Phish — LMB’s Open Letter

Live Music Blog has written an open letter to Phish in respose to Wednesday morning’s big announcement. It goes a little something like this:

1. Rehearse – (and this is by no means sarcastic)
It is clear that, due to the heavy touring in the late 1990’s, band rehearsals became scarce and/or nonexistent. As expected, this eventually had an adverse effect on overall tightness and ensemble, and strikes me as contrary to one of the band’s central tenets from the beginning: to listen to each other. Since that goal was at the core of the Phish sound, it would seem vital to a successful reunion for both band and audience. Perhaps a return to (or creation of new) exercises like Including Your Own Hey or Zen Language Ball would be a good way to jump-start this. Either way, preparation cannot but make the new shows even more intense and enjoyable.

2. Consider returning to the old stage arrangement of Page-Trey-Mike-Fish
We know that 1999’s change to the lineup was an attempt to bring Fish more physically into the sound, but had the unfortunate effect of separating Trey from the rest of the band. The exchange of Mike for Trey after the hiatus seemed to solve some of those problems, yet the fact remains that the musical interaction never appeared to recover from the original change. The old lineup was not only distinctive, it also directed the sound in a fantastic way, with Page and Fish book-ending the guitars and creating a focused flow of music from the stage that I’ve never experienced anywhere else. Continue Reading…

October 3, 2008 | Categories: ARTICLE, Phish | Tags: Phish | 1 Comment »