish transformed themselves into the Velvet Underground mid-show, their Halloween vibe really came to the fore in their third set. Minutes after the monster-masked Anastasio broke into "Wolfman's Brother," from the 1994 album Hoist, the set meandered into an ambient jam that was even spookier than the crowd-member dressed as the blue-haired Marge Simpson. The 30-minute musical excursion included, as high points, Fishman playing a vacuum cleaner on a fog- filled stage and the crowd engaging in a flying glow-stick war. By the time the set ended in fitting fashion with "Ghost" (the title track from Phish's new album), the audience had been treated to more than a full load of idiosyncratic rock and distinctive audio-visual looniness. |
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