Ever heard of phenomenology? Me either; this one just fell in my lap. In the early chapters of Muriel Barbery’s relatively recent bestseller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog which just so happened to be in my lap on the train this weekend, she put forth this idea of phenomenology, “the science of what appears to our conscious.” As she so aptly puts, “For millennia now, by way of ‘I know thyself’ to ‘I think therefore I am,’ mankind has been rambling on about the ridiculous human prerogative that is our consciousness.”

[All Photos by Dave Vann]

Some sects of this aforementioned group known as “mankind” may focus their attention on their conscious perceptions of their favorite bagel or pizza joints, films or works of literature by the great masters, or perhaps means of transportation and the alternatives routes thereabout (Amtrak baby). We, on the other hand, choose to focus on our conscious perceptions on Phish shows and every last detail of every note, and then subsequently comparing all those details to all the other details we have previously compared, turning out these databases of critical information to compile such useful diatribes as the all-time ten best Harry Hoods ever played. Well, it may be as she says “ridiculous human prerogative,” but like the great Bobby Brown always says, it is ours.

Phish fans are divided into schisms like chocolate lovers. Some like it dark (70%), bitter and potent, with emphasis on the sinister Down With Diseases and smoggy funky Ghosts. Other palates prefer the sweeter, yet still complex milk chocolate (Swiss) like a Fluffhead opener, a placid Reba, a Hood, or a long-awaited If I Could. Lots of folks will simply eat it all. And then of course, there are those who like the Hershey’s crap, which we do not need to focus on. At least they like chocolate I guess.

Anyway, getting to the point, finally. Very rarely can you please them all, but Phish’s tour opening instant classic at the historic Fenway Park in Boston served up Homer’s Chocolate Town, complete with flavors for everyone and plenty of other gratuitous weird shit as well. With the anticipation nearly reaching Hampton levels, with heaps of fans out for their first show since the breakup, Phish summoned their collective Roy Hobbs, knocked the cover off the ball, and annihilated the spun-like-the-twine-on-the-inside-of-a-baseball crowd (lame baseball analogy #1). READ ON for more…

In terms of the scene in and around Fenway, the place was festive, not all that unlike a Red Sox game, with lots of the trademark impromptu cheers and a noticeable uptick of random high-fiving as folks roamed the strip of nearby bars and licensed concessions. The bar scene was mobbed and the streets were pretty much body to body as far as they eye could see. Thus, the pre-show festivities were definitely hectic. Vending by fans was all but nonexistent. Tickets were actually floating around with last minute sales going for well below face as low as $20.

Inside the venue was another story, an even better story. The rig looked cool and the backdrop of the green monster actually caused myself and a buddy to get the arm Braille when we walked in. It felt great walking into that stadium knowing we were all about to notch a lifelong memory, one we‘ll be telling our kids about someday. One widely held concern about the stadium was the seat space. Can you dance in such a narrow row? See, many ballparks really squeeze those seats together extremely tight (i.e., Citi Field), yet Fenway rows offer more than enough room to comfortably shake a tail feather and squeeze in an extra friend or two if need be.

As for the setup, the band and their gear were set up in centerfield, facing home plate with the closest seats being portable chairs laid in rows across the outfield with a tarp covering the grass. Nobody sat on the infield as they blocked this area off with a chain link fence. Also, nobody sat in the grandstand in the outfield or up on top of the monster as these seats really offered no view. All in all, it didn’t really seem like any of the seats were all that bad, although the view and sound from the upper deck may have been pretty poor. The only common complaint was that for folks in the stadium seats a little further from the stage, the sound was a little muted at times. Truthfully, it could have been louder. All in all, everybody knows Fenway is a great place to see a ballgame, but after this Sunday’s Phish show, we now know it is a serviceable music venue as well. I’d guess the total capacity crowd was in the neighborhood of maybe 25,000.

The first set kicked off the tour in a rather uncanny fashion. First, a blue sky abruptly morphed into a dark gray tarp of cloud cover and let out a pour around 6:30, exactly the time the band was set to begin (early show time due to Fenway’s curfew). In the midst of the chaos from the rain and shuffling bodies, Phish came out on the field and performed their a capella version of the Star Spangled Banner, which despite being pretty widely anticipated, kicked things off with everyone feeling the whimsy. The band took a more clever approach to the anthem as they sung with some unique colorful vocal chords (super witty pun intended), some of which worked, while some sounded off key at times.

From there, the set was a classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The set included a heavy helping of the hits, running through solid renditions of Sample in a Jar, Bouncing Around the Room, Wading in the Velvet Sea, which love them or hate them, do not do much for the excitement level in the venue. The new song Ocelot left faces staring blankly at one another, asking what song we were hearing. Ocelot plays very much like a Dead tune (think a slightly up-tempo Row Jimmy or Tennessee Jed) with slow meandering playing and familiar song structure.

Mixed in between some of the relative duds though, were some real gems and one huge bust out. A daytime Moma Dance gave the fans their first opportunity to really shake loose. A big part of why seeing Phish is so fun right now is simply hearing the songs you haven’t heard in such a long time and rocking out and singing along. Poor Heart served that very purpose and also reminded us why everyone couldn’t get enough Page at the Hampton shows, as he really got the crowd country-rockin’. Limb By Limb delivered its always solid pleasant jam and Trey really took this one to new heights, playing very tight in his improvisation lifting the collective energy of the band into a full fledged frenzy. Under any semblance of normal conditions, Down With Disease would have taken the title as the set’s best song, as the band went for the straight-forward raging rock approach, more characteristic of a ‘93 or ‘94 as opposed to the darker eerie DWDs from latter era Phish.

Finally, the one we have all been waiting for, presumably as a nod to Phish’s break up and subsequent return to its first tour, the band took heed from the song’s soothsaying assessment of the band’s future, “We gotta get on the road. Destiny unbound.” The band played one of the all-time legendary rare tunes, Destiny Unbound. Lots of fans thought this song might open the show at Hampton, but in reality it makes more sense in Boston, because the Boston show is the start of an actual tour. The “we gotta get on the road” line held special meaning on this night.

Over the course of their career Phish has put certain songs on the shelf for long periods of time. Most of the time they get there because they are simply not all that great. Still, we all buy into the band’s ingenious marketing as the demand to hear these songs exponentially skyrockets as the time since the tune was last played increases. Destiny Unbound is not one of these songs. It truly is a great song. The imagery of the story, Mike’s bass line and Trey’s staccato chording in the funk jam, the symbolism, the intro, Trey’s solo segment, and the whole saga behind the song make this bust out worth all of the hype and more.

After a first set played almost entirely in broad daylight, the sun finally went down for set two and everybody knew they would come out with guns blazing. Sure enough, the house lights went down and Phish pulled out another highly anticipated Fenway song, Tweezer. Given the video of the Red Sox house organist playing Tweezer Reprise to announce the show, this one had a lot of potential, including a possible Tweezerfest or perhaps some interplay with the House Organ. Phish opted to just slather on the funk and get the dance party started. From there, Phish introduced another new original called Light, a song Trey debuted at the Williamsburg Music Hall with Classic TAB. The bulk of the song structure leaves a bit to be desired. It’s not a bad song and includes some cool vocal harmonizing by all four band members, but the song is a little cheesy musically. Still, it a serviceable vehicle for Trey to get dirty on lead. We’ll tag this one with the “potential” label.

From there, we got three long opuses in the form of Bathtub Gin, David Bowie and Time Turns Elastic. The Bathtub Gin jam stayed pretty close to home, not straying too far from the original theme, but they did stretch it out and got creative with the improv. David Bowie cranked up the energy inside the ballpark as Trey delivered one melodic lick after another in quick succession. Again, they kept it pretty close the vest, meaning this one didn’t not stretch into outer space too far, but just maneuvered a very fluid, hard rocking Bowie with no funny business. Fans of melodic Bowies will love this one.

Time Turns Elastic, in its first time played with Phish, sounded pretty much the same as the studio single with the addition of a solid hard-charging dark jam in the final three minutes. I appreciate the complexity of the changes of this song and really enjoy the introduction, but it feels like something is missing. Hopefully, Phish will take this to new places as the tour progresses. At the close of the song, Trey quipped while giggling, “That’s our single!”

A solid Free led to maybe the biggest surprise of the night, the first Ballad of Curtis Loew in 621 shows and 16 years, a classic Lynyrd Skynyrd cover, since 1993. It’s funny as this song has really started coming up in conversation a lot lately, including Scotty B’s article a couple weeks ago which we obviously assume is the reason they played it. The other day, another friend of mine joked about how he has a letter written to Trey to ask him nicely to play Curtis Loew again. Maybe he mailed it or maybe they were reading, because apparently the Destiny Unbound bust out wasn’t going to cut it; Phish wanted this show to be a guaranteed epic. And playing Curtis Loew in the second set on Sunday carved that shit in stone: 5/31/09 EPIC

Like the Destiny Unbound bust out, the crowd reception for the Curtis Loew was amazingly poor. If I had to guess, I would say maybe 20% of the fans in attendance were even remotely aware of the significance of these two songs. In fact, these two songs probably got some of the worst cheers of the night. Meanwhile, you would’ve thought Character Zero was the band’s most popular song from the number of fists pumping throughout that tune.

Now, the bust outs at Fenway were special and made for a memorable show for sure, but if you want to hear the best Phish jam since the break up, listen to the You Enjoy Myself. This is Phish at their finest, period. Pre- or Post- anything, it doesn’t matter. This is one you can’t miss. Mike Gordon stole the show in the midst of just a monster (possibly green) funk jam when he brought our his Kodiak Bear Growl tone. When Mike switched to this deep roaring tone, everybody stopped and let Mike lay down a Yawkey Way rattling bass solo with the crowd clapping keeping the funky beat down. The crowds at Fenway always cheer a little harder for Boston-area natives and Mike Gordon received quite the reception when he was done with his solo.

With the curfew rapidly approaching, the encore felt a bit rushed, but Phish still managed to surprise us with a three song encore, including a trio of high energy rock songs to send the crowd off on a high note. Cavern rocked as per the norm, but Good Times, Bad Time provided the real highlight of the three finale tunes with Trey cutting up his Jimmy Page licks. Tweezer Reprise got a little sloppy and clocked in at only three and a half minutes before the stadium lights came on informing everyone that the show was over, but still provided a fitting cap on the soon-to-legendary Fenway show.

Relative to the Hampton shows, generally speaking, Fenway featured a bit more improvisation. The band still seems to be focusing on playing the songs first and the improvisation second, but they seem to have found their sea legs, so hopefully within the next week or so, they will be back to full scale experimention. Consistent with the Hampton shows, the segue remains AWOL with just one out of Tweezer into Light.

Four shows in from the breakup and it looks clear that our wayward monks are leading us into another Renaissance Era of Phish. Fenway provided the fourth consecutive incredible show with big time surprises, great song selections, and solid playing all around. Like the writer, Muriel Barbery, mentioned above how mankind has been rambling on about the ridiculous human prerogative that is our consciousness, as Phish gets bigger and inevitably continues to evolve, some people’s perception of Phish 3.0 will be all positive, while on the contrary, certain fans will surely ramble their distastes of the new material, get fed up of larger crowds, bigger venues, more expensive seats and so on. Still, the ridiculous human prerogative that the opinions of most everybody I know came away again feeling really good about Phish, this Fenway Show, and a whole summer packed full of great shows.

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