Open Mic
Trey Anastasio Solo Acoustic Sets, May 1999
MOST PLAYED SONGS: Farmhouse (11), Back on the Train (11), Snowflakes in the Sand (9), Mountains in the Mist (8), Kissed By Mist (8), Billy Breathes (8, on piano!), The Inlaw Josie Wales/Minestrone/Purple Hugh (7), Brian and Robert (6), Wading in the Velvet Sea (6), Name (6)
Phish’s acoustic experiments of Fall 1998 seemed to die a quick death. After the all-acoustic Bridge School Benefit sets and a couple brief promotional appearances, the band didn’t fully unplug again until the first night of the New Year’s run, then retired the format for 11 years (plus another 15 and counting). Over the course of fall tour, Trey would briefly switch to acoustic guitar for songs such as Driver and Sleep, but what started as nightly occurrences quickly became occasional as the month built in intensity.
Yet the acoustic set didn’t die, it just changed workplaces. When Trey announced his first solo jaunt, there was much speculation over whether he would play Phish songs or not. And the answer turned out to be “sort of” – music from his day job would indeed appear, but in the novel context of a nightly solo acoustic set. After a test run at Higher Ground, Trey ended up alone at the microphone for 45-60 minutes each night, providing his own opening act appetizer to the TAB power trio main course.
As far as I can tell, Trey had simply never done this before, unless there are some early open-mic nights missed in the phish.net setlist archives. Trey’s side projects, to this point, found him submerging his ego even deeper into a musical collective – he yielded bandleader duties to Jamie Masefield in Jazz Mandolin Project and Bad Hat, and was just one of many prominent voices in his own Surrender to the Air project. Even with Phish, where he has always been the undisputed leader, he’s as inconspicuous about it as possible, best symbolized by the classic four-across stage arrangement.
But the inaugural TAB tour was about Trey stepping front and center and trying on some new roles. And for the acoustic sets, that role was one that’s usually routine for the figurehead of a successful rock band, but one that nevertheless feels awkward and alien in the context of Phish. Here, for the first time, was Trey as singer-songwriter.
On paper, it’s weird that this would be weird: after all, Trey is the guy that sings and writes the vast majority of songs for Phish. But the concept of a “singer-songwriter” is almost antithetical to what makes Phish great. Part of that is the nature of the songs in Phish’s core catalog, which often feel composed in the classical/prog sense instead of strummed into being by a folk troubadour. But it also relates to the role of “songs” themselves in Phish’s performances, where they are often the starting point instead of the end goal. Most fans want to hear Tweezer because of what comes after the song part, not for the song itself. Suffice to say, that’s not how it is for most musical artists.
However, that view is definitely a fan’s perspective – maybe even my own particular subset of fans – and almost certainly not shared by Trey himself. Over the course of the 90s, you can hear Trey taking more pride in focused songcraft, writing fewer formally experimental pieces or simple ditties intended mainly as launchpads for improvisation and more songs with traditionally shaped verses and choruses you can sing around a campfire. That transition was already happening as far back as Billy Breathes, but it’s really rolling by 1999, perhaps fertilized most recently by performances with Neil Young and a deep dive into the Garcia/Hunter songbook.
The smaller venues of TAB’s 1999 tour afforded Trey the opportunity to underline that shift. In addition to debuting a batch of folksy material, he can also strip down well-known Phish songs to their most basic arrangement. It’s a chance to highlight how his songwriting approach has evolved as well as to cast the old songs in a new light – not just familiar melodies to occupy our time until the jams, but compositions that can stand their own ground.
The setlists of May ‘99 are dominated by the new stuff, with 5 of the 7 most played songs in the acoustic sets making their maiden voyage. And most of these songs definitely conform to a type: simple structures, pastoral imagery, titles with “in the” or “on the” in the middle*. Some (Mountains in the Mist, Snowflakes in the Sand, Kissed By Mist) feel a bit too much like Trey consciously squeezing himself into a rootsy folk singer archetype; there’s even a political/topical song in Kissed By Mist, dedicated each night it’s played to tree-dwelling ecological activist Julia Butterfly Hill.
Genre cosplay is not new to Trey and Phish, of course. But the band has always had a prankster’s eye for appropriating other sounds – making a country song about a four-track or a gospel song about the assassination of Caesar. Even Farmhouse – one of only two “old” songs to join the fresh material in high rotation – has a bit of quirkiness about it, starting off by directly quoting the note left for Trey and Tom at their songwriting getaway before giving in to the awe of nature stuff. By comparison, this half of the new songs is a little too on the nose and undercooked; of the three listed above, I like Mountains in the Mist the best, but the extremely literal Sphere presentation of the song was indicative of how straightforward it is.
This time through the tour, I was more drawn to Name, a mostly-forgotten song squarely in the spirit of a typical Phish genre satire that persists as a decent tune after the NPR laugher fades out. Back on the Train, is also more nuanced in its infancy than I remember, with a sinister riff and a hushed delivery that were eventually scrubbed away for its final full-band form as generic Phish funk. And I adore The Inlaw Josie Wales** which provides a glimpse of an American Primitive side of Trey we don’t see often.
In fact, I would’ve liked to hear more in that Fahey/Basho/Bull vein from him in these shows, particularly as a way to improvise solo within more established songs. But Trey takes another tack when he pulls from the Phish catalog, one that he’s stuck with to this day and that I’m much less enthusiastic about. Night one in Ann Arbor sets the precedent with Possum and Bouncin’, which both provided opportunities for the audience (me included) to fill in the missing vocal parts. But this gimmick also encouraged Trey’s worst crowd-pleasing impulses, and most of the acoustic Phish choices for the rest of the tour would encourage these sing-alongs instead of more creative or unanticipated rearrangements.
More interesting are the little mini-suites that pop up in Chicago and Asheville, neat PYITE > Jim and Roggae > TMWSIY pairings that feel like Trey going wherever his wandering mind takes him. It’s an advantage of playing solo instead of in an ensemble, but one that is used far too sparingly. I also really enjoy the performances of Billy Breathes, not just for the novelty effect of Trey playing piano but because the instrument switch isolates the song’s fascinating harmonics, highlighting subtleties that go unheard in a full-band arrangement and arena acoustics.
It’s also charming to hear Trey goof up his first attempt as a pianist in Madison, pausing to relate a funny anecdote about Neil Young’s advice for playing solo (“people can’t really pay attention to someone sitting in one spot for more than about four songs”). Those little monologues get more and more frequent over the course of the tour, the set drifting from MTV Unplugged to VH1 Storytellers, making up for years of banter-light Phish shows.
That chattiness is another divisive aspect of the Trey acoustic live experience that survives to this day, but it’s possibly the place where the format works best for him. Playing old Phish songs solo means sacrificing a great deal of their complexity, and writing songs specifically for the format doesn’t always use Trey’s talents to their fullest. But the man’s a born storyteller, and it’s these moments where the acoustic format suits him best, providing an intimacy that a Phish show, by 1999, never could again.
Tomorrow: the electric sets.
* - Trey even jokes about these recurring themes in DC, pointing out that there’s a “trilogy of duologies” in songs about mist, bugs, and tubes.
** - Official Phishcrit Pal Jesse Jarnow is too nice to complain about this, but I think it’s BULLSHIT that Trey didn’t make Minestrone the permanent name. I protest!