By Gregg Buczkowski, Staff Writer
When Trey Anastasio, guitarist of the legendary jam band Phish, screamed “Can you still have fun!?” during “Wilson” not a soul in Madison Square Garden could be expected to disagree with him. Friday night marked my 13th, and most likely final Phish show of 2009 and I must say I couldn’t have asked for a finer conclusion. After all, this was sacred ground. The band had rung in 1995 with their all time greatest show here. They had broken their original hiatus in this hall and this week marked their first return since.
The show began with their late nineties hit “Heavy Things” to thunderous applause. The first big highlight of the night came with the fifth song, “Glide.” The song in and of itself is nothing too spectacular, but since its last performance at the band’s farewell festival in Coventry, VT it has taken on a rather dark weight. That night the song had to be restarted several times with horrible flubs throughout.
It came to represent everything that was wrong with the band at the height of Trey’s heroin days. Anastasio has been sober since his late 2006 arrest that jumpstarted this reunion. To many long time fans, Friday’s excellent rendition of the song showed just how far the band had come since they had watched their favorite band dissolve before their eyes. The first set ended with the funky instrumental “First Tube” which was quite possibly the loudest and most excited I have ever seen a crowd. Trey jumped, the crowd jumped higher, the guitar screeched, and the audience’s cheers overtook the amps. Once the lights came back on for intermission a man in my section asked, “Could that have been as good as I thought it was?” After a brief silence the rest of the isle agreed.
The second set began with newer tunes also not heard since the reunion, “Scent” and “Subtle Sounds.” The set featured a few of Phish’s multi song suites in “Mike’s Groove” and “The Horse>Silent in the Morning.” Ending the set was a stellar version magnum opus, the 20 (plus) minute “You Enjoy Myself,” which includes solos all around the stage, a pure vocal jam and a couple of trampolines. With the air so electric the encore couldn’t have possibly hoped to go up so instead they played A Rolling Stones’ ballad off of the album they covered this Halloween at their festival held on the Coachella grounds in California. Though it seemed less than a quarter of the crowd knew the song everyone seemed to enjoy the mellow end to and explosive night.
Phish performed for the first time in a long time at MSG Friday night. (Photo Courtesy of jambands.com)