Viva Tour!

Econolodge
Southeast Nashville, Tennessee

Vicious shade-protectin' security guards... rolling hills fenced in by a beer ads... a swinging country band at Legends Corner... listening to music as if it were printed on transparency paper... the savages eat it all up and chuck glowsticks at a JamBands.com correspondent, who discovers - to his occasional chagrin - that he actually enjoys it... the entire population of the Nashville music community takes the stage with Phish...

"Imagine a map of the United States, or the world, where every [...]head is a red blinking dot, converging on this little city for the first night of tour." - Toura Williams (Shenk 291).

And so the glitterati assembled, millions of flashing spots and moving parts, dressed in esoteric costumes with gadgets appropriated for their own peculiar purposes: walkie-talkies, water bottles, microphones, clocks, camping stoves, and cottage cheese. These signifiers, these tools, are cloaking devices, letting hundreds slip under some sort of radar and into their own mobile autonomous zone with its own value systems. What may be a meaningless occurrence in a parking lot on one night may be loaded with significance the next.

We arrived at the venue shortly after the gates opened. One of our companions, Drew, had to swing copies of Surrender To The Flow -- a handy publication and a fine thing to have in your car on tour. We ambled about the lot, squawking aimlessly into the walkie-talkies, seeking shade and cool drinks. Organ drifted from somewhere near the amphitheater. On the logic that an object as big as an arena would likely provide some amount of shade, we followed the sound -- which turned out to be the first pieces of soundcheck.

Below the tent at the VIP entrance, we found a comfy spot to lie down and chill. When a friendly security guard was supplanted by his boss, an extremely unfriendly one, we were forced from our idyllic space. We balanced dangerously on the edge of the shade, occasionally being asked to move by the head security guard, whose job seemed to consist solely of making sure we didn't sit in the shade. The highlight of the five song soundcheck was a stretched out Back On The Train, which broke loose from its moorings and clattered into a dissonantly beautiful zone.

The venue was a typical summer shed, though something about it made it seem smaller than its 17,000 person capacity. The lawn seemed to be built into a natural hillside, as opposed to the perfectly sculpted slopes that are requisite at most outdoor venues. It curved unevenly, with jagged twists in the incline in places that gave the place a more rambling feel than most of its northern counterparts. Our sets were row ZZ in the pavilion, which we figured would either be way up close, or all the way back. It was all the way back, in - literally - the last row. The roof didn't even extend over our seats.

The band came on somewhere around eight, with little fanfare and much celebration. First Tube was an obvious (and correct) call for the opener. All of the work put into getting to Tennessee prepared us for a joyous release when the band came on, but was thwarted by misfortune. Throughout the song, Mike's bass farted and popped and tweeted which made careful listening tough. It was also a quick buzzkill. I hoped it wasn't an omen for the tour -- big energy destroyed by bad luck. By the end of the song, the kinks seemed to be worked out.

With that, Wolfman's Brother might be considered the real opener. The two big jams - Wolfman's and Chalkdust Torture bookended the 70 minute set, the latter being much more successful than the former. The Wolfman's trotted along comfortably and mellowly and stayed that way through the end, with the exception of a quick turn just before the band dropped into an Inna Gadda Da Vida jam to end it. Chalkdust - by contrast - dropped quickly into a separate darkness and stayed there. Mike led through the band through choppy Melt-like waters. When Trey emerged to peak the jam, he did so with a sustained bent note before dropping back into the darkness one final time and lifting up over the edge for good.

The evening before, we'd stopped in at Legends Corner, on Broadway in downtown Nashville. We parked the car, turned the corner, and saw a bar with a band playing in it. So, we walked in. (Later, when we left, we discovered that the entire block was filled with storefront bars with country bands playing in the windows.) Regardless, we walked into Legends to discover a genuine country band - drums, bass, Telecaster, and pedal steel, and cowboy hats - set up on a stage in the corner window. A drunk at the bar sang along with every song.

In between songs, the band announced that they were playing only for tips. Judging by the amount of people in the bar and the amount people were dropping in the cup, each band member couldn't've gone home with more than $20 at the absolute most. They breathed the music. They played it so unconsciously that they came damn close to swinging through the tunes. It was effortless. Watching Phish played Poor Heart and Beauty Of My Dreams outside of Nashville made this contrast clear.

There are certain "genre" songs in Phish's repertoire where they don't breathe, not in the same way that the band at Legends did. Only very rarely do they manage to make bluegrass or jazz tunes swing, if that. They pump life in with artificial machines -- which isn't to say it's bad. Then, though, there are songs that are distinctly Phish; songs that they can move through so easily because they're playing in their own voice: Roggae, Chalkdust Torture, Bug, Limb By Limb. Just because a song is an original doesn't mean the band can breathe it -- early versions of Gotta Jibboo, for example.

The new versions, though, have been infinitely better. The Jibboo that opened the second set this evening was nuts. No sooner did the jam begin than a glowstick war erupted. Though Jibboo jams are obviously rooted in the basic groove of the song, they owe much to the ambient jams the band began playing in the summer of 1998 (culminating with the stunningly beautiful fourth set at the Lemonwheel on 8/15/98). The basic idea of ambient music is that it accompanies something else. Tension is provided by something in the outside environment and the release is provided by an essentially tensionless music.

Phish's music works like this in several different ways. During the glowstick war, we turned around and - suddenly - we were in the front row, watching hundreds of neon sticks cascading in the air above the venue's lawn. The grooves of Jibboo were one half of the experience. It was the first time that I ever really understood the full coolness of a glowstick war beyond the fact that it simply looks cool: it can draw the listener's attention away from the music in a positive way. The only problem is that one has to be ready and willing to surrender that attention -- which isn't always desirable. Our spot in the back row made it absolutely perfect.

In general, Phish's music acts as a kind of ambient soundtrack for the entire experience of traveling around the country. It's a constant background. And, to a degree - after a certain point - being inside the show is only one aspect of the entire thing. That doesn't lesson the impact of the show at all -- rather, it changes its value. More on that thought as it develops. I'm at the beginning of my first real tour with Phish. I sense that, by the end, my relationship with Phish's music will probably change. I think this realization is probably the first step.

My values at a show, where I direct my attention, are also beginning to morph. During the deep Also Sprach intro jam, I suddenly realized the giant monitors had been switched off and all I could see was colors above the stage and remnants of the light show. The music didn't have the same impact when I closed my eyes. And, even though every part of my view was obstructed, visuals were still an important part of it. Again, the music was just a part of it.

Sand is been the second of the 1999 funk tunes that has begun to significantly evolve (Jibboo being the first). Midway through the jam, Fish changed up the drumbeat and the band seemed to find itself inside the same soaring jam that permeated the You Enjoy Myself from the December tour opener in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It's a theme they've played in other places too, though I'll be damned if I can remember any of them (or even this one, which took my friend Jaimee to remember).

Following the powerful Sand, Fish kicked into the intro to Harry Hood. Just before the band was to drop into the first vocals, Trey signaled to everybody... and began singing Dog Faced Boy. The band gave the musically straight-forward country song a short and tender reading before doubling back into the Harry intro and charging full-on into the song. As the jam began, a cheer erupted, and three musicians wandered out onstage, clumped in a corner over by Trey.

On the monitors, it was fairly easy to pick out the red-haired Sam Bush, forsaking his usual mandolin for a fiddle. With him were Ronnie McCoury on mandolin and an unidentified banjo player. At first, Sam's fiddle seemed to be experiencing the same difficulties as Mike's bass was at the beginning of the show, while McCoury and the banjo player were completely inaudible. Gradually, Sam's fiddle came into the mix and he provided several soaring leads to the Harry jam, though it didn't seem to add much besides novelty. Ditto, when the banjo and mandolin were finally turned up, they only seemed to provide for a refreshing change of sound rather than an entirely new outlook on the tune.

After Harry ended, a handful of other musicians - including the legendary Del McCoury (on guitar) and Ricky Skaggs (on mandolin) - stepped out from the wings. By the time the band launched into Bill Monroe's Blue and Lonesome, there were six bluegrass musicians huddled in the corner of the stage. It looked like a playful fight: Nashville versus Phish. The three bluegrass tunes were fun, though not too substantial. Some nice solos were picked, and the music cooked, but it seemed to be too many hands stirring the broth.

Nobody could quite believe it when Trey announced that Wynona Judd was going to come out and sing a song. "My divorce papers were finalized today," she announced. "So I dedicate this song to... me!" And so the band began Freebird, rendered (with the help of Ronnie McCoury and Sam Bush) with a more country tint. Wynona's voice and presence were simultaneously powerful and playful, as she joked with the band ("And if I stay here with you, Fish, things just wouldn't be the same...") and the audience, inviting a member of the crowd on stage to dance.

As the band swept into the ending it was with considerably less bombast than the original with infinitely more satisfaction. Tonight was the first time I can ever remember appreciating Freebird as a song. The song always bothered me because it took itself so seriously. It always seemed to be no more than a celebration of itself. The famed intro ("what song is that you wanna hear?") feeds right into this. Tonight, its pomposity was forsaken by the sheer joy of playing a piece of music.

This joy was perfectly embodied in the You Enjoy Myself encore and carried whole into the night.

Works Cited

Shenk, David and Steve Silberman. Skeleton Key: A Dictionary For Deadheads. New York: Main Street Books, 1994.

Jesse Jarnow can be reached at jesse.jarnow@oberlin.edu or by his homepage.