All My Rowdy Friends

7/1/99, Antioch, TN, First American Music Center

SET 1: Punch You in the Eye, Billy Breathes, Guyute, Wolfman's Brother, Beauty of My Dreams, Doin' My Time, Roggae, Water in the Sky, Back on the Train, Poor Heart

SET 2: Down with Disease > Prince Caspian > You Enjoy Myself

ENCORE: Character Zero

Listen

If you thought that the second show of the tour might provide some clarity after that disorienting opener, sorry – geography and weather had other ideas. Tour routing put Phish on the outskirts of Nashville for night 2, and like most of their stops in Music City, they couldn’t resist sending out some invitations. In the five shows Phish played in Nashville or Antioch between 1994 and 2000, there were guest appearances at every single one: first Alison Krauss, followed by Bela Fleck twice, and then the ensemble casts of this show and next year. 

Phish’s broadening network in the Country Music Capital of the World neatly parallels their 90s trajectory. For their last appearance at this venue, formerly known as the Starwood Amphitheatre, they were booked in “The Veranda,” basically a small stage set up in the concessions concourse. They only made it to the big stage in May 1994 thanks to a storm; once there, they had to borrow gear from Hank Williams Jr., perhaps planting the cosmic seed that eventually made them football bumper music regulars.

1994 was also the year of Phish Bluegrass, with most shows featuring an acoustic mini-set and a brief spell where Rev. Jeff Mosier was brought on board to be their traveling bluegrass tutor. As they learned the genre, Phish was particularly deferential to its history, playing covers of The Dillards, Norman Blake, Bill Monroe, and…okay, Boston – Phish can only be respectful for so long. Even though they had a couple bluegrassy originals such as Poor Heart or My Sweet One, they typically kept those hidden away when guests with genuine Opry credentials dropped in. 

Five years later, Phish could easily command the big stage in Antioch and any imposter syndrome about playing with bluegrass royalty was long diminished. They’re now on the other side of playing with rock giants such as Neil Young and Phil Lesh and bending their formidable sounds to Phish’s own aesthetic; they can handle Jerry Douglas and Ronnie McCoury just fine. Even the return of Hot Rize’s Tim O’Brien just three years after his sit-in at Red Rocks finds the band in an higher-status position; Phish happily played backing band to him for three songs in 1996, now he only gets one lead vocal, a repeat of Jimmie Skinner’s “Doin’ My Time.” 

That’s the only old-timey song in tonight’s bluegrass maxi-set; the other cover, “Beauty of My Dreams” by Ronnie’s pa, isn’t as hoary as it sounds, debuting on a 1992 Del McCoury band record. The remaining five sit-in songs are Phish originals, with Douglas, McCoury, O’Brien and trumpeter Gary Gazaway adding session musician licks instead of seizing the spotlight. That’s not a knock, but a rather apropos approach to a show in Nashville, where everyone plays on everyone else’s records and all-star jam sessions go deep into the night on Music Row.

It makes for a really fun segment – thankfully, since its 52 minutes unexpectedly ends up occupying more than a third of the entire show. Douglas’ contribution to Wolfman’s may surface-resemble Steve Kimock’s heavy-handed slide guitar at the Warfield, but his dobro is so much more tasteful, restoring a relaxed back-porch saunter the song hasn’t had since Hoist. This version of Back on the Train catches the song in mid-transition between Trey’s foreboding solo arrangement and its new stock-funk form; here, like a lot of great country and bluegrass songs about railroads, it sounds like its subject. And Roggae absolutely sparkles, the seven musicians onstage ebbing and flowing around each other like bluegrass at its best.

With the hootenanny behind them, Phish could use set 2 to continue establishing the parameters of the 1999 sound. But the radar had other ideas, as a thunderstorm bore down on the Nashville area, leading to an abridged 53-minute set. On the opening Disease, Trey sounds like he’s trying to pack in a show’s worth of notes before the lightning arrives, and there’s no room to breathe until the very end – moments before it’s snuffed out by Caspian. With no time available for a TAB or Siket Disc crossover, the most notable innovation of the set comes in the ambient segment of YEM, where Trey briefly taps at his new keyboard.

So the second night of tour doesn’t offer any additional forecast on where Phish is going next, instead serving up an early guests-and-weather outlier. Apart from Jerry Douglas’ eventual appearance on the Farmhouse version of The Inlaw Josie Wales, tonight’s hour of electric bluegrass doesn’t signal a rootsier direction any more than the acoustic sets of fall 1998 did. Instead, an unusual night in Nashville provides a demonstration of Phish’s widening network of friends – and the shift in power dynamics when those musicians show up to play.