In June 2000, Phish played their only headlining tour through Japan. A few dozen American travelers joined several hundred newly initiated Japanese phans on a phenomenal seven-night run of intimate venues, resulting in a series of fiery shows, unique cultural exchanges and the birth of the Japanese Meatstick. Longtime fan Stanch had been living and teaching English in Japan for a year when Phish arrived. In honor of the 10-year anniversary of the tour, and with help from a detailed journal and inputs from his traveling companions, he recounts his memories of the tour’s first four shows.
06/13/00 Club Quattro, Naka-ku, Nagoya
While On Air East was surely my favorite shows of the Japan run, the show at Club Quattro was not far behind. Let’s start with the set up: Club Quattro is a tiny (maybe 350-400 people?) club in downtown Nagoya. How tiny? It was located on the seventh floor of a Parco shopping mall, and your event ticket came with a complimentary drink. As we entered a room the fraction of the size of your average Phish stage, it had more the feel of a townie bar than a music venue fit for arena touring behemoth, but at the front of the room sat Phish’s iconic stage set up (though things were a bit crunched to fit their gear on a stage no more than 15 feet wide). And much like the rest of the shows thusfar, like some strange dream, we waited only feet from Phish’s stage crew for the show to start, as they prepared to run the sound and lights from tiny setups toward the back of the room.
The Meat opener was slow, patient and extremely funky, and it was followed by an electric and frenetic Maze. Almost as if to jolt the crowd, Phish then reprised a Meat coda for a few moments, making Maze remind you of the role it played on Rift: an interlude between other more balanced offerings. This was a new city, and the Japanese crowd had turned over some from the Tokyo group, and that served as the moment many first-time viewers began to look at each other with that look: who the hell are these guys? The band continued with an extended Ya Mar that had a rare jam punctuated with tasteful interplay between Trey and Page. Fast Enough for You, Old Home Place and a dark Wilson would follow.
The band topped off the first set with a highlight of the run: a great Mike’s > Simple > Weekapaug. The explosive Mike’s peaked with round after round of dirty, screeching notes from Trey, and the band turned on a dime seamlessly into Simple. The melodic end of a subtle Simple jam kind of petered out into silence, as if it was moving away from you into the distance. And just as you realized it was over, the faintest traces of the funky Weekapaug guitar rift entered in its place. It was as if Simple had gone backstage and Weekapug had passed it in the hall, rushing into the room. Responding, the small crowd welcomed Weekapaug by clapping in unison on beat throughout the opening chords, and after Mike slapped a few hints of the line, the band came in hard and released a roaring first set closer.
READ ON for more from Stanch on Phish in Japan…
