It’s official: Beloved jam-rockers Phish will be coming to Asheville in June, as part of the band’s reunion tour. Tickets will go on sale Jan. 30.
Here’s the news as Xpress received it from Phish’s publicity team:
“Phish will launch its first summer tour in five years with a two-night stand at the Nikon Theatre at Jones Beach in Wantagh, NY on June 4th and 5th. Yesterday the band resumed rehearsals, which began in November, in preparation for the upcoming shows.
An online ticket request period is currently underway at http://www.phish.tickets.musictoday.com. Tickets will go on sale to the general public the weekend of Jan. 30. For information on where to purchase tickets, visit http://www.phish.com/tourdates.
Phish’s summer tour will be preceded by a trio of concerts (March 6th, 7th and 8th) at Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The shows at the 13,800-capacity venue sold out just seconds after tickets went on sale last fall. They will mark the group’s first concerts since its August 2004 performance at the Coventry festival in Vermont.”
The tour includes these date:
• June 4 and 5: Wantagh, N.Y., Nikon Theatre at Jones Beach
• June 6: Mansfield, Mass, Comcast Center
• June 7: Camden, N.J., Susquehanna Bank Center
• June 9: Asheville, N.C. Asheville Civic Center
• June 16: St. Louis, Fox Theatre
• June 18: Burgettstown, Penn. Post Gazette Pavilion
• June 19: Noblesville, Ind.Verizon Wireless Music Center
• June 20 and 21: East Troy, WI, Alpine Valley
I tried to tell everyone in the forums that the Phish comeback was going to be the big story of 2009.
But not even I knew that by comeback, they meant,
Come
Back
to
Asheville!
Not so surprising, though, considering all of Trey Anastasio’s solo shows at Thomas Wolfe, Oysterhead, etc.
Good luck getting tickets everyone,
JRM
Has anyone told Carl Mumpower? I’m sure he’d like to know.
I’ll bet Mumpower about wets his pants when he hears about this. After the POUNDING he took in the election, he can’t wait to take out his frustrations on some hippies. Makes him feel manly and all.
You can “request” tickets off of Phish’s website till the 17th I think. They are a hefty $49 a pop. General sale starts Jan 3oth. Should be quite the party that night in Asheville!! Woo hoo! Time to go phishin’ again.
Notice that nobody’s mentioned the music yet.
What do you say at a Phish show when you can’t find drugs?
Man, this band sucks!
What do you say when you’re on the Mountain Xpress page and read something Jason Bugg thinks is funny?
Man, this is the best the Xpress can do for a music writer?
Jason Ross Martin:
Just to be clear, many writers, on staff and freelancers, cover music for the Mountain Xpress.
Jason Bugg is a freelancer who writes for Xpress from time to time, and his opinions on Phish are personal and in no way reflect the official Mountain Xpress position on Phish, of which there is none.
Jon Elliston
Managing Editor
I’m a moderated user, which means that what I say is vulgar and dangerous to some. Apparently that also means that what others say about me on the Xpress main page is completely fair game.
Take for instance Jason Ross Martin’s comment about me in the Phish article:
What do you say when you’re on the Mountain Xpress page and read something Jason Bugg thinks is funny?
Man, this is the best the Xpress can do for a music writer?
This had nothing to do with the topic at hand. Meanwhile I write something back, not attacking Martin, but restating my belief and it doesn’t get posted. All that gets posted is a response from Xpress Managing Editor Jon Elliston explaining for the umpteenth time that I don’t work for the Xpress, that I’m a freelancer, yadda yadda.
It’s crap.
I don’t attack anybody on the main page (or here), and yet I’m attacked. Then, I am not even allowed to explain myself or clarify my argument because of this moderation. Instead, my posts go off into the ether and I come across like a douche, or even worse, someone hiding behind a paper that I don’t even work for.
With that being said, what do I do? I want an admin other than Shanafelt to answer this for me. Why are others allowed to attack me and yet I’m on some sort of probation and not allowed to clarify my points?
Without sounding like an egomaniac, before this site started getting heavy traffic I was encouraged by people at the paper to be as irreverant as possible, to help drum up traffic. They thought it was funny and it got people speaking. Now the site (and the forums) are doing well, and it feels like they don’t like what I have to say.
There’s a line somewhere that I’m missing. I want someone from the paper, on the record on this forum, to tell me where that line is, because right now I feel as though I’m being treated rather poorly.
Thanks.
Jason
Jason Bugg:
I’m sorry to hear that you feel you are being treated unfairly. I’ll respond to your main points the best I can below:
what others say about me on the Xpress main page is completely fair game.
Not completely. We’re trying to screen out name-calling and personal attacks as best we can. That said, I think readers should be free to crique your writing without it seeming like a personal attack.
Take for instance Jason Ross Martin’s comment about me in the Phish article:
What do you say when you’re on the Mountain Xpress page and read something Jason Bugg thinks is funny?
Man, this is the best the Xpress can do for a music writer?
I read this as chiefly a joke, but secondarily as a critique of your writing, which seems fair game.
This had nothing to do with the topic at hand. Meanwhile I write something back, not attacking Martin, but restating my belief and it doesn’t get posted.
We decided not to clear that post because you suggested in it that you are the best music writer Xpress has to offer, and I wanted to ward off the impression that we have any one best writer or that you write as an Xpress employee. The latter point is one I want to stress because I don’t want readers to think that Xpress writers indulge in trashing other people’s musical tastes.
With that being said, what do I do? I want an admin other than Shanafelt to answer this for me. Why are others allowed to attack me and yet I’m on some sort of probation and not allowed to clarify my points?
We continue to welcome prolific posters, so I hope you’ll keep posting on our site. Please refrain from any name-calling though (for example, calling someone “a delusional little twit” as you recently did on another Phish thread).
Again, sorry for any hard feelings over this; we’re trying to keep the dialogue civil and clear.
“Please keep your comments relevant to blog entry.”
I know I don’t have a journalism degree, Jon, so maybe you can point out in this blog entry where my writing style is relevant to the blog entry, because golly, I don’t see it.
JRM and anyone who feels like it can comment on my pieces that I write for the Xpress or any other paper, I’m just asking you to enforce the rules the same way to the same posters all of the time.
Now, if you’ll be so kind as to go over Rebecca’s post about Phish and show me in the article where my writing style is brought up, I’ll be more than happy to admit that I am wrong and off base.
In fact, I’ll drive to whatever hipster bar you people hang out in a buy the first round of drinks because I don’t think my writing style is mentioned in the article.
Fair enough, Jason Bugg. Folks, please do not discuss Bugg’s writing style on this thread. Instead, feel free to start a thread on that topic in the Forums.
You see my point and you know I’m right. About everything I said.
Maybe I should call a waaaaaaaambulance.
Well I just signed up to get tickets. I’m praying I do because I could use the extra income scalping them.
Ha Haaaaaa,
Okay Okay ha haaaaa OMG. JASON BUGG!
Okay Okay. wow.
Anyone who thinks phish is a “defining band of our generation” probably also thinks kanye’s vocoder album is a “defining voice of our generation”. In other words, the opinion is uselessly drug-addled.
Not about Jason Bugg.
Arratik created a Mumphish here:
http://scrutinyhooligans.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mumphish.jpg
I thought Phish was dead…and isn’t Jason Ross Martin three people?
You’re thinking of Medeski, Martin, and Wood.
Or Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
One of my favorite quotes from Trey Anastasio is:
‘You can’t fool people with music’….
In other words, you can’t really fake them out if it’s not quality. Fact is, the ‘cult-like followers’ like myself who have continued to enjoy the careers of Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Page McConnell, and Jon Fishman, even during the most recent hiatus–most all of us came into this scene because someone gave us a bootleg cassette of a show while we were in college or high school.
That discovery of a whole new musical world, where comedy coexists with terrifying darkness, where gleeful covers ranging from ‘Getting Jiggy Wit’ It’ to ‘Sabotage’ to ‘2001’ to even acapella renditions of ‘Freebird’ with vocal jam-style guitar solos could be juxtaposed with 45 minute space rock explorations…. all in one performance…. that’s what hooked me. It wasn’t the scene, per se. It wasn’t the beautiful, fun-loving, dancing girls, smiling and celebrating. And it wasn’t the black market/Shakedown Street with all of its wares.
It was the music. Unique, glistening, complex, intricate, and unpredictable. And that is why Asheville will be overflowing with joyous revellers come June… not because of the desire to party for partying’s sake… In the end, it’s ALL about the MUSIC.
That’s why Phish broke up. They knew, even in their burned out, dangerous condition back then, that they were compromising their own legend. They hadn’t been practicing like they once did. The improvs had lost some of their energy. Trey’s playing had grown somewhat disinterested and ragged, particularly when playing the epic, fugue-based masterpieces of their early career.
Anyone who witnessed those “final” shows at Coventry, like I did on the movie screen where it was simulcast, saw Trey in a very sad, grossly inebriated condition, basically mutilate many of our favorites of his compositions when playing them for the “last” time. It felt like watching a lame horse get shot, to witness that show. I remember a spun-out Phish fan turning around during that final set and yelling in the Knoxville theatre ‘Stand up and dance everyone! It’s the last Phish show of all time!!!’ and I remember sitting there almost in tears, because it was that painful to watch my hero self-destruct even in what was supposed to be a climactic resolution to a 20 year journey. Instead, it was a mud-drenched, sloppy, pathetic feeling of watching something I found to be so wonderful basically just fall apart into a throwaway show. Do you have any friends who are into Phish? Well ask them how often they listen to the Coventry recordings these days. Instead, you will hear them tell you about the tours in 1994, at the zenith of improv precision and intense psychedelia like no one had ever seen, that unique crossroads of the light show, the tight improv, and uber-tight execution of their most complex songs they wouldn’t even dare play toward the end. Or maybe the Cow Funk period of 1997, when the band had returned from Europe and brought with it a new rave-y sound that was more dancey than ever?
Which brings me back to my original attempt to start a Phish conversation on this site back when the reunion shows in Hampton this March were announced. I, for one, am very intrigued to see how Phish can exist with Trey just out of rehab, seemingly cleaned up and ULTRA ULTRA crisp and tight on his lyrical, unique guitar soloing as evidenced by his comeback solo tour—but with an audience of people ready to relive the past, go for broke, ‘tune in and tune out’ as they used to say—an audience which will be confronted by Trey’s new songs about recovering from addictions! How will all these new dynamics play out?
I for one, hope I get a chance to find out in person at the Civic Center. But let me tell you that will be one of the hardest tickets of all-time. Imagine if Jerry Garcia had not died when he did, but instead the Grateful Dead simply disbanded for 4 years, then announced a comeback show at the Civic Center?!?!
Not to compare Jerry and Trey anymore than is obvious… but perhaps we who love the music of both Phish and The Grateful Dead are getting ready to find out what happens when the leading guitarist/frontman of the entire genre beats back his demons and conquers them, continuing to develop for many more years. Maybe Trey’s arrest will lead to the possibility of seeing Phish for many, many more years. Or maybe he is getting ready to find out that touring makes those demons inside crave for that old fix? I definitely hope not. I want to hear those solos in person for years to come.
Dude,
you should write a book or something.
they were compromising their own legend
Most pretentious statement ever?
Yes, ever.
“*Most pretentious statement ever?
Yes, ever.*”
Of this generation of this decade.
Come see the Gourds show in two weeks Jason.
I agree about the “compromising their legend” comment. Doesn’t seem pretentious at all, considering that they were insanely popular.
The band had gone from intensely good at what they do, to kinda boring. They took their hiatus – now let’s see what’s become of it. They could be great again, they could suddenly super-suck, or just be awash in mediocrity. Won’t know ’til I hear the shows, and quite frankly, if you got nothing constructive to say, go away and post in a forum where your opinions are more than “this thing sucks, here’s some sarcasm”.
“I agree about the “compromising their legend” comment.”
says this guy
[img]http://www.mountainx.com/gallery/image_full/116/[/img]
Phish obviously is not hunting for more fans… If you don’t like them, it would be best to stay very far away….
*”Phish obviously is not hunting for more fans… If you don’t like them, it would be best to stay very far away…. “*
i’ll be there for the drugs and girls, just like everybody else.
“i’ll be there for the drugs and girls, just like everybody else.”
I’m looking forward to some tasty parking lot grilled cheese.
The Phish website says that tickets will be for sale at the box office. Does anyone know if the Civic Center Box office is actually a good place to find tickets? Does anyone think it would be worth getting there early and standing in line?…
I didnt get any tickets though lottery, now what…..??Is there a ticketmaster in town?
Man am I glad I will be out of town for a while. Saw my first Dead show in 90′ and walked out because the performance was so bad. After listening to stellar musicians like Gong/Daevid Allen, Zappa, Yes and King Crimson my impression of the Dead, Phish and the kids who drool over their mediocre extended top 40 jammies made me wonder why they were categorized as psychedelic. Partying….that’s all. To me free form jazz is much more psychedelic and intriguing. We all know the history of the privileged Americana “hippy” and the pretentious sub culture (about as counter culture as “Alternative” bands these days)that worship these “dieties”, no need to go any further on that one. Conformity in denial on a mass scale of undisciplined fluff.
My two cents for a miracle ticket away from the dumb.