It’s O-Phish-cial: they’re the greatest band that will ever exist. Ever.
And I will valiantly fight you on this for the rest of our days, because now it’s inarguable — whether you understand Phish, and whether you like it or not.
I acknowledge this declaration is hyperbolic, but then again, so was the entire concept (nay, gamble, to most) known as The Baker’s Dozen to begin with — and until another artist gets on stage and plays 237 different songs with ZERO pre-determined setlists across 13 successive nights in an arena, let alone The World’s Most Famous, no act in existence will ever possibly come close to what Phish has just accomplished.
This ain’t solely a numbers game, either. Oh no. Numbers talk, but artistic intention walks — and as far as I’m concerned, Phish has completely stomped everyone in their wake following these exceptional, bold, and heavily emotive performances.
Certainly I am biased, but on a critical level, I genuinely believe everyone with a pulse and open ears has a duty to face this newly-drawn, unbeatable bottom line. Phish has taken the insurmountable to task, virtually effortlessly, and now everything will pale in comparison.
Whether you’ve been ‘reading the book’ since the ’80s, or have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, I’m here to factually explain the magnitude of these last three weeks to you, no matter who you are. As long as you appreciate music, let alone the associated risk of living and breathing creativity — a feat like The Baker’s Dozen demands your utmost attention, respect, and admiration.
The ongoing sentiment has been something along the lines of, “The best thing about seeing Phish [instead of sports] at Madison Square Garden… is that they won every night.”
On Sunday, August 6th, 2017, the unsuspecting quintet that “made the donuts” (lighting director / god / wizard Chris Kuroda deserves equal credit to the members of the band here), dropped the mic and said to many left behind clawing for their own piece of rock & roll history, “Fight me.”
26 sets of completely improvised psychedelic symphony, orchestrated not by one human holding a baton, but by the sheer magic of connection and exchange — persistent transfer of bright, ineffable energy — between not only the humans on stage, but “the elements,” and a voracious but ever-adoring audience.
As “Phans,” candidly, we essentially sacrifice the regularity of our lives in dedication of fostering and chasing this mysterious dynamic — investing much that we have, and that we are, to explore and experience what is capable within its confines.
We submit to unusual ritualization. We speak pretty close to our own language. We laugh at the stupidest shit imaginable. Together, we sing songs about fantastical lands, creatures, feelings, and visions. Sentences and couplets in strange tenses. There’s a lot to learn and take in, but we want you to ask questions and come along…
…because what you have with Phish, compared to any other band whose ticket you’ve held in your hand, is far more. It’s access to a greater thrill ride than the windiest rollercoaster. Three-and-a-half hour voyages so artistically (and often emotionally) layered that it literally doesn’t make sense to most. An experience requiring total surrender (to the flow, as we say) in order to comprehend on a basic level.
This essentially characterizes every Phish show — not just this run of 13 — and to this writer, this chase, this weight, and its perpetual surprise and satisfaction, is the most powerful force in the world.
Just as scientists cannot experiment without variables, Phish cannot exist without circumstance, and beyond the typical aspects like show location or timing, the rubric for this run ended up coming from a sweet and somewhat unlikely source: donuts. Every night literally ended up dictating the flavor of the surprise and satisfaction strived for within each show. What a wonderful little thing to latch onto. 🍩
For the uninitiated: even in the Phish realm of cover-to-cover album re-creations as a Halloween tradition, to unpredictable “extra” secret sets in strange settings at the festivals they stage, The Baker’s Dozen possessed indescribable mystique and potency before the first song even started…
And from the moment it did, Phish proved they are firmly in an era where the fun is found in defying expectations.
Fans took to placing bets and creating Bingo boards to try and anticipate which song from the depths of the catalog would kick things off, and hilariously, incredibly, there is not a human out there that could have predicted how this began.
I’d die to have been a fly on the wall when someone decided, “Hey! We’ve got a long ways to go, so let’s get this party started with an even lesser-known song by a decently reputable indie pop band from Denmark.”
July 21, 2017’s donut flavor was Coconut, and the opening song no one saw coming was “Shake Your Coconuts” by Junior Senior, and it could not have been more perfect. You probably haven’t heard it since late-nighting during your junior year of college, and forgot its amazing existence entirely if you even knew it at all.
That is Phish for you.
Mind you, this was the first curveball of AN OVERWHELMING AMOUNT that helped define this unparalleled musical adventure. Where do I even begin with the moments that made my head spin, and would make yours, too?
Maybe it was when they opened the show with a legendary Internet meme. (#LetTreyZonday)
Maybe it was when they took a usual three-minute bop around the block into a half-hour voyage on the sacred night the mandate was ‘jam-filled.’
Three weeks went by, 17 more covers debuted from Shuggie Otis (Strawberry), to Fleet Foxes (Powdered), to Radiohead (Lemon). Yes, you read that correctly.
Maybe it was when a jam landed in such an unpredictable spot, the band took a left turn from stoner metal drone to heaven and hell at the same time.
Maybe it was when they played this for the first time since 1997. Since 1998. Since 1999 — literally.
Each and every night, this band created poetry threaded together by powerful, and in arguable cases, a healthy amount of best-ever versions of songs their fans love passionately, and know scarily accurately. It was beautiful and it was insane. To continue elaborating on the mere three shows I’m grateful to have taken down in person would take until the end of the month, easily.
It was incredible, and it is undeniable. The Baker’s Dozen was an unprecedented prolonged structure. Joy, grounding, and intent punctuated the greater space that enables Phish to do their best: play music so interconnected, so fearless, so adventurous that your mortal self abandons the specifics of time and space. “Your spaceship is about to blast off on its voyage of discovery. Because of the incredible speed of your rocket, your trip is short.”
I write all of this to try and profess to you — Phan or not — that there is inarguably a universal reason why this run of shows is so powerful and important, especially in superior juxtaposition to the fad of “residencies” and the factory-fied “get on / get off” robotics of festival set time grids.
Perhaps the most beautiful thing about the output of The Baker’s Dozen was its mind-boggling balance of accessibility and expansion potent enough to affect everyone regardless of their status: engaged fans shocked and satisfied, the jaded boomeranging back to faith and hope, the uninitiated impressed.
To an outsider, or on paper, this band had no one to satisfy but themselves in constructing such an “indulgent” series of performances — yet they executed with unparalleled honor and poignance; rife with inspiration, unity, light, and inventiveness — in their 34th year as a unit.
No matter what emerged, for the price of admission, each night you witnessed merciless musical virtuosity, tearing open new dimensions of possibility and confirmation that, oh yes — they can GO THERE.
If you claim to self-identify as a music enthusiast (or even an adrenaline junkie, to be honest), at this point I beg you to ask yourself:
What could possibly be better than an experience defined by these virtues?
Before The Baker’s Dozen even began, I found myself professing: “I am so grateful for whatever reason living in me, that this is what I love.”
Thank you, Phish — for confirming that community, fearlessness, oddity, and creativity can still reign (and give us reasons to cheer) in this mechanized and messed-up world. Thank you for the bravery of overcoming incomprehensible risk, all of the time. Most of all, thank you for showing there’s not a second to dwindle on shame when beneath it all, within you is the belief and bravado that you are capable of simply being the best. EVER.
