Beg or Borrow

8/6/98, Atlanta, GA, Lakewood Amphitheatre

SET 1: The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > Suzy Greenberg, Roses Are Free, Roggae, Beauty of My Dreams, Vultures, Train Song, Billy Breathes, Fluffhead, The Moma Dance, Hold Your Head Up > Cracklin' Rosie > Hold Your Head Up, My Soul

SET 2: Birds of a Feather, Wolfman's Brother > Talk, NICU > Prince Caspian > The Mango Song > Down with Disease

ENCORE: Runnin' with the Devil, You Enjoy Myself

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Why does this show feel so familiar? Maybe it’s the Oh Kee Pa > Suzy opener, a pairing that is as classic Phish as it gets, even if Suzy has recently grown scarce. Maybe it’s the Train Song/Billy Breathes combo, which echoes two legendary shows (11/22/97 and 4/3/98); or the recurrent BOAF/Wolfman’s double from 4/2 and 6/30. Maybe it’s hearing Moma Dance for the second time in two shows and the 12th time this summer. Or the second Fish feature in a row, this time bringing back his Neil Diamond tribute and its traditional cymbals. Or the Wolfman’s jam, which tries to retrace the steps of the 8/3 Gumbo before eventually finding its own unique pointillist approach.

This deep into a tour, it’s natural for some patterns to emerge. But I’ll tell you one foolproof way to save a show from feeling a rerun, and that’s to break out some FREAKIN’ HALEN for the encore. The debut and sole performance of the 1978 pop-metal classic was another shocker as Phish upped the ante on their jukebox summer; not a long-awaited classic like Ramble On or a deep cut like Rhinoceros, but a song that seems entirely outside of their influence genome.

Then again, this is a band that used to look like this – you know those dudes were listening to classic VH on the regular. You can tell they’re having a blast playing it; barely stifling laughter, but out of love not mockery. It is incredibly funny to make Mike Gordon play Michael Anthony’s Neanderthal bassline, or to hear 90s Trey attempt to hit David Lee Roth notes, or to try to place who’s doing the falsetto yelps in the background. It doesn’t have the bratty swagger of the original – those Vermont boys are just too polite – but Trey does a pretty good Eddie imitation (both here and in YEM), and the backing vocals are not too shabby, almost Ted Templeman smooth.

Beyond being a fun one-off, Runnin’ with the Devil also further expands the parameter space of potential Phish covers. For the bulk of their history, Phish has been most drawn to late 60s/early 70s classic rock, the formative music of their youth and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser from bars to arenas. But the members of Phish were grade school kids when this music first came out; their teenage-to-twenties sweet spot of impressionable music taste was largely spent in the 80s. And the members all remain voracious listeners to this day of music both contemporary and before their time; I still get a little thrill out of Trey name-dropping Panda Bear during an interview or hearing Fish go freeform radio on The Errant Path.

But Summer 98 is the first time they really allowed themselves to sketch out that full universe of influence across time and genre. Leaving aside new classic rock material like Albuquerque or Ramble On, so far we’ve gotten mid-90s gangsta rap, 70s quiet storm, 60s Texas soul, 80s rockabilly (by way of 90s bluegrass), 90s alternative rock, 30s Broadway crooning, and now a late-70s hard rock track that sparked the entire 80s hair metal scene. In the final week of summer, we’ll get 90s rap-punk, 70s reggae, 80s new wave, and a really long song from the late 70s by some hippie jamband. That’s an eclectic playlist!

Because most of these songs only made one or two appearances, it’s easy to write them off as novelties or, even more cynically, easy sing-along crowd-pleasers. I disagree – for one, they clearly rehearsed the hell out of these selections, unlike later ‘98 goofs like Smells Like Teen Spirit or Tubthumping. And by living inside these songs’ skin, both in the practice room and onstage, the sounds leaked over to their own material. We talked the other day about Rhinoceros fitting in with the new, softer originals, but you can also hear Runnin’ with the Devil in some of the finger-tapping displays of this summer’s Wilsons, the scratchy guitars and turntables of Sabotage in Page’s clavinet, or the roadhouse swing of Joe Tex or Steve Earle in the post-funk peaks of jams like the Columbus Cities.

Phish has always been a band that feeds off their covers instead of performing mere mimicry; whenever they occasionally attempt a run of all-original setlists, it always sounds like they’re playing with one hand tied behind their back. Summer 98 doesn’t have that problem; instead it has a joyful freedom of sticking their neck out and diving deep into their record collection almost nightly. That won’t really happen again until the Baker’s Dozen 19 years later, and that’s a shame; it’s to everyone’s benefit when Phish keeps the jukebox fresh.