Import Tax

7/21/97, Virginia Beach, VA, Virginia Beach Amphitheater

SET 1: Ghost > Dogs Stole Things > Piper, Dirt, Ginseng Sullivan > Bathtub Gin > Character Zero

SET 2: Wolfman's Brother -> Magilla > David Bowie, Wading in the Velvet Sea, Theme From the Bottom -> Jam > Funky Bitch, Slave to the Traffic Light

ENCORE: Loving Cup

Listen on phish.in

The cliffhanger for the first half of this season was simple: could Phish translate what they found in Europe to their home turf? With 25 years of hindsight, we know the answer is…yes, emphatically yes. But did the majestic arrival of the New Phish happen right away? Again, thanks to this U.S.-tour-opening show receiving the honor of a Dinner and a Movie broadcast early in the pandemic, we know the answer is…also yes. But bear with me, folks, the rest of this year is pretty well-documented.

Whether you’re listening in 1997 or 2022, what’s immediately clear is that Phish could not wait to play Show & Tell with what they learned abroad. The show makes a bold statement by opening with Ghost, which by the end of the European run was the band’s new favorite toy (replacing early leader Limb By Limb). Phish follows up Ghost with three more songs nobody but the most well-connected tape traders would’ve heard yet, making most fans wait a full half hour before hearing their first familiar tune. It’s an enthusiasm that overrules considerations of show flow; Ghost > Dog Stole Things might just barely work, but early evening Pipers and Dirts are a more questionable choice.

The Ghost – “That funky thing that went into the long jam,” as Trey explains later – is an interesting case study on this tenuous balance between excitement and execution. Clearly, Phish would have loved to replicate the fantastic show-opening Ghost from 7/1 in Amsterdam, setting the tone for the entire next month of shows. But the energy level of the Virginia Beach Amphitheater (capacity 20,000) for the first full-size American Phish show in nearly seven months is decidedly different from the 1500-cap Paradiso. As such, the Ghost leaves the gates too hot, a misstep given the importance of slower tempos to the European highlights, and its jam oscillates back and forth between cowfunk and more traditional Phish improv. The result is a slightly early bailout into Dogs Stole Things; 16 minutes is nothing to sneeze at, but Europe promised more. 

The funk strum comes to America.

It’s not until Gin that the band really settles in and sends out a clear message that things will be different this summer. About 12 minutes in, they hit their cowfunk stride, and while it’s still a little “up” and less gooey than advised, it’s a lightning bolt for any fans who hadn’t heard the recent tapes. There’s stop-start jamming, Fish’s crappy James Brown impression, Page’s new synth tones, Mike wilding out as the lead instrument, and Trey giddily introducing the new songs while the jam still churns along, modifying his usual setbreak advice to “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, or you might end up on the back of the worm…” It’s one thing for a dance party to break out in a fresh new song, an even louder wake-up call when it happens in a treasured old chestnut. 

After that mission statement, the second set paints a more confusing picture. Wolfman’s is the other obvious choice to get the home audience used to the new funk jam stylings, but it’s also interrupted early by a surprise Magilla, closing its shortest show gap without any Country Horns present. Instead, the second half draws upon the spaced-out weirdness of the Europe tour, first in a looooong Bowie intro and then when LeRoi Moore enters the picture post-Theme and inspires a wild competition of instrumental multi-tasking. Only the video could do it true justice; its premiere was a suitably deranged accompaniment to early COVID cabin fever.

Screengrab from Live for Live Music.

I have absolutely no quarrel with Phish playing the weirdest fucking music on Earth in America’s largest venues. But I think it speaks to just the slightest bit of hesitancy for Phish in the Summer of 1997, a sense that they know where their next phase lies – and they even briefly occupied it in Europe – but they’re not quite prepared yet to dive in the deep end back at home. 

The fact that playing a jam where everyone’s playing multiple instruments at once is their “safe” fallback is hilarious, but it’s a theme I think we’ll brush up against repeatedly over this next month: resorting to classically Phishy hijinks whenever they feel like the transformation is happening too fast, either for themselves or their audience. There’s a reason that Phish fans talk with reverence about Fall 97 and not 1997 as a whole, and I suspect this occasionally tentative nature of summer, as compared to the merciless approach of fall, is what separates the seasons.

Excited to spend some time with this ticket design.