Stub Memories: Phish, 02/01/1991

auditorium in Alumnae Hall at brown university, originally uploaded by David Hilowitz.

For the record, I am not someone who judges bands or artists by what they used to be. This phenomenon, unfortunately, is especially evident in the realm of a certain musical quartet from Vermont. On Phish message boards, you see a lot of pining for the early and mid-nineties.

I disapprove of that sort of thing. Bands evolve, artists evolve, and nobody’s getting younger. There’s no harm in savoring the past now and then — I do it regularly on this blog — but I feel sorry for people stuck there.

Now, ahem, with that disclaimer out of the way, this post is going to seriously celebrate the Phish of 18 years ago.

On February 1st, 1991, Phish played at Brown University’s Alumnae Hall, pictured above. A freshman at the time, I wouldn’t have missed the show, having been seriously blown away by the band at an earlier event.

I have no stub for this one, but I promise you I was there. In fact, I should have two stubs for the show, because I bought two tickets, one of which I ended up selling, or maybe giving, to some joneser on the street who was looking for a “miracle.” He got one.

The only other memory I have of the show was that a friend of ours, Earl Bethel, worked for BSA, the student agency in charge of live music. Sophomore year, well after the gig, I remember Earl saying how he had helped set Phish up, and while doing so, he checked out Trey’s rig. I believe he mentioned that Trey was using a lot of compression at the time. This issue has flared up recently, as Rolling Stone reports here.

Anyway, that’s all I got from the FBdN cerebral databank, prior to a little help from humankind’s great cognitive digestive system, the Internet. The show has been archived here. I’ve been listening to it, and a couple of things bear observation.

First, Phish ran through some new material at the show, including two songs played for the first time live: “Guelah Papyrus” and “Chalk Dust Torture.” Now, for a big fan like myself, that is thrilling. It’s like finding out that you were in fact there at the unveiling of the Mona Lisa or something. Seriously.

Second, listening to this show, it’s pretty clear that this band is absolutely going full throttle. They are also apparently having a good time doing it. Trey adds a showman’s “Thank you!” after every number. His voice sounds like he’s bursting with good mood, almost like he’s about to break into laughter. At one point, he is indeed sort of cracking up while singing the words to “Guelah” – the new one.

The show gets broken up at 12am by Brown security. I had forgotten this until I listened to the bootleg. The band sounds like it doesn’t want to get off the stage, nor does the crowd sound too happy about it either. If that’s not what good live music is about, I don’t know what is.