It should come as no surprise to my clients that I’m an avid Phish phan.  The water bottle I drink from during our sessions bears the logo of a show I went to at Fenway Park in 2019.  Keener eyes might see the photo on my desk of my daughter on my shoulders at that show. Super-phans might notice that the artwork in my waiting room is from the box set of 2004’s “Joy” album, with each piece representing a different track. 

When asked, I’ve shared anecdotes from going to shows but perhaps have never adequately explained my love for the band and the experience they create.

Let me say first that I’m not evangelical about them.  On a road trip to a festival show last summer I said to my friend “Phish isn’t for everyone.”  He replied wittily, “Phish isn’t for most people.”  He wasn’t wrong.  It seems like you’re either all in, you respect their musicality but are bored by “jam bands”, or you just don’t get it. I like sharing the experience but I don’t find it necessary to drag people to shows anymore.  If you just don’t get it, that’s cool.

Anyway, I’ve been seeing the band since 1996.  But I’ve been listening since 1994, my freshman year of high school.  They had recently released their third studio album, “Rift” and a friend knew I was into comedy and music and suggested I listen to a particular song on that album called “Weigh”. It contains such silliness as “I’d like to cut your head off so I could weigh it.  What do you say? Five pounds? Six pounds? Seven pounds?”  I grew up on Weird Al Yankovic and always enjoyed Frank Zappa, They Might Be Giants and other musicians who incorporate whimsey and absurdity into their work.  So this was right up my alley.

My first show was their debut festival in Plattsburgh, New York called “The Clifford Ball.” It was a gift I gave myself for my high school graduation. That was the first time I really got the community aspect of the band.  The “secret language” musical cues they play prompting hand claps and shouts from the audience at certain times in certain songs, the ubiquitous red circles on a blue background (from the dress drummer Jon Fishman wears on stage as a reminder not to take himself too seriously), or parking lot garlic grilled cheese and the other codes and totems of a unique microculture.

That was show #1.  Last weekend at Madison Square Garden was #54.  This is a small number in the Phish community.  There are people with three and four hundred shows under their belt.  But I’ve seen some high-quality shows, even if I lack quantity – two Halloweens with second set “musical costumes”, three New Year’s Eves including the 1999-2000 midnight-to-sunrise set on the Seminole reservation in Florida, five live shows on the sand of Atlantic City Beach, plus the Hollywood Bowl, Fenway Park and other legendary venues. And despite their reputation as a drug band I don’t feel the need to get high or even drink at a show.  Hell, even the lead singer Trey Anastasio is a recovering addict and funnels money from the band to a rehab center he founded in Vermont, The Divided Sky foundation.  I’m more than capable of just enjoying the musical experience.  In fact, it’s one of the few places that I truly let go.  We’ve all heard the cliché of “dance like no one is watching.”  Well, that’s what I do at Phish concerts. I’ve pulled muscles and sprained ankles.  Yes, plural, ankles. The music literally moves me. Alan Watts said the following…

"When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point... The destination of life is this eternal moment" and "Existence is basically a kind of dancing or music... We do not dance to reach a certain point on the floor, but simply to dance".

And that’s what the real philosophy of Phish is. Many of their lyrics may be nonsense.  The lyrics of “Fluff’s Travels” contain such lovely Lewis Carroll level nonsense as:

Tipsy fuddled boozy groggy elevated
Prime did edit her
Hellborn elfchild roadhog mountain fortune hunter
Man beheaded her
Fat bulk expanse mass lump block clod

But while singing that nonsense they are performing a philosophy. Each show has a unique setlist.  They once did 13 straight nights at Madison Square Garden (2017’s “The Baker’s Dozen”) without repeating a song and themed each set after a donut they gave to the crowd. Moreover, each individual jam is unique.  It exists only in that moment and will never exist again. Like our lives, they can be recorded and replayed.  But they cannot be lived or truly experienced again.  Their music and their shows embody the existential philosophy I weave into my work and my life.  Don't take it to seriously and enjoy it while you can.  Each jam is a moment.  Like Shakespeare’s famous line, “out brief candle”, it exists and then doesn’t.  Like us.