Show Review

I had mixed emotions when I heard Phish was going to play the Miami Arena instead of Madison Square Garden for their traditional new years run. There’s nothing like New Years Eve in New York City, and based on the amount of tickets available, many people seemed to agree with me. Miami, I thought, is for the old and retired. Though I was foolish for thinking those thoughts. As it turns out, Miami is a kind of paradise, filled with all sorts of contradictions that make it an extremely alive and interesting city. Also, it’s impossibly warm in December.

Miami is a strange place of constant, odd juxtaposition, like a Dali painting come to life. While walking the streets, young, trendy people dressed in the latest fashions are lined up next to octogenarians wearing the latest fashions from the 1940s. A major U.S. city, yet most people in Miami don’t normally speak English; many don’t know how to speak it at all, and couldn’t care less that you can’t communicate with them, they don’t want to speak to you anyway. It drives the elderly nuts, which is actually pretty fun to watch. Oh yeah, did I mention near perfect weather in the month of December?

So it turns out Miami is the ideal city for a Phish musical odyssey. Flavors and colors, it somehow succeeds in embracing them all, if not quite in harmony, at least in mutual coexistence, much like the flavors and colors of Phish’s music. Like the city itself, a strange split personality, fast and then slow, crowded then not, ugly and then delicate and beautiful, and of course, spicy and then bland. It’s all there for you, all the colors of the rainbow.

The shows began with an eruption of spirit. The energy of the people and the place itself exploding at Phish who reflected it right back in their faces with electric intensity. It was stunning, all that energy, freed from generating warmth for the winter, set loose in great curdling screams, shaking the rafters of this beautiful modern venue.

I should take a moment to describe what a perfect venue the American Airlines Arena is, because it’s the best I’ve been to in a long while. It has plenty of clean bathrooms that are constantly restocked with soap and towels. It was refreshingly free of lines. I stood in a total of one short one over four nights in this palace. The food, from real national vendors as well as local ethnic restaurants was all delicious and varied. They have beer vendors walking through the crowd, and mixed drinks right outside. Of course most of the dumps Phish plays in can barely pull off a bathroom, (Worcester Centrum I’m looking at you) but wait, there’s more…

The AAA has outdoor smoking sections were you can stand on a balcony overlooking the dazzling city skyline and breathe some fresh air (the people that were out there when I happened by sure looked like they needed some). Maybe best of all: the various sections are color coded and the lights outside them are the same color, making them both psychedelic and informative. My only complaint would be high prices and narrow seats not forgiving the large spreading New England winter ass. And I suppose that’s not much of a complaint.

The first night was dominated by hard rocking and dissonant ambient improvisation, which was both dark and deep, perhaps as the band shrugged off the cold winter chill. It was as if the music was defrosting from the effort. Songs like “Theme from the Bottom” stretched out in discordant rolling energy, each instrument pushing ahead slightly in turn which gave the music an amazing feeling of freefall, like the moment before a roller coaster takes off from its first hill.

Of course many of these songs were originally designed to have a slightly mechanical quality, like “Tweezer” for instance or “Gotta Jibboo,” but this set took them a little further, like a machine running out of control, throwing off bolts of smoke. When the energy finally burst, in the last part of the second set, during a scorching “Harry Hood,” the outpouring of energy was so great I would have sworn it could be seen. I touched my metal chair and got a strong shock.

I had that same feeling of freefall through the first two shows, as if the energy of the room tore the music out of the band to form a gyrating tornado, leaving the audience in the air plummeting to the earth, just slightly ahead of the building. The second night fell even deeper into that kind of improvisational space, opening with a rhythmic “Piper” and continuing in songs like “Limb by Limb” and “Wolfman’s Brother.”

The centerpiece of the 29th was the second set jam which started with The Velvet Underground’s “Rock and Roll,” and wound through “Twist,” “Boogie on Reggae Woman,” “Ghost,” and landed in a powerhouse “Free,” all of it seamless and perfect. A fine exploration that would normally make this show one of the most recommended of the year, had it not been positioned side by side with the greatest two. Possibly now it will be almost forgotten

If the first two nights had the power of a tornado, then the next two were hurricanes, heavy weather revved up, but heavy funk. The vibe was apparent even before the Parliament Funkadelic arrived onstage. Deep waves of funk pounded through an oddly long first set, which closed with “Also Sprach Zarathusta” (2001), rather than the far more likely “Bathtub Gin” that came before.

The audience knew every song and chant Parliament played, though I can’t say the music was worth recommending, even if it is catchy. Still, there’s no denying, the P-funk’s got the funk and I likes to get funked up as much as the next guy, and Phish definitely became energized in their presence as well. But if you want to sample that energy, the scorching “Down with Disease” that followed will deliver it more than the song selections with George Clinton.

The anxiety of New Years Eve is always high, especially in anticipation of the traditional prank. For me though it was the music that was more the highlight, and the prank an afterthought. Riding the waves of pure pleasure produced by Parliament, Phish took off into the musical outer limits never to look back. The first set was built around the rocket propulsion of a “Mike’s Groove,” complete with “I am Hydrogen” energy and a scorching “Weekapaug,” that featured “Auld Lang Syne” teases. Throughout each night, the mix of old and new song was just perfect. There are so many Phish songs now it makes it hard to remember when they played some of these old songs regularly, making them more special when they pop up unexpectedly.

In some ways the second set is even more potent than the third, having rarer songs, like “Slave to the Traffic Light” and “Lawn Boy,” as well as plenty of long, well explored improvisation. All of the music blends together so nicely, this set might have been a good album. It’s pretty and dark all at once, containing many different moods and colors. Single songs reached out, stretching into other places, unfamiliar and unheard before, and the transitions were challenging and well executed.

Finally, in the third set, it was time for the payoff. The music started and soon the band was grooving hard to “Jungle Boogie.” Of course, when such an obscure song begins it’s the cue for a prank. And sure enough, a model Mini Cooper was lowered down from the ceiling, headlights blazing, and landed on the stage. From the open door several majorettes and cheerleaders emerged followed by a marching band, all playing along to the opening throwback song.

The joke was pulled off at the stroke of midnight and the band launched into Auld Lang Syne, and then “Iron Man” (some kind of Ozzy Osbourne joke?-who knows) which lasted less than four minutes as the balloons came down. The mammoth “Runaway Jim” that followed thumped its way so far out it developed into several distinct patterns before returning in full glory to it’s chorus. Even the ushers were smiling.

This is yet another musical achievement for Phish. Hours and hours of composed and improvised music, all pushing out in new directions, with even the oldest of old school tunes breathing new life. The prank was original, cool and musical, but was standard fare as pranks go as were the balloons, which were big and colorful. We’ve seen all that before but it continues to excite, on the spot, heady with hope for the New Year.

Phish is on the musical rise. If they were in a rut before the hiatus they have certainly broken through now. Even the lighting, always so perfect and well done is coming into new levels of excitement, stretching out into uncharted territory. I’m not sure how this run will look five or ten years from now, but presently it is the summit, the highest level reached so far. I always say I’m stunned when Phish exceeds expectation, but I have grown so used to it I sort of expect it. All of the majesty of New Years runs past, the incredible feast of music, the amazing comic prank and the balloons, this time in beautiful seventy degree weather in December. Miami is paradise indeed

photos by Chad Anderson and Marnie Morris