Phish
Colorado ‘88
JEMP
 Picking up four days and one sleepless cross-country drive following the drunken antics at the end of Junta, Colorado ‘88 finds our heroes—Phish, as it were—in a strange, new place. The quartet, surely dreaming about their first tour for some time, do everything they can to grab their audiences’ attention. One night, they unfurl a swath of Trey Anastasio’s then-new Gamehendge rock opera. Later, they push their drummer to the front of a stage in a housedress with a trombone he doesn’t know how to play while they sing surrealist doowop behind him (“I Didn’t Know”). There are Jewish hymns (“Avenu Malkenu”), Talking Heads covers split with totally bizarre instrumentals (“Cities > Dave’s Energy Guide > Cities”), and atonal swing charts (“Flat Fee”).
Hell, when the drummer doesn’t show up on the second day (“Start to shit your pants as you realize the sun’s going down! Decide it’s time for you too to eat a hit of acid!” Anastasio explains during an effin’ hilarious “Run Like an Antelope”), they just shove the guitarist behind the drums and play jazz. The resultant version of Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage”—the only known Phish rendition—is quite good. The songs, well beyond embryonic, are still wet with birth (dig the platonic “Harpua,” brah). With their trickbag full and the venues seemingly empty, Phish are as hungry as they ever were. The result—laced with the Beatlesy good-natured banter of a band basically living together, and remastered from cassette with fat bass—is the stuff of myth and vast fun.
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