by Philip Walter

When I was twelve or thirteen, my dog died. I had owned him as long as I could have remembered, and as you might imagine I had grown quite close to him. I can remember my father consoling me by saying, "Son, in life, you just have to take the bad with the good," placing his hand on my shoulder. "The only other option is never to get another animal again, because we know one day we'll lose him too." He smiled largely like a teacher, probing my mind to see if I was catching on. "So which option would you rather choose?"

The bad with the good?! I thought. Where'd you go to Dad School?!

So out of the good spirit of rebellion, I managed to choose option "B" for about two weeks until we got another dog. I felt triumphant for my two-week stand against the tyranny of adults, and my father felt like he had taught me a lesson. Well, it wasn't until much later, that I discovered how right my father had actually been.

When I began looking deeper into eastern philosophy and more clearly understanding the world around me, I got it: the idea that "bad" is inherent in the concept of "good" and vise versa. I was questioning more, reading more, observing more, and listening more.

And the more I listened, the more I became attracted to the improv-inspired, journey-like music of the "jamband" sound. It offered a smorgasbord of creative and talented individuals who were all about pushing music to a new level every night. This passion eventually led me to several bands in particular, including the Grateful Dead, Phish, and the String Cheese Incident to name a few.

The last of these three is entering a strange state in their collective history. They are, like any popular attraction developing a following. This following, ever-growing, is forcing them to play larger and larger venues, and with each year they move toward the eventual stadium show. Whether or not that happens anytime soon is uncertain; however, the increasing crowds are bringing in a difficult thing for many people to deal with: other people.

This is evident on the String Cheese Incident's IncidentaList e-mail digest, of which I am a member. The negative comments about obnoxious drunks and out front druggies ruining the concert experience have been eating away at the list like vultures to a dying desert animal . . .

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating, but people are talking about it as though it's ruining the whole experience, even the image of the band itself. Honestly, the first thing that crossed my mind after reading the first several posts was, "How many shows can I possibly see this fall, while they're still playing for 2,000 people?"

Having come up with six, I was perfectly satisfied, but the IncidentaList remained full of dissenters, if you will, people who were (and still are I imagine) fed up with too many conflicting lifestyles at a given show. Well, I say to them, "With jambands, as in life, you must take the bad with the good." And to illustrate this I ask you to analyze with me a band's development based on three factors: the band itself, the fans who come to see the band, and the music the band plays.

First of all, there is no question that a band puts itself at the mercy of many factors when it begins to perform on the road for people. They must deal with the expenses of getting from city to city, not only transporting themselves but their equipment as well. They must begin producing new material to bring in new fans and to keep the old ones coming time after time, and they must support a sometimes-tremendous payroll to continue bringing a bigger and better show to each town on the tour.

While these can be enormous pressures, a band does ultimately control its own destiny and can continue in many ways to make even the largest touring vehicle accessible to all. One of the things that made the Grateful Dead so endearing, even in mammoth stadiums and large amphitheaters was how varied their shows could be. Jackson Blair said, "the fact that their shows were so different from one another was a part of their appeal." (218-19) This is an assertion I'm sure no fan would dispute.

Another way of making the arena juggernaut a more personal experience is to play smaller venues abroad. Phish benefited especially from such tactics. In 1997 they played several dates in small venues throughout Europe after they had already begun playing larger ones here in the U.S. To Richard Gehr, author of The Phish Book, "seeing Phish in a Rome theater or a Florence disco . . . was the perfect way to experience the band as they might have appeared a decade ago. Only better." (41) Page McConnell, Phish's keyboard player, told Richard Gehr that he enjoyed the tour so much because it opened up "new ways of jamming, new attitudes, and fresh perspectives" that the group could use in the states, "adding twenty-thousand people to the mix." (Gehr, 108)

Even the String Cheese Incident, young tikes that they are, have adopted the idea of going abroad to provide smaller venues for fans who can make the trip. They played in Costa Rica this past May and have actually created their own travel agency to make it easier for their fans.

All three of these groups, without question, have utilized many methods to keep it fresh for the fans and control the state of their own affairs, including fan clubs, newsletters, and multi-day festivals where the band becomes your own personal house band for a few days. And while it's a lot of work to be a "rock star," it doesn't have to be a negative thing. Trey Anastasio, the nimble-fingered guitarist, asserted in The Phish Book, that "Frank Zappa, for example, loved being Frank, and there's something simply inspiring about that." (Gehr, 118)

Eventually, though, it comes down to the fact all these guys are wild about making good music, and that resonates through their recordings and their performances. Michael Kang of the String Cheese Incident, told Mike Powers earlier this year that the band is always, after all, "striving to play well no matter where [they] perform." (Powers) And that's one sure way to keep the fans coming back.

The fans, of course, are the main revenue for such perennial touring bands. Like a farmer needs appetites, a band needs fans: to buy their music and see their shows, to cheer loudly and spread the word. Logically, the longer this happens . . . the longer a band plays, the more word-spreading occurs and the more new fans enter the scene. This can be difficult, even dangerous when a band's following becomes too large and diverse to predict.

But this hardly reflects on the band-members themselves. After all, the members of the Who weren't branded murderers in 1969 when their concert went awry. In the same way, the Grateful Dead could not have been held responsible for the numerous gate-crashings along the way, nor Phish for the display of public nudity at the Great Went.

Whether or not these things are right or wrong, or disrupt a positive concert experience depends entirely on whose talking. But one thing all the artists agree on is that perhaps these varying individuals who attend their shows are more like each other and the players on stage than one might think. Page McConnell offered that Phish tours "for a lot of the same reasons as the people who follow [them] around. We're out to have fun, not just to accumulate money." He went on to add that the concert experience was an "adventure, and in that sense we're all showing up at the same gig for the same reason." (Gehr, 108)

Jerry Garcia also noted that "people are coming" to their shows "basically for the same sort of experience." (Blair, 316) Ultimately, it is this "experience" that all the fans show up for: this creative, unpredictable, and sometimes chaotic journey that is realized through music. To Peter Toluzzi, a fan of the Grateful Dead, it was a "great rescued feeling that no matter how far out you were taken, you were always brought home and put back together pretty decently." (Blair, 318)

Michael Kang further stated that part of this experience "ultimately comes down to the responsibility of what everyone brings to the shows . . . the energy they carry into it." (Powers) And anyone who has ever had a wildly fucked-up individual jump onto his back during a playing of Run Like an Antelope knows this to be true. But even more so, the truth comes out when you turn around and see the smile on that guy's face, saying like the sun announces the day, that this is an experience worth having.

But "at the end of the night," Richard Gehr comments, "each fan has his or her own version of what Phish is." (112) And this is the case with all bands and their concert experiences; but the one thing that always remains supreme is the music.

Like a human's genetic makeup, it is the music that defines a band, clarifying or obscuring its identity; and it is the music that continues to inspire long after a band ceases to exist. So, too, the music is the primary force that motivates the experience of a concert, for the fans as well as the band. The eclectic and inventive music of the jambands we call our own is what, according to Mike Powers (writing about the String Cheese Incident), makes "you want to jump into their fiesta and immediately close the door behind you, but," he admits, "you can't help to keep it open and share the spirit with others." (Powers)

That's the sentiment Michael Kang expressed when he told Powers how important it was for the String Cheese Incident to "be able to put out what [their] general vibe and feel is so that people can be really respectful to each other and themselves." (Powers) The music is what allows them to put out that "vibe."

Greil Marcus said of the Dead in Rock and Roll Will Stand, that "when they get to you, it's incredible and hypnotic, as if the music was happening inside you." (70-71) Mike Gordon, Phish's bassist, described the feeling from a player's standpoint. In discussing an early gig, he said, "I started jumping up and down with the beat, not caring how I looked for perhaps the first time in my entire life." As the band jammed Mike "felt more spiritually in tune than ever before . . . at one with the buildings, wall outlets, chandeliers, and these people [he] loved." (Gehr, 143)

It's an experience of mystic proportions, truly. Not blatantly so, like voodoo or shamanism, which Jerry Garcia observed, Americans "are somehow trying to avoid." It is a subtler thing, a metaphor for transformation like "movies and television, all that stuff." Jerry further stated that "we want to see other worlds," and "music is one of the oldest versions of it." (Blair, 320)

For Trey Anastasio, as for many of his devoted fans, "music is the ultimate adventure. It's the ride of a lifetime." (Anastasio) It is the backbone of an experience that involves very serious interaction between fans as well as musicians. And this is the greater experience, far more powerful than simply the sum of its parts, that drives people to see these bands relentlessly. Unfortunately, however, it seems not everyone knows how to effectively enjoy and contribute to this experience without hindering that of others. But this is true of virtually every experience. And though most jamband fans are idealistic, "peace and love" types, they must also be realistic: these socially ignorant people exist everywhere from the highway and the grocery store to the workplace and even an incident or two.

So the next time you're at a show and someone invades your space or seems to be making too much noise, look at the smile on his or her face. Look at the smile and think not of how much you wish that person would leave, for he or she purchased a ticket just like you did, but rather consider the alternative: never to go to another show again because we know these people will be there . . . Okay, so it's not an option. My point exactly. And though it seems they can destroy a scene like "pests [destroying] the cornfield," according to Jon Fishman of Phish, these somewhat unwelcome folks are just there to have a good time. And if the music "provides something people don't get elsewhere," Fishman explains, "if it's hitting some kind of communal nerve that makes people want to live a life that parallels what we do musically, then great." (Gehr, 112) And those of us who are fed up will just have to take the bad with the good, or in this case, the socially ignorant with the musically brilliant.

Works Cited

The following artists and writers have my thanks for making their words available. Without those words, this little journey would have represented nothing more than my opinion.

Anastasio, Trey. "Option '79: Yan and Yang, Tension and Resolution." Pt. 2 Guitar World, Sept. 1999.

http://www.guitarworld.com/lessons/Artists/0999_anastasio.html

Gehr, Richard. The Phish Book. New York, New York: Villard Press, 1998.

Jackson, Blair. Garcia: An American Life. New York, New York: Viking Penguin, 1999.

Marcus, Greil, ed. Rock and Roll Will Stand. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1969.

Powers, Mike. "Sittin' on Top of the World: An Interview with SCI's Michael Kang."

Jambase.com. Aug. 2000. http://www.jambase.com/features/sci.asp