I was pretty psyched to see this month’s column on Jambands.com by zzyzx, the famous Phish mathematician known for his Phish Stats page and his sharp opinion of all things jamband. He’s still been around writing but I haven’t really been paying attention lately, but he just published his thoughts on the return of Phish.
A few days ago when the rumor first surfaced, I expressed some distance. Yes, I’d like to see Phish back but I don’t know if I’d jump right back in again. I’ve kind of moved on a little. Heh, yeah right. I’ve already done the run around the room screaming thing, followed by putting in a request seconds after discovering the link, followed by about 30 minutes of sheer stress over whether the order will be fulfilled. I sure am over it all right!
155 days from today Phish will be playing. After spending the last week focusing on an economic collapse, I’ll now be thinking about that for a while. We may be headed straight into winter but the world just became a much brighter place.
…and hey, if anyone has a lead on extras, my email at the top of this column…
That was about exactly how my reaction seemed to go down. If you’re interested in other reactions, Hidden Track just posted their roundup of some of the best articles written this week on the reunion. I’m not surprised at all that the major news outlets covered it; the band’s PR got increasingly mainstream in the later years of the band. I think their tour back will get all sorts of major media coverage — the major music outlets will need to cover it to compete in the land of page views and breaking news (this is why I predict Pitchfork will eventually jump on the bandwagon despite having been obviously morally opposed to anything jamband) — and I think overall it’ll be a good thing for the band if they can figure out how to channel it all positively. Too many stories are written about how the fans are this despised underbelly of society that seems ripe for judgment by more mainstream-ish characters, like the mathematicians, bankers and accountants (cough) of the world. We’re going to change all that this time around.
