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As if The Dead tour wasn't enough to get jam band fans out on the road this summer, Phish has announced they are traveling on a reunion tour as well.
Phish, known for their amazing live performances, had been performing together for 20 years prior to their hiatus in 2000-2002 and again in 2004. When they reunited for a performance in September of 2008 at their former tour manager's wedding they felt something brewing, and they have announced three reunion shows in Virginia, ten dates in June, and a headlining spot at Bonnaroo 2009.
This reunion has a long time performing - and a lot of great performances - behind it. Jeff Holdsworth, Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman came together at the University of Vermont. The group spent time performing at small venues in their area and eventually amassed legions of fans with their original take on live shows.
Frontman Anastasio developed a number of techniques over these years to involve the audience, including "Big Ball Jam," when a ball would be thrown into the audience and the band would play a note each time the ball was hit. In "The Rotation Jam," each member would switch instruments with the musician on his left. And so a movement of pioneering performances was brought into the 1990's.
The H.O.R.D.E Festival in 1992 was the group's first national tour with Blues Traveler, The Spin Doctors and Widespread Panic. In 1993, Phish started touring major amphitheaters, and they released the concept album "Hoist." In 1996 they held their first two-day festival, The Clifford Ball, where they played six sets in two days and rode around the campground on a flatbed truck serenading the audience at 3 a.m.
Over the following years, the group continued to offer innovative performances to growing masses of fans. They became the heroes of the summer festival scene and all that it stands for. They became slightly more commercial by the late 1990's, when ice cream company Ben & Jerry's launched the "Phish Food" flavor.
By 2000, the group was becoming more commercially successful - they were collaborating with acts like super rapper Jay-Z and they performed a seven-song set on top of the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater during The Late Show with David Letterman. Their last performance in 2004 was at the Phish summer festival Coventry where they plaid to more than 65,000 people and the performance was simulcast to movie theaters all across the country.
As Rolling Stone Magazine put it, "Given their sense of community, their ambition and their challenging, generous performances, Phish has become the most important band of the Nineties." The group, which will certainly return to the touring circuit with the same fervor with which they left (with Page McConnell replacing Jeff Holdsworth), will continue to recreate the traditional live performance this summer, and there will be no shortage of fans ready to tour with them to watch.
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