From: Rich Fromm 04-Jan-1993 2358 <fromm@rock.enet.dec.com>
Subject: not a bad nye review - only one Grateful Dead reference ;^)
Reply-To: fromm@rock.enet.dec.com
Organization: The Internet
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:31:50 GMT

Boston Globe
Saturday, January 2, 1993
p. 21, 24
Living/Arts Section
reprinted without permission

Music Review: Phish swims marathon maze of madness

by Paul Robicheau
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE

	On New Year's Eve, WBZ-TV sports anchor Bob Lobel was down in Tampa to
cover Boston College hall of Fame Bowl.  Back in Boston, his daughter Wynne
Lobel was at Northeastern's Matthews Arena with her college-age peers, immersed
in the Phish bowl. "

	I listen mostly to alternative [rock], but this is a fun thing to do on
New Year's Eve," said Lobel, in thrift-store "formal" dress with a tiara and
homemade, sequined headband to fit the "creative attire" requested by Phish at
one of the Vermont band's three previous local New Year's Eve shows. 

	How many times had she seen Phish?  "Not many," said Lobel.  "Maybe 10
times." 

	She wasn't the only devotee of sorts.  Hardy P. Wallace Jr. of Beverly
was 10 feet from the stage, grooving to the band's improvisatory rock while he
whirled a flashlight with a tiger's head on it.  He and several college friends
from North Carolina had already seen Phish this week in New Haven and
Springfield.

	How did the band's first New Year's Eve set compare?  "Harder and
faster,"  Wallace replied.  "Tapped into the source." 

	Tapped into the source next to Wallace was his friend Pete Leisenring
of Washington, D.C., sporting a striped, stovetop "Cat in the Hat" hat that he
said was "my Phish hat." 

	Exactly what sets Phish apart for him?  "The fact that they're so
strange,"  Leisenring said.  "They do stuff that no one has thought of doing
before."  For instance?  "I don't know anyone else who has a guy in a dress who
plays the vacuum."

	Indeed, on Thursday night, frock-attired drummer Jon Fishman took
center stage to cup a vacuum cleaner hose to his mouth for an escalating drone
that sounded like an aircraft taking off.  The fact that Fishman pulled out the
vacuum during the first of Phish's three sets (spanning 3 1/2 hours of music)
was an omen that the band had plenty of other strangeness to come. 

	In the second set, guitarist Trey Anastasio spun a trippy tale of a
spaceship coming to Boston for New Year's and sucking the occupants of Matthews
Arena into the air (he held up a sign to prompt "mass hysteria" screams from
the sold-out house of 6,000).  The people hung from the spaceship by a 
spinning pole, Anastasio said, creating the effect of a giant pinwheel, which
turned into a propeller when the ship descended into Boston Harbor, taking them
"deeper than anyone has ever been before." 

	The story was part of "Gamehendge," a song cycle about a guy stepping
into another dimension, composed by Anastasio as his college thesis. 
Thursday's "Gamehendge" flashback dipped into "Famous Mockingbird," during
which a character in an outfit akin to Big Bird's in "Sesame Street" was
hoisted over the stage by cables to flap around while the band jammed below.

	And in the third set, the rubber-masked "dude of life" pushed a
lawnmower on stage, pulled a rubber chicken from his lawn bag and joined the
band in singing a cover of "Diamond Girl" - yes, that '70s soft-rock tune by
Seals & Crofts.

	However, while the New Year's marathon gave Phish the chance to wander
into more weirdness than usual (it truly got out of hand in the third set with
Anastasio's Zappa-esque ramble about the dog Harpua and his feline victim), it
also afforded the group more room to jam, which they did ferociously. 

	Phish is on the cutting edge of another type of "alternative rock" for
the college crowd - a new hippie-culture crowd that relates to a jam-conscious
band, not only with a sense of humor, but hormonal energy that they can't find
in the elder Grateful Dead. 

	On the eve of its 10th year together, Phish had enough volts stored in
the bag to rip through the dynamic "Maze" (from the band's upcoming fourth
album) as only the night's second selection.  Anastasio lifted his foot as he
built the song to a peak with scorching guitar leads opposite Page McConnell's
Hammond organ wash, leading to the crazed refrain "We gotta get out of this
maze." 

	The first-set maze eventually emerged into "Run Like An Antelope,"
sending heads on the packed floor bopping out of control - an energy picked up
in the second set with "Bathtub Gin."  The "Gamehendge" escapade led to a
slippery "Stash" (laced with Fishman's woodblocks) and "Glide" before Phish
broke into Led Zeppelin nugget "Good Times, Bad Times" - a faithful cover,
which, like a show-capping shot of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire," suggested that Phish
can rock with the best. 

	Midnight found the band rocking though a foggy, strobe-lit countdown
only to emerge with a round of "Auld Lang Syne" while confetti cannons [sic]
blew streamers into the faithful flock. 

	How faithful?  Fans taped personal bootlegs even though the whole show
was broadcast on WBCN-FM yesterday.  When Anastasio held up a sign calling for
a "lip-flop," fans rubbed fingers to lips, babbling en masse.  And when the
band asked for silence to attempt an a cappella barbershop quartet tune without
a mike, fans hushed.  The idea didn't work as well as it did last year at the
Orpheum Theater, but Phish tried.  And overall, Thursday's sound was damn good
for a hockey rink (with extra speakers over the floor).  Phish had launched a
tradition that's catching on.

(picture on continuation page with the caption "Phish, a band full of jams,
trippy tales and one vacuum cleaner.")