It is closing time at the last of three sold-out, three-hour Phish concerts at the UIC Pavilion, and the trick bag is nearly empty. The drummer, parading in his dress, has skipped the notorious vacuum-cleaner solo on this swing through town. The guitarists have even done synchronized, midsolo bunny hops on trampolines.
The crowd, already spent from a night of bobbing and twirling to the merry grooves of these virtuoso pranksters, erupts in giddy anticipation. Could it be? A cappella? For their final encore, Anastasio, McConnell, Gordon and Fishman transform the Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar epic into a barbershop-quartet tune, right down to the interlocking guitar solos, which they mimic expertly in four-part harmony.
Welcome to the world of Phish--one of rock's unlikeliest success stories. It's a musical flea market and an inside joke, a celebration and a satirization of the arena-rock spectacle. It's a world with its own mythology and private language, tucked inside fantasy lyrics and Tolkien-like song suites. It's also a community of millions worldwide, whose bond is the music of four virtuosos who pool their eccentric knowledge of musical Americana into a songbook consisting of more than compositions, each of which mutates into some strange new shape every time it is performed on stage.
It is also a band that, by traditional record-industry standards, should be a flop. The one video the band made was a disaster. It has never had a Top 40 single and its music is a nonentity on most commercial rock stations. The band members couldn't be more isolated--they live in the woods of Vermont, physically and psychologically far removed from industry epicenters such as New York and Los Angeles.
Not coincidentally, the band isn't for everybody. And with good reason. Phish favors the type of long instrumental jamming that teeters between transcendence and self-indulgence, and the group's convoluted early songs and wacky stage demeanor caused some observers to write it off as a joke band. But Phish has become the most successful cult band of the decade, the '90s answer to the Grateful Dead.
But lately I've been getting a lot closer to how I would like to be—no self-consciousness. I definitely have parts of my closet where I say, "Okay this stack of pants and this stack of shirts is for stage.
It's not radically different, but to me, I know it's somewhat different. It's a little bit like putting on a costume or a uniform to get in the mood. And out it goes. So then there's room for more stuff.
Sometimes I'll have this thing going with a new haircut and scarf or whatever and then I'll go into one of these hipster coffee shops and see someone else and say, "Oh no!
We've made a carbon copy of that person, we can't do that. My single biggest anxiety dream that I have—and I've had it for decades—is I'm backstage trying to decide what to wear and the band's already on stage, adding salt to the wound, and no one is playing the bass. I look at my wardrobe and I have one pink sneaker and one orange one, and some other really horrible stuff, and that's all.
I have to make these decisions between horrible choices. I do it in real life to the point where I start to sweat and think I just have to figure this out earlier in the day… It could just be the choice between two simple T-shirts, but I freak out about it.
We got ourselves invited to a party at Prince's house. We heard it was creative formal, whatever that meant. So we went to this Italian suit shop, and within half an hour got four Italian suits, got pinned up and the whole deal. Then we got there and we learned what we thought was creative wasn't creative. It was made from vintage wicker, whatever the hell that means. But we all got 'em and went to the premiere of Old School.
I remember we had top hats once or maybe twice. We used to play at the World Trade Center in Boston, and we all had top hats and tuxedos. I remember Fishman had one that was just a G-string, a tuxedo G-string and then tails.
I think the thing that made us seem not very fashionable is we'd go on long tours, and somebody would find a T-shirt they liked and wear it every night, and that would be the end of that. All the extra fashion stuff would stay in the suitcase. But then I think as time went on a couple of us just became more conscious of it.
I really like seeing what Mick Jagger is wearing when he's not on stage. It's usually a suit, but it's a very unexpected color like bright yellow or something, as if it wasn't enough to be Mick Jagger. Does he pull that off because he's Mick Jagger, or is he Mick Jagger because he can pull that off? I see photo shoots that are incredible, but then I wonder if it's really the way that the people look, or whether the whole thing is a set up.
David Byrne is an example where wearing the big suit seems to go along with the strangeness that's already there. Or Beck, I don't really know how to describe what his style is, but I kind of like the whole package. You can tell that someone's just thinking about what would work, and the way the music sounds, and the lighting. I wore it for at least half the gigs of every tour from about — Various festivals and venues have also gotten in on the auction, with 4 GA weekend passes for Suwannee Hulaween , 2 VIP Passes to Hogs for the Cause , 5 pairs of tickets to a show at White Oak Music Hall , and other concert experiences up for auction.
Browse the various items up for auction and place your bids here or make a donation to support Iggy here. Hey all artists, athletes, management, and patrons. Chris Friday here. Iggy is my year-old son. Iggy contracted Acute Lymphoid Leukemia on Feb.
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