A RunawayJim Retrospective Part 6: The Triumphant Return, Phish 3.0

The following article is part 6 of a multi-part series on my life as a Phishhead. I would recommend starting at the beginning: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Early on in 2008, rumblings of a Phish reunion started to float around. As the year went on, the rumors started to fly about where and when it would be. Would it be Halloween in Vegas? What about New Year’s Eve at Madison Square Garden? No matter what the rumor said, it was beginning to feel like Phish would be back sooner rather than later. Trey had his famous “left nuts” interview, during which he said he would give his left nut to be back with Mike, Page, and Fish playing the same songs over and over. It was now just a matter of timing. Mike was off on his solo tour. Trey had started working with the classic TAB. Did they have time to bring Phish back?

Then came the announcement. It was a normal October day when a visit to Phish.com brought you to a video of a guy drawing the Hampton Coliseum with the dates of the March 2009 reunion. The beloved band from Vermont was back. The first words out of Susan’s mouth… “My life is over”. Rumors started to fly again (this is Phish after all, what would we do without rumors?). What would they play? Will they be as poorly rehearsed as their last reunion? What will their first song be? What kinds of guests will be there?

I suspected they would play something as “Phish” as they could and they would not invite any guests to the stage. I was correct. They opened the first of the three Hampton shows with the classic composition “Fluffhead” telling everyone that they were back. They were serious. And, most importantly, they were rehearsed. They blasted through two long sets that first night playing song after song with little jamming. Instead, they were proving to themselves that they could play together and play the songs properly. This wasn’t a return from hiatus. They were back and they were going to do it right. There was little jamming or improvisation during those three nights in Hampton. Each of the shows had two very long sets with a lot of songs packed in. They played them out a bit more as they moved towards the third night, but even that night had little jamming compared to years gone by.

Before the Hampton shows even started, rumors began to surface about a summer tour. Sure enough, they announced the tour in January by way of a new video on Phish.com. It was a short tour of shows mostly in the Northeast and east of the Mississippi River. The west coast fans were being left out. Then more rumors started to fly, including a possible tour opener at Fenway Park in Boston. A second leg of the tour was announced started with 4 nights at Red Rocks and 2 nights at the Gorge. It also included a night at Shoreline Amphitheater in California. The rest of the tour brought them back east. The video for this late summer tour featured a Google Earth image that zoomed in on a field in Texas. Rumors started to fly about an end of summer festival in Texas. While a Phish festival would have been fun, August in Texas is disgustingly hot. While I’m sure they don’t have anything against Texas, I doubt they would ever choose the state as a location for a summer festival. Soon thereafter a new video went up featuring Fenway Park. They were opening their summer tour in Boston. It made sense, after all. The Red Sox were away that day and the Dave Matthews Band was playing the previous two nights (Phish and DMB are both managed by Red Light Management). The logistics were easy as the stage and field seating would already be in place.

I managed to score tickets to the three New England shows – Fenway on May 31, Great Woods on June 6, and Hartford on August 14. Susan wasn’t overly pleased about the Great Woods show (the first of the three to be announced) as it was the day before our first wedding anniversary, but she understood and said she’d go with me (and as seen in my previous post, she enjoyed herself). She gave me a hard time about the other two as well, but I told her I could have asked to go to more. She’ll get something in return eventually, and, hey, she’s going to the Hartford show now, too.

The first several shows of the summer tour have come and gone. The band is leaving the northeast as I write this. The reunion shows (Hampton plus the initial six shows from the summer) have proven to be a build-up. The band has built upon each show culminating in Camden with a raging show from start to finish. Fenway proved to be a builder, building up from the start to the finish. It was really more the spectacle of the venue and event than anything else. The Jones Beach shows featured the band experimenting with some old songs (see “Harry Hood” from June 2) and introducing some more new ones. Great Woods proved to be a show where they got down the precision of each song, including the return of “Fluffhead” played to early 90′s standards and the first post-breakup “Julius” along with a fun “Contact” and “Golgi Apparatus”. Each song played with great precision. At Camden, they opened the floodgates and proved they were back.

Phish has returned in full force. The rest of the summer tour should be amazing to see. The boys are back in full glory. The scene seems to be back in pre-hiatus form… the people are here for the music rather than the scene. They have returned, and it has indeed been triumphant. August 14 cannot come soon enough for me.