This year I wanted to so something memorable for New Year's Eve, because I never really have. I also wanted to see my first Phish concert. The two intertwined beautifully, and I even got a trip to lovely South Florida out of it.
In case you don't know much about Phish, here's a brief description. They are the top modern "jam band", successors to the Grateful Dead but not as similar as you might assume. Whereas the Dead had strong country and bluegrass influences, Phish is much more straight rock. They play fast and loud, though never angry. Most of their songs have a well-defined beginning and end, with the middle being left to on-stage improvisation that can go on for a couple of minutes to half an hour, depending on the song and the band's mood that night. Other than a killer lead guitarist, the band's hallmark is their wacky sense of humor. The lyrics for their songs tend to be funny and/or unflinchingly awful. The drummer occasionally goes to the front of the stage to play a solo on his canister vacuum cleaner. During one song, the guitarist and bassist jam out while bouncing, in perfect synch, on miniature trampolines. Surprise guests, dancing elves, and bizarre covers are part of the live Phish experience. They are the second-most successful touring band in history (behind Dave Matthews Band) but have never had a single hit song or album.
So I got interested in this band over the past year or so, listening to live recordings, bootlegs, a few studio tracks. I knew I wanted to see them live, but they don't play very often, especially in the Southeast. But this year, they were going to play in Miami for four successive nights, leading up to New Year's Eve. Phish's NYE runs are legendary, and I have an uncle in Miami I could stay with...so this was my chance.
The question everyone asks: why would you want to see the same band four nights in a row? Well, I agree it would be stupid for most bands. But with Phish, I knew it wouldn't be a problem. They don't repeat a single song during a run of shows, and every night something crazy and unique is bound to happen. Plus, they are quite diverse and play a very wide range of music styles, so they can definitely carry the audience for long periods of time. (Once, they played a single set from midnight to sunrise in an outdoor venue. And that was the second of two sets that night.)
I ordered the tickets back in October, only getting the first three nights and accidentally ordering an extra for the second night, all thanks to the horrible Ticketmaster website. Never again, folks. That NYE ticket, the most prized one, cost me a pretty penny later on, though it turns out I could have gotten a better deal if I had waited later and played it smarter. Oh well. The uncle said it would be no problem for me to stay with him, and I said he could come with me on the night that I had an extra ticket. After being frightened off by airfares, and briefly considering selling off the tickets and just not going, I finally resolved to drive down to Miami and really do it. Now, going from Alabama to Florida may not seem like a big deal, but I'm talking about Jasper (northwest Alabama) to Miami (extreme southeast Florida). Going by interstate the whole way, it takes fifteen hours. I've never driven more than three or four hours straight, just from home to college and back. So this was a daunting voyage, especially since I would be going alone. (I knew a few people who would be at the concerts, but our travel plans didn't mesh.)
Stopping over in southern Georgia, I made the trip down in two days, not wanting to push myself and get into an accident. I'm not much of a speeder either. Once in Miami, I got to hang out with my uncle's friends and began to enjoy the warm and breezy subtropical weather. Great stuff. Ate some fantastic food and drank plenty of Guinness and Harp at the local British pub.
The first concert was Sunday, Dec. 28th. My seat was positioned opposite the band, in the lower section. It's the kind of seat that looks good on the venue seating chart but is actually not that great, because you're so far away that it's hard to see the stage. Makes that unobstructed view kind of useless. Once I stumbled my way into downtown Miami (the uncle lives half an hour away), I parked for the modest price of $20 and walked into the arena, very much early. Ended up on the phone with my college roommate, who was also in town to see the show and was making his way towards the arena as well. Because "seat assignments are merely suggestions at a Phish show", I had no trouble smuggling him into my section, which was far better than where he was supposed to be sitting. That first night's concert was top-notch, with a few rarely played favorites and one of their best songs, which everyone expected to be played late in the run. The craziest moment was an apparently impromptu flubbed cover of a Syd Barrett song. (Syd was co-founder of Pink Floyd but was thrown out after going completely nuts.) Phish's drummer stepped out onstage to sing it, but he apparently didn't know ANY of the words and instead just sang scat for a few lines. Then he sang, "I can't remember the words/but it doesn't matter/because I can't sing either/so I guess it's time for the vacuum cleaner" and belted out a dazzling solo on the vacuum. It's just what you would think: he puts the nozzle over his mouth and moves it around to create different notes. Absolutely hilarious, and he's disturbingly good at it. The first encore song was "Sleeping Monkey", some nonsense about a monkey on a train that sounds like a fusion between "Home, Home on the Range" and "Let It Be" by the Beatles.
On the second night, my uncle would be going with me. We also picked up my roommate so he could meet the uncle and we would all eat an early dinner before the show. My uncle is not a Phish fan but is familiar with the band, so I was really hoping for a good show that he could enjoy. Out of our little group, I had the best seat on my ticket, so I borrowed a ticket stub from someone in my section and snuck in everyone else so we could sit together. We were directly to the side of the band but fairly close, so the view was much better than the night before. The first set was rather disappointing; I didn't know most of the songs, and none of them were spectacular. But the second set made up for it big time. There were covers of The Velvet Underground, Stevie Wonder, and Led Zeppelin, plus a fantastic performance of my personal favorite Phish song, "The Divided Sky". This song has many memorable parts, but one of the best is the audience solo, a.k.a. the pause. About halfway through the song, the band suddenly stops playing and stands frozen in place. The crowd cheers with gradually increasing intensity for two or three minutes, sometimes more, while the band defiantly stares into space, immobile. After a couple minutes of this, the audience has worked itself into a frenzy and is deafening. Finally a note rings and the band sparks back into life to complete the song. The end of this show was very special, with the band coming out for a second encore (the first time in years), and then everyone except the pianist leaving after the final song, while the pianist continued playing a beautiful improv solo piece. It was serene, and everyone in the crowd loved it.
On the third night, I went to the show with my roommate and his sister. On this night, they had floor seats, so they would be sneaking me down after I had helped them out for the previous shows. It worked perfectly, and I was on the fourth row, along with a ton of other people who also weren't supposed to be there. It was extremely crowded, which left little room for dancing, but the show was intimate and obviously more exciting because of the great positioning. The first set was great, with highlights including a guitar-piano duet jam during one song, and another of my personal favorites, "2001", which is loosely based on the movie's famous theme song. The guitarist also worked in a teasing few lyrics from a Parliament Funkadelic (hereafter P-Funk) song, because they were heavily rumored to be special guests on this night. During the second set, we were told that one band member wanted to do "Touch Me" by The Doors, but the rest of the band didn't know it, so instead they would just bring out P-Funk. Thus, we got our special surprise-but-not-really guests, and they ran through a medley of P-Funk songs, with loads of crowd participation and George Clinton looking very confused. It was fun and different, but P-Funk is not my thing and I was glad when they finished up and Phish started playing their own stuff again. My uncle missed out, because he is a pretty big fan of P-Funk and just happened to go on the wrong night. Overall, this was a fun night but might have been a minor let-down if I had not been on the floor and close to the stage. That made up for there not being many songs I knew.
The last night...New Year's Eve! The band was scheduled to start at 8 PM (which really means 8:30) and play three sets instead of the usual two, with the third going right through midnight. The arena had several large nets full of balloons attached at the ceiling. The other preparations were not so obvious, but we would see them later. Neither my friend nor I had very good seats for this night, but we decided to go with mine, which was opposite the stage and up in the nosebleeds. We figured at least we could see the floor section and all the balloons and other crazy stuff that would be happening at midnight. Having successfully snuck ourselves around into other seating sections four nights in a row, we could now call ourselves "Tour Jedi", an honor bestowed upon Phish fans who break all the rules and get away with it. ;-) There actually wasn't even much security in the nosebleeds, so he just walked right in with me and we sat down, in the wrong seats. (No one ever showed up to claim them, even though the arena was sold out and packed. Other parts of the arena were overflowing, so there were bound to be extra seats up top.)
In the first set, the band played three or four of their biggest remaining songs, leaving me to wonder what they would have to play for the rest of the night. "You Enjoy Myself" is popular for its extended vocal scat jam at the end, during which all the lights went down and the band chanted nonsense revolving around the syllables in the phrase "gotta get some booty" or something like that. The only consistent verse in the song is a single recitation of "Man, Boy, God, Sh*t", one word at a time and very loudly shouted into the microphone. These guys are insane. The second set was short, both to account for the extra-long first set and to get the timing right for the third set to start just before midnight. The third set began at 11:50 with "Jungle Boogie", during which a giant toy car was lowered onto the stage and a local marching band, complete with mascots, cheerleaders, and the drum section, came climbing out of circus-style in a neverending stream. By the time the countdown to midnight started, there were over thirty people on the stage playing the song. Then the clock struck, the band(s) switched to a brief play of "Auld Lang Syne", and then rolled into Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" because why not. All those balloons fell from the ceiling, then collected over the floor section due to the arena's sloping design, eventually to be bounced onto the stage by fans acting in unison. There were so many balloons on and in front of the stage that I never even saw the marching band leave. It took a good ten minutes for the guitarist to pop enough balloons that he could stay consistently visible. The band played through a few more of their songs, including a couple of crowd favorites, an a capella barbershop quartet ditty, and yet another vacuum solo to the tune of a Dirk Diggler song from the Boogie Nights soundtrack. The final encore of the run was "Frankenstein", a furious cover and a pretty energetic way to end a wild run of concerts and a very memorable New Year's Eve.
Topic: Four Nights of Phish in Miami (Read 4276 times)
