Problematic Gambling

9/29/00, Las Vegas, NV, Thomas & Mack Center

SET 1: Carini, Rift, Frankenstein, Mellow Mood, Wilson > Spock’s Brain > Bathtub Gin > Character Zero

SET 2: Dinner and a Movie, The Moma Dance > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Fluffhead > Meatstick > Walk This Way, Rapper’s Delight, You Shook Me All Night Long

ENCORE: We’re an American Band

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Oh boy.

I’ve dreaded covering this one since the very start of this project, but in a way, it’s the perfect rotted cherry on top of Fall 2000 – a more appropriate dark cliffhanger for the hiatus and the rest of the 2000s than any of the six shows that follow. This tour has been a lot of things – tired, formulaic, lacking in inspiration – but it’s not until tonight that it crosses the line into being offensive, on several levels.

While Kid Rock in 2000 wasn’t yet the reprehensible figure he is today, it didn’t take Nostradamus to see where his career and political trajectory was headed, and it’s not like there was Kanye-esque musical genius covering it up for a while. Inviting Bob Ritchie up on Phish’s stage at all, never mind for the full 4th quarter of a high-profile date, is a powerful indicator of the band’s broken instincts at the time, the kind of terrible judgment – made in the name of “fun times” – they wouldn’t have tripped over on their measured rise to success. And in collaborating for one night, there’s no surprising redemption to be found, it’s merely Rock dragging Phish down to his scummy level.

There are dark clouds forming over this show long before the right-wing rapper comes out, picking up where they left off last time in Vegas – Trey’s previous mysterious mid-jam walkoff. Opening a Vegas run with Carini is certainly a signal of intent, both in its hard-rock stomp and its malevolent lyrics, and they double down on the former two songs later with an early Frankenstein. When they play Mellow Mood next, it almost sounds like mockery, the last two words you would use to describe a weekend in Sin City. Sure enough, they sprint through it to get to Wilson, where Trey’s already doing the guitar-wavey thing five songs into the show.

Amidst this aggro mood, it’s an absolutely bonkers time to bring back the forgotten Spock’s Brain after nearly 400 shows, but maybe they had swung by Star Trek: The Experience earlier in the day. Navigating the bustout’s twist and turns lowers the heat for Gin, which at least starts the jam with some restraint before slowly building back up to casino-floor overstimulation. By the time they hit Zero, they’re back in loud party mode – the main focus of a night with two 60-minute sets. It’s not that I’m fully against a high-energy show, even though they’re not my favorites. I’ve just spent enough time in Vegas to know that you’ve gotta pace yourself.

After another weird bustout with appropriately sinister energy, the rest of set two just feels like distracted time-wasting until Phish can bring their new buddy out. Even 2001 becomes mere disco-jazz vamping while the light show does the heavy lifting – a very Vegas formula, come to think of it. The final Fluffhead until Hampton 2009 just adds to the weird stats of this show, making it even harder for all of us to forget it ever happened.

And then, aptly introduced at the end of Phish’s song about their dongs, it’s time for (in the most depressed voice possible) Kiiiiiiiiiiid. Playing devil’s advocate, one could argue that Kid Rock is mining the same postmodern classic rock vein as Phish, giving the crossover some small shred of a justification for happening. Their chosen setlist backs that up, with three of the songs being FM radio staples that Phish can play with their eyes closed while Rock yells half-remembered lyrics. There’s always a certain charm to Phish playing lunkhead rock, in no small part due to the fact that they are asexual dorks play-acting and lovingly teasing the swagger of bands like AC/DC or Aerosmith. But Kid Rock doesn’t have that winky subtext, and as braindead songs like “All Summer Long” would later demonstrate, his version of playing with rock history is just making it dumber and swearing more.

“I’m jamming with Phish because I like FUCKING MUSIC!” he says. OK, settle down.

The silver lining could have been Rapper’s Delight, which at least gives Phish a chance to do a Chic jam for a few minutes. But it’s also the song that shows how commiserating with a dummy stains everyone. Future Bernie Sanders supporter Fishman’s attempt at freestyle rapping is both abysmal and insulting; I know the “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” cover has its own elements of cringe, but at least he took the time to write down the lyrics of that one. He tops it off with a horrible guitar solo and “funny stage antics from Fish, who danced on his knees like Kid’s sidekick Joe C.” Deep sigh.

It all culminates in a Grand Funk cover where Kid Rock references banging his model/actress girlfriend and Mandalay Bay strippers, then changes the chorus to “we’re coming to your town/we’ll pull your panties down.” Ugh! It’s a million miles away – straight down – from the Americana absurdity of putting Primus, yodelers, a gaggle of Elvis impersonators, and Malachi from Children of the Corn onstage just four years prior. The post-show music is “What’s Going On?”...I think the soundboard guys might have mirrored my disgust.

But maybe the most humbling thing is that the crowd absolutely slops it up. I can’t honestly say I would’ve reacted any better, because I would have been a 21-year-old in Las Vegas on a Friday night. But like a lot of things that happen in Vegas, what feels good at the time feels real bad to look back on. A little over a year earlier, Phish had managed to avoid the stench of Woodstock ‘99; Trey gave a whole big speech about it. Fourteen months later, they invited one of the main villains of that festival and all the toxicity it represented up on stage with them. It was a crystal-clear sign that Phish’s creative compass was broken, and that a break was the right move for everybody.