h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Phish is a JamBand, who up untill their announcement that this tour (Fall in the Earth Year 2000) was it for an "extended period", has successfully filled ever increasingly bigger venues for the traditional summer / fall / holiday tours reinvented (and some say perfected) by acts such as the Dead who merely borrowed an age old idea that had been shunned for too long in favor of idocy, as many things are in our society with the focus being on the american contenant this time. Aside from taking this good idea of touring alot, playing in nice places when it is nice there, and always expanding their art the similarites end. The fact that numbers of people decide that they will follow bands to nice places while it is nice there, and expierance new and exciting things with like-minded individuals such as themselves while sharing in the groove of musical bliss is commonly overlooked in favor of beleiving that the majority of the crowd is stoned in one capacity or another. Depending on the city you are in, and whom you surround yourself with this may be true too a certain degree... but if this is what you notice while attending a performance by this band you my friend have no soul.

"The jam-band phenomenon is one of the best things - no,
I'll say it is the best thing to happen to American popular music
in a long, long time... since the Beatles impacted American music,
basically.

The American musical heritage is 90% improvisational music,
from blues to jazz to country fiddle music.

The music industry- God bless its cotton socks- has been force
feeding the public all of this heavily packaged stuff for years
and years now... and the jam-band phenomena is a natural
reaction to that. I'm so glad to see everyone getting out of
the box finally. "

-Bob Weir