As Phish’s powerful rendition of The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street defined their Halloween desert escapade, Festival 8, it was a line from the immortal songwriting team of Jagger/Richards that best summed up the drama of Phish festivals 1-7: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” From an author who has made it 8 for 8 without ever getting fired, arrested, food poisoned, or stuck in the mud, I’m one of the many who has lived to tell that it was all worth it for the tower jams, glow-stick wars, dancing elephants and midnight to sunrise sets. But aside from all the epic musical highlights, there has always been added drama that has enabled us thirty-somethings to admit – “I’m too old for this shit.”
From the 18+ hour traffic jams of Big Cypress, Oswego, IT and Coventry to the mud of The Great Went, IT and, well, Coventry again, the sacrifices just to arrive at the festivals have alone been worthy us getting put in the band members’ wills. Add in the long airstrips, endless walks to the stage, cold-wet veggie burriots and overflowing porta-potties, these larger than life Phish festivals weren’t always made convenient to say the least.
One Hampton reunion, a Fenway Park show and full, two-part summer tour later, Phish decided to land their first ever Halloween weekend festival at Indio’s Empire Polo Grounds, home of the annual Coachella Festival, land of the neon T’s, Converse Allstars, Hot Chips and Tiestos. With new management, new promoters and a first time festival outside the eastern-time zone, would Festival 8 capture the same synergy and drama of festivals 1-7? Yes and no – you still can’t always get what you want.
With no traffic, consistent blue skies, palm trees and paradise perfect weather, the scene was something out of a Brian Wilson-meets-Jimmy Buffet odyssey. And get this, day parkers could actually leave the grounds between sets and grab cold beer at a local Coachella valley convenience store or even plant our ass at a sit-down restaurant – try doing that in Limestone, Maine.
By Phish festival standards, this one was ridiculously mellow, with only about 40,000 people making the event feel more like a Gathering of the Vibes than a mammoth IT. Many of the band’s fanbase have married, had kids and retired the patchwork pants and lot shirts in favor of Volvos and time-shares on Cape Cod. Add in the economic slide, the vacation time to get out and back, and discretionary income needed, and yeah, “we’re too old for this shit” sums it up. But as the only remaining jam band with enough mother-load to pull off such a festival like this anywhere in the states (no Camp Bisco doesn’t count) – Phish still has more musical capital than all the animal named indie bands crawling around.
With eight sets over three days there was plenty of music to be had, but the buzz from the opening was the mystery question of – what album would Phish perform for their Halloween set? While the Festival 8 website narrowed it down to eight finalists: Hunky Dory (David Bowie); Electric Ladyland (Jimi Hendrix), Larks’ Tongues In Aspic (King Crimson), Oracular Spectacular (MGMT); Purple Rain (Prince); Radiohead (Kid A); The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (Genesis) and Exile on Main Street (Rolling Stones), nobody was still in the sure of what the band would break out, as they sound-checked MGMT’s “Kids” and Yes’ “Starship Trooper.” But when entering the festival grounds on day 2 – the infamous Phishbills were handed out with Exile on Main Street’s freak show collage captured on the front, with an essay written by none-other than Rolling Stone’s David Fricke, describing the band’s connection to Exile. So the answers were served, although plenty of obvious clues to Halloween musical costumes of future years’ were revealed courtesy of the House of Albums (hint Michael McDonald’s If That’s What It Takes/Huey Lewis & The News’ Sports). On a side note imagine that Jon Fishman guy singing "I Want A New Drug”.
As the band laced into the bonus album, Meters-drenched track “Party Time,” there were plenty of gleaming fans rejoicing in their first festival moment since “Curtain” so erroneously closed Coventry some 62 months earlier. The rest of the first night convened with a mix of new and old, but it seemed the band was holding back for the following night’s musical costume.
Aided by a flavorful horn section, Phish stayed close to form for the album version of Exile on Main Street, incorporating the blues riffs, honky-tonk and sleazy rock and roll that steams from the album, that almost seemed too rehearsed, unlike the rhythmic grooves of 1996’s Remain In Light. With all four members of Phish alternating on lead vocals, the set was owned by Page McConnell who sang lead on the majority of songs. And when he wasn’t crooning out the lead vocals he was harmonizing throughout while laying down layers of loud and raucous piano. The set opened with a sturdy “Rocks Off” that featured both Anastasio and McConnell harmonizing each other, followed by the juke joint swagger of “Rip This Joint” sung by McConnell and featured some festive horns and plenty of “aww yeahs.” As expected Gordon sung one of his only two lead vocals of the set, the bluesy “Shake Your Hips,” before leading into “Casino Boogie” one of the more boisterous moments of the set that holstered a ripping guitar jam at the song’s end.
“Tumbling Dice” was served as the most well-known song on Exile, but was probably the most un-interesting song of the set, despite the catchy back-up vocals from Saundra Williams and Dap-Kings’ Sharon Jones. Exile on Main St. is composed of outtakes and tracks written and recorded over the period of four years, from 1968 to 1972, so diversity was expected and the first major genre shift occurred as the band hit into the Jon Fishman sung “Sweet Virgina,” followed by the country-blues laced “Torn and Frayed” and the subdued “Sweet Black Angel.” It was “Torn and Frayed” that was the set’s pure highlight as it provided a pure improvisational escape and an honest contender to enter the future Phish set-list rotation.
Hands down the best “Loving Cup” ever followed and featured the Saundra, Sharon and the horns relishing the moment, followed by Fishman taking control of the Keith Richards’ sung slop rocker “Happy.” The country stomp “Turd on the Run” shone in its true rambling drunken form, while the blues beast “Ventilator Blues” made like a roaring engine with crackling horns as McConnell bravely howled – “spine is cracking and your hands they shake; Heart is bursting and your butt’s going to break; Woman’s cussing, you can hear her scream; Feel like murder in the first degree.” The nights first segue occurred as the band rolled into the free-form “I Just Want To See His Face,” which captured the songs’ murky gospel with the repeated phrase –“let this music relax your mind.”
Another strong contender for song of the night was the vulnerable slow ballad “Turn It Loose,” sung close to perfection by McConnell with the potent phrase – “Bit off more than I can chew/And I knew what it was leading to/Some Things, well I can’t refuse.” The bluesy barn burner “All Down the Line,” sung by Gordon captured the straightforward rock ’n roll Stones’ feel, while “Stop Breaking Down,” the Robert Johnson blues classic, was handled by McConnell, the new mayor of Indio. “Shine a Light,” which first entered the Stones’ set-list during the 1995 leg of the Voodoo Lounge Tour followed, sung bravely by Anastasio and featured one of the larger organ fueled blasts and plenty of gospel yearnings And surprisingly the sets’ finale’ “Soul Survivor” captured the Stones’ true rock and roll dark and dirty essence with the down and dirty Richards’ guitar riff roaring throughout – a true full circle of song that mirrors that hell-bent arena velocity of The Who and the blues angst of the Stones. Job well done!
And for those keeping track – the third day provided more of the unusual as Phish performed their first “unplugged” performance since the Bridge School Benefit shows at Shoreline on October 17 and 18, 1998. Shelling out songs that made acoustic set predictions go sour, “The Curtain With,” to some tunes that they can never get away with during a night set: “Secret Smile,” “Talk,” “Let Me Lie” and “Sleep Again,” it ran the gamut. And for the first time ever probably during a Phish set, the crowd went from standing to sitting, as requested by Anastasio and followed by Gordon quipping, “are you sitting because you want to or because you have to?” Soon the rest of the audience untangled from Indian style nodding to standing and nodding (there is a difference).
This author will spare you the nitty gritty play by play details of the other sets, but Festival 8 did showcase fire-towers on the edges of the concert lawn that fired like gargoyles during the “fist pumping” moments of the songs. And just when you thought this was a festival unlike any other- they ended it with “Mike Song” with no “Weekapaug Groove” – how dare they? Sometimes you can’t always get what you want. Festival 8 provided more gets than have-nots.
