AUD-acity

Wednesday October 20th's performance by Phish at Utica, NY's AUD felt like a two year old simmer finally reaching full boil.  In a single night, the proverbial watched pot at last shifted phases in the humid halls of the "Handshake City's" Memorial Auditorium from back burner bubble to overflowing sonic elixir.

Since regrouping in 2009 after a self imposed five year hiatus, Phish have since dusted off their bag of jams with a mix of mostly successes, but had to date, fallen short of completely reascending the mountain of delicious grooves and seamless interplay which built their devoted following in the 1990's.  A headlining set at Bonnaroo, the first ever west coast festival, dubbed Festival 8, and a breezy New Year's Eve blowout in Miami left the audible evidence of a band building self-confidence and re-discovering the joy of playing music for its own sake once again.  Promising moments wafted among the amphitheaters and arenas of two summer's and fall's worth of shows like the pot smell through the parking lots, but the high of top-form playing has seemed to remain elusive.

A hesitancy to trust in their own, and one another's, improvisational ability left the band sounding contained and at times predictable.  Full band exploration and a willingness to leave song structure for the adventure of the journey, of which built Phish's legend,  has been largely reserved and relegated to the second set, with "Light", "Piper, and "Ghost" becoming go to destinations.  Unbounded jamming outside of this formula has been kept mostly in check, and while the band has become increasing tight in their playing, the spontaneous energy which unites band and audience in pioneering spirit has felt, at times, adrift.  Lead tour guide to the ether, Trey Anastasio, has struggled to contain his tone and capture his distinctive technique.

And just when fans have come to accept that this mixed bag of flickering quality might be the norm for the 3.0 era, Phish showed why they still deserve the mantle as this era's arbiter of genre shifting psychedelic revelry.

Phish Utica Event Poster - by Crosshair
Copyright Phish 

The Utica show opened with the bluesy smoothness of "My Soul", which quickly melded into crunchy licks and immediately charged the approximately 5,000 Phans in attendance with a palpable excitement.  Well executed versions of "Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan" and "Vultures" followed, but it wasn't until the funk stew of "Wolfman's Brother" that the potential of the night started to take shape.   A solid start promptly liquefies into a breakdown vocal jam, with Trey mimicking his guitar bends and twists with his voice to carbonating effect, joined by Page and Mike bouncing spontaneous sounds off Trey, and one another, with buoyant airiness.  Fishman flutters below but not behind, and lets the jam expand and contract while keeping the structure in tact.  The swamp funk eventually gives way to the rhythmic strumming of the Talking Head's "Cities",  where Trey asserts the "Genesee Facorty" is "a nice place to get some thinking done".  Before coming up for air, the band moves effortlessly through the composed structure of "Guyute", accelerating to a fuse blowing pace, culminating in an explosion of triumphant yelps and squeals, and ending with an eerie muffling of the closing lyrics.

"Guyute" teases continue to plink and plunk over the opening frame of "David Bowie" before the band attacks in full.  "Guyute" teases continue throughout "Bowie", joined by several "Wilson" teases.  At one point the crowd is chanting "Wilson!" under Trey reiterating the line "He's bouncing like a newborn elf" (from "Guyete"), before Trey steers the ship back into "David Bowie".

After scorching the end to "David Bowie" like they they haven't done too often, if at all in this era, "Wilson" gets a full but short treatment (and some more "Guyete" teases).  "McGrupp and the Watchful Horsemasters" and "Saw it Again" follow, adding to the from-a-previous-era feel of the show.  And just when it seems like that might close the first set Trey strides into "Run Like an Antelope", again dropping "Guyete" teases against the bouncing bass lines of Mike Gordon.

Even without the second set, which did contain its own share of highlights, including "Sand", "Birds of a Feather", and "Split Open and Melt" bracketing "Have Mercy" and "Piper", the first set offering was enough to acknowledge as the long awaited greeting from an old friend.  Within roughly 80 minutes of music, we find that the band we thought we knew, really is the band that's there.  The set list trickery and song blending combined with virtuosic playing and instigator hijinks's hasn't eluded themselves yet. 

The sweaty brows and smiling faces of those in attendance was the visual evidence that reaffirms the connection which brings this community together.  And maybe it's fitting that "The Handshake City" was the meeting place for this reintroduction to occur.  The outstretched hands of each and all reach out and once again clasp in unison with Trey, Mike, Page and Fish. 

"Hey, Phish - good to see you again."