Phish 11/22/97
Hampton VA

Making the long journey home to Colorado from Tupelo, Mississippi on the last Phix tour, in an up-all-night kind of mood, Dex and I decided to pop in the well-worn but tried-and-true recording of Phish's 11/22/97 show in Hampton, VA. When I look through the Pharmer's Almanac, it is acknowledged as a great show, although many fans seem to think there are others that top it. But for me, this one is a pinnacle for Phish. Maybe not necessarily the BEST show they ever played, which would be a pretty subjective statement anyway, but it's certainly an example of the heights that band could achieve when they were at the top of their form.

The fall of '97 is known as a definitive period for Phish, when Trey began to make a conscious effort to relax his aggressive guitar style, making room for the grooves to breathe and grow more organically. The jams found their way into some deeply funky territory, where the band would start by building a deep groove, layering sounds on top of one another in a sonic and rhythmic architecture that they could build to towering heights, only to destroy it completely in the end, tearing the whole structure down to the ground and making room for the next skyscraper of a jam.

Every band needs skyscrapers too.

I don't think a full play-by-play of the show is necessary (especially because I wasn't actually there), but I will say that you can hear the energy in the crowd--they are going NUTS, responding to the jams with roars of approval. Trey is at the top of his game, absolutely destroying every song he touches. A few high points: The "Mike's" jam starts off as a trance-funk groove and finally erupts into a dark shred-fest, and then instead of playing through all of the breaks that typically end the "Mike's" jam, the jam slowly disintegrates, only to delicately re-emerge into the slowest version of "I Am Hydrogen" that I've ever heard. The "Weekapaug" wanders off into funk land and ends with some of Trey's finest mixolydian shredding. And when the band follows up with a "Harry Hood" you can almost hear the disbelief in the crowd. Trey, of course, rips it to shreds. Those first tracks alone would have probably been enough to send me home satisified, but the show continues to be amazing from there. The second set opens with a "Halley's Comet," and while it's a song I've never cared much about, this version winds up with one of the craziest jams I think I've ever heard Phish play. I read somewhere that this particular jam was actually based on something of Frank Zappa's, and while I don't know what Zappa piece it is, it sure sounds Zappa-esque. Trey just tears it to pieces, with little explosions of notes much like Frank played, and the jam finally builds into a swell that makes you grit your teeth because it's so powerful. The second set ends with an "Antelope," and the band hits a peak in that jam that could rival any peak the band ever hit, EVER. I have seen a good few of the greatest Phish shows, and I have many more in my CD collection, but I'd be hard-pressed to find one that blows me away more than this one.

So I got to thinking, as I listened to that show for probably the 50th time, driving through the rainy Ozarks at daybreak, that Phix will never, ever play anything that approaches the level of 11/22/97, or any other of the hundreds of shows where Phish hit their stride. I hope there's nobody out there who thinks that I, and the rest of the guys in Phix, don't know that. And believe me, this was not the first time I've had that thought--it's only the latest. When I listen to a show like this one, it strikes me that it's actually kind of amazing that people will come listen to and enjoy a Phix show at all when it's so far from the real thing. But I guess it just goes to show you, once again, how much people love this music.

But I had another thought that was really striking, and I wanted to throw it out there because I think it's really thought-provoking for those of us who love Phish's music. I am not totally comfortable sharing it because it's not very P.C., and I know the Phish Police are out there anxious to tear apart everything we say. But I'm not very big on being P.C., so here it goes anyway, fuck the haters: If Phish stayed as good as they were on 11/22/97, Phix would be out of business in a heartbeat. In fact, Phix would probably never have gotten started in the first place--it wouldn't have occurred to us because there's no way we can play like that. Let's face it--while Phish may have played many, many great shows and great jams after this point, even after the hiatus, I think they rarely, if ever, hit the level that they hit on that November night in Virginia. You could say that they lowered the bar a little bit for us. I don't know what was going on in the later years--I'm not about to attempt any kind of judgement on that. But I think most phans would agree that post-hiatus Phish at best only gave us brief glimpses of the heights they could reach at their finest.

So somehow Phix has been able to squeeze in there and be competent enough to provide a good time for a barroom full of Phish fans, but we all know damned well that Phix isn't going to give you another 11/22/97. Anyone who walks into a Phix show thinking we'll even come close is deluded (and does anybody really think that?). But what we can do is give fellow Phish fans a live, in-the-moment reminder of how great Phish's music is. Not was, is. You can read more into it than that if you want to (as many people certainly do), but to me, that's what Phix was all about.

By the way, thanks to Sugarmegs.org, you can listen to Phish's 11/22/97 Hampton show here: http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/ph1997-11-22.asx

Check it out!

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