What Comes After The Funk
6/24/97, Strasbourg, FRA, La Laiterie
SET 1: Split Open and Melt, Beauty of My Dreams, Dogs Stole Things, Vultures, Guelah Papyrus, Runaway Jim -> Gypsy Queen -> Runaway Jim, Talk, Free, Prince Caspian > Rocky Top
SET 2: Wolfman's Brother > Reba, NICU, Twist > Piper, Wading in the Velvet Sea, Ghost
ENCORE: Loving Cup
By the second week of the European tour, it’s clear that Phish had a new arrow in its quiver and they weren’t afraid to use it. Every night so far has included some semblance of funk jam, either into or out of Ghost or tucked into older songs such as Chalk Dust, Wolfman’s and Free. I’m not sure if word had filtered back to stateside fans yet, but the backpackers on tour must have noticed that Phish was increasingly enamored with the genre and its new, powerful influence on the band’s improvisational style.
This “new era” of Phish doing their best impression of The Meters night in and night out raises a historical question: was cowfunk the ultimate destination of their makeover, or merely part of the journey? The Cliffs Notes version of what happened in 1997 is that Phish got heavy into funk and, poof, it led to one of their best years. But there’s a lot more nuance to the “1997 sound,” and their sustained heights through the rest of the decade. Only a handful of shows into the cowfunk era, the featured jams tonight already sound like Phish refusing to settle, already seeking out what new doors their funk experiments unlock.
It makes sense that Phish wouldn’t settle into *just* becoming a funk band. From the beginning, they’ve been all about dynamics: the balance between composed complexity and open improv, extremities of soft/loud contrast, and genres clashing and recombining in unexpected juxtaposition. Even if funk jamming is the favorite new toy — and later in the year, some fans will accuse them of pulling it from the toybox too often — the band is not content with mere mimicry, and wants to immediately throw their new ingredient into different contexts to see how it changes the flavor.
No surprise that these “yes, and…” moments originate in Wolfman’s Brother, where the original funk breakthrough first occurred back on March 1st. Tonight’s version gets right down to wah-and-clav business; they don’t need to stumble into it any more, it’s just what the Wolfman’s jam does now. For the next five minutes, it’s dictionary-definition cowfunk, each member finding their cog role in the collective pocket and daring the crowd and 25-years-later listeners to sit still.
Yet when Trey gets tired of his harmonizer pedal in the 10th minute and drops a quietly-shrieking loop, prompting Mike and Fish to introduce a little “White Rabbit” march, the whole tone changes. Few would define the last third of this Wolfman’s as funk, especially as Trey gets heavier and heavier, eventually chugging away on Sabbath-y power chords. From party vibes to Luciferian darkness to pretty, almost-silent landing in the space of a few minutes — that’s the kind of stylistic rollercoaster Phish craves, and funk has just added a new track feature to thrill its riders.
Last time around, I noted that Ghost had already found its Funk Freakout > Big Rock Peak roadmap, and this very next version takes that format up another notch. In truth, this Ghost spends only a few minutes in straight funk territory after the composed section ends, before plugging straight into the socket with a riff suggestive of the “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” outro. It also hints at “Groove is in the Heart” before stretching further for an extended Band of Gypsys peak, complete with Fishman cooing like Buddy Miles from the drumset.
Note that all of these references draw deeply upon funk (one song even features Bootsy Collins), but combine it with other genre elements. Phish recognizes that they’re wearing a costume — ”James Brown on his worst night” — and has clearly fallen in love with how funk facilitates the collective, textured playing they were striving for. But locking them into a new kind of hivemind also inspires fresh angles on what they already have conquered; the Ghost peak has the intensity of late 1995, but sounds brand new because they arrived via a less worn route. Funk is not the endpoint, it’s a launchpad, and they’re just starting to see the navigational possibilities it enables.