@NoHayBanda said:

i also find it interesting that the reaction to the newer emotionally charged songs seems to be overall more negative. like its a foreign substance injected into phish shows people have to get used to before they can enjoy it. show of life for example is less visceral punch and more "kumbaya", but walking out of shows you hear people say "man, that encore SUCKED" and im guessing many of these are GD fans who enjoy that kind of music!

Hmm. I think you're right. Here's something else arguable. In some ways there are several semi-distinct strata of Phish fans:

* 'College-rock' types who just wanna smoke a bowl/drink a beer and shake their fists and 'dance' in that lame way I needn't describe

* Music nerds who dig the proggy stuff and the technical side of the jams (overrepresented on online bulletin boards)

* Old-timers who miss the musical-hijinks side of the band (note the reaction to Utica around here)

* GDead hangers-on looking for something like cultural escapism

* GDead lovers looking for that old-time musical uplift

* Late-90's/2.0 types looking for spaced-out music in the vein of the Disco Biscuits (first up against the wall when the revolution comes)

* ...and of course a variety of folks tripping the light fantastic, etc.

Trey's emotionally-direct songs like 'Joy' and 'Show of Life' make a lot of those fan groups uncomfortable. Songs like 'Fast Enough for You' mask their emotionality with wordplay (Tom Marshall can get in his own way, that way), so they're OK, but when they sing 'It's a small world / But we all start out small' it really goes right to the heart of a private emotional experience rather than the music's usual gauzy universality.

That's why I was so bummed out about the rapturous ovations they'd get in 1998 for the dumbest fucking cover songs in existence. (Not coincidentally, I stopped showgoing for a while after Fall '98.) The party elements, the college-rock nostalgia elements, the simple pop elements of the Phish experience seemed uppermost at that moment. The music was amazing in those days but it was...coarsening.

Now Phish play this amazingly detailed, empathetic, emotionally-open music - improvised mainly, but also their written stuff - and you see an enormous amount of complaining online about how they 'don't jam anymore,' etc. But they do jam. Like demons. What's missing, what's mislabeled as 'experimentation,' is that distancing, somewhat abstract element that historically kept Phish on a lower emotional plane than the Dead. They don't parody rock anymore, they just rock. They don't play games with contrast anymore, they embrace it to generate emotional effects. They don't segue as much, they just play the shit out of every song.

The lyrics to 'Stash' are an embarrassment. In some ways, they're archetypal Phish lyrics. (Written a line at a time by Trey and Tom, right? Like 'Cavern'?) Clever, musical, fun to sing along to. But utterly, totally meaningless.

'Light,' on the other hand, is about as close to the bone as Trey and Tom have come, lyrically. 'The future is less and less there / And the past has vanished in the air / And I'm left in the now with a wondrous glow / I think I'm still me / But how would you know?' That's wisdom of a kind. 'Purify our souls / Guide us to our homes'...they're not fooling around, all of a sudden. They mean to mean something.

But I seem to recall a reviewer dismissing 'Light,' on this very website, as 'less a song than a jam segment' or something.

That's straight bullshit - but it gives you a sense of the expectations that have surrounded this band since the early 90's. They always set themselves up as one thing, but as they glide into middle age they're trying to become something else. Of course folks are gonna complain, even Phish fans. Change is the scariest thing in the entire universe.

Even when it's the one constant in the band's history. Even then!