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Phish swims into the Palace of Auburn Hills
for a Dec. 2 concert. Expect the unexpected.

JAMES HEBERT
Copley News Service

tiadifri•cteni OWN,

MEM

la

ost touring musicians
welcome a chance to get
back home, shake off
the road dust and savor
a little down time. But for the drum-
mer in one particularly celebrated
band from Vermont, being home is
like being a Phish out of water.
"I'm so much more organized when
I'm on the road," says Jon Fishman,
one-half of the Jewish rhythm section

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Such is the passion of its partisans
that they compile obsessively detailed
lists of when each Phish song was last
performed and how many times it has
been played. The lists are published
on endless fan Web sites, as well as in
the sporadically published Pharmer's
Almanac.
Then there's the band's own widely
distributed newsletter, Doniac Schvice.
And the tape trees on which fans trade
recordings of Phish shows, a practice
that the band not only tolerates but
also helps facilitate.

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Phish — boasting two Jewish members — "is more than just a rootsy,
noodly prog-rock band from Vermont. It's a force of (sub)culture."

that comprises Phish. Bassist Mike
Gordon is the other Jewish member of
the group, which performs a concert
at the Palace of Auburn Hills Dec. 2.
"You get out on the road, there's
someone telling you, 'Be here now' or
`Be there now,'" Fishman says. "At
home, just doing my laundry can take
several days.
The phenomenon of Phish is by now
well documented: a band that, despite
getting essentially zero radio exposure,
draws huge crowds year after year. In
1998, the group ranked 17th as a con-
cert draw, taking in $23.3 million,
according to the trade magazine PolLtar.

Clearly, Phish is more than just a
rootsy, noodly prog-rock band from
Vermont — it's a force of (sub)culture.
That kind of popularity naturally
means pressure: pressure to please the
fans, to sell records, to keep the label
happy.
But according to Fishman, those
pressures actually have spurred Phish
to creative heights it might not have
reached otherwise.
"We go through cycles of being
affected by the gravity of all the things
that surround Phish, which is this big
thing," he says.
"And it maybe causes compromises