Though the bands' followings intersect, it's not because the music is the same. What Phish shares principally with the Dead is a marketing strategy that breaks down the barrier between artist and audience. ALl of thios builds a more intimately connected, and loyal, fan base. Today both the Dead and Phish generate their main income from touring rather than album sales, subverting the music industry wisdom that touring is something a band does to sell records. Matthews, a regional favorite based in Charlottesville, has caught on with Phish fans and last month sold out the 3400 seat Roseland Ballroom in New York.
Many Phish fans attend college.
But some, like Scott Nazzarine, are taking a break. He is 20, an architecture school dropout. He wrote his high school senior thesis on Jack Kerouac. But for a year or two in between, starting in Fall '95, he will follow Phish. It's part of his religion, he says, but not the consevative Catholicism he was raised in.