Song of the Day 8/15: Phish, “You Enjoy Myself”

The pandemic has killed off Dover’s Firefly music festival, but this year The Woodlands found a replacement: Phish’s four-day Mondegreen festival. There’s a big difference, though. Where Firefly hosted dozens of bands who drew a broader spectrum of fans, Phish is the only band playing Mondegreen – two shows each night – so much of the audience of 45,000 will be hardcore Phishheads.

The band, formed by four Vermont college students in 1983, gets compared to the Grateful Dead because it plays 20-minute jams and has a cultish, frequently drug-enhanced fan base that follows it around on tour. Musically, a closer fit might be Frank Zappa and the Mothers, who played a similar mix of rock, jazz, prog and funk in jokey concerts. But where Zappa got his laughs through cynical ribaldry, Phish’s humor is in the absurdist stoner vein. You can get a taste just by reading the band’s general information page for Mondegreen, where real information is sprinkled with lines like “The festival is all ages, except for age 53.”

The band has never had a hit single, and while some of their albums have made the top 10, even the band members say their studio work isn’t really the point. They’ve only sold about 7 million albums, because like the Dead they allow fans to freely circulate concert tapes. But they’ve also grossed $600 million in ticket sales over their history.

A recent Rolling Stone interviewer asked lead singer, guitarist and main songwriter Trey Anastasio what song he would like to end the band’s career with. He chose one of their earliest songs, “You Enjoy Myself,” a composition that shows their range and their roots in experimental and prog rock. Here’s a live version that, typically, segues into another song and ends 40 minutes later.

If you miss the shows, don’t worry. Those tapers will probably post them by the end of each night.