The String Cheese Incident

When were Phish trendy? I must have missed it.

i agree with not now john, about 80% of people who told me "phish sucks" have never heard a phish song. one of my friends is one of those people. and about the drug thing, its not more about drugs than it is music cuz if it was, why not get a whole bunch of people in a stadium, put on a cd, and light up a joint? i agree there are people that ruin the concert experience by tokin up before or during the concert, but i am not one of them. im goin to see string cheese in april, hopefully, and i will not be "expanding my mind" in any way other than listening to the music. people have their own opinions and i respect them, my advice is, if you have never heard a phish or SCI song, listen to one THEN make your judgement, if you still dont like it, thats cool, people have opinions and are entitled to them.

the phish trendiness is prolly only in areas, its kinda trendy to like them here, i just got into them a few months ago but i dont like them becuz they are trendy, i actually was on the "phish sucks" bandwagon for a lil bit till i heard a few of their songs and really grew to respect the guitarist.

Phish is awesome.. a little over-rated though. Trey is very talented.. no one can argue with that. I've always heard that they were incredible in concert... I need to check them out. Has anyone been to one of their concerts lately?

I strayed away from Phish when I saw them on the simpsons and the drummer was wearing a dress

You'll want to avoid Bowie, then...

Oh don't worry, I am

I came to this site by accident when trying to find the actual lyrics to Light Up or Leave Me Alone, a song Phish covers occasionally. I was intrigued by the conversation and so I read it and figured I would fill you guys on a lot of things since a lot of the info here is inncorrect. And I do know what I'm talking about. I own 100's of shows, mostly Phish, on DAT tapes and am currently converting them to .ogg files (much much better than mp3).

First of all, to all you guys out their that says the Phish sucks, you are all wrong, you just dont enjoy their music. Trey (Phish's lead guitarist) was ranked a few years ago by Rolling Stone as one of the top 10 guitarists of all time.

Phish has evolved since 1983 when they met at the University of Vermont. Much of their older stuff is much more jazz oriented and emphasizes piano much more. Their newer stuff is closer to traditional rock and emphasizes guitar more.

With regard to drug use, yes, their is a lot of drug use at Phish shows and generally at all jamband shows. People who do hallucinagens at shows (mushrooms, acid, LSD, etc.) use the music to enhance their trips. Hallucinagens bring you on what can almost be considered a journey and the experience can be greatly enhanced by music and especially long and very musically complex jams. People who smoke weed at shows use that to enhance the music. It has been scientifically proven that marijauna increases your perception of and appreciation for music. A general rule I use is the more people smoking weed at a concert, the better the music is. When I'm high, I often like to listen to jazz or even classical music because I can fully appreciate the musical genius inherent in the music.

If you'd like to buy a Phish cd or two there are a few that stand out beyond the rest. I enjoy their live stuff much more, but if you want to buy a studio album, get Farmhouse. If you want to hear some of their live stuff (which I would recomend) get LivePhish Vol. 7 or LivePhish Vol. 2.28.03. LivePhish Vol. 5 contains complete gamehendge narration which is basically a whole story told through the songs with bits of narration between them. Its a great part of Phish history if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Similar bands include:
Vida Blue, Inside In
String Cheese Incident, OAR
Moe, Oysterhead, Disco Biscuits

Jellyfish by SCI is awesome, as well as Sirens

Just downloaded some SCI, very like New riders of the Purple Sage.