 "Photo: Ed HIlle MCT Campus")
When I heard that Phish was releasing a 3D concert of their eighth festival, I was a little skeptical. Many 3D concert films have featured pop staples like U2, the Jonas Brothers, and Hannah Montana. I wondered how Phish would translate such a unique concert experience into a film but was pleasantly surprised.
The advanced screening on April 20 included a handful of venues in Southern California. Fans who attended the L.A. screening remarked that the film was amazing and almost like being at the festival. Many fans treated the screening like another concert, arriving in costumes and starting glow-stick wars inside the theater.
Phish is a four-piece jam band with all four members on vocals: Trey Anastasio plays guitar, bass and drums; Mike Gordon plays bass and guitar; Page McConnell plays keyboard, organ and grand piano, and Jon Fishman plays drums and vacuum.
Festival 8 was a three-day music event held at the Empire Polo Fields in Indio. Phish, the only band performing, played a total of eight sets in three days including a full acoustic set and a complete cover set of the Rolling Stone’s album Exile on Main Street. Phish fan Guy James called it “a great three days spent without any regards to the pangs of society.”
The film is laid out as a typical Phish concert. The first set highlights songs of the first and third nights of the festival. The second set offers a few songs from their Crack of Noon acoustic set on the third day, most notably The Curtain With, the last song the band played at their break-up festival in 2004. The last and final set of the movie features songs from their Halloween costume set and closes with Suzy Greenberg. The film ends with an encore performance of Tweezer Reprise in which Trey even addresses the theater as the concert crowd and thanks them for their applause.
I found myself surprised at how well the film worked. Besides the noticeable wardrobe changes, except for the drummer who wears the same muumuu throughout the film, the songs fool viewers into thinking they are watching one seamless concert.
During Suzy Greenberg a moviegoer can see and feel the connection between band members and sense the song’s epic peak and high energy, a feeling absent when listening to the recording.
The film gives fans the chance to relive their festival experience or see what it was like if they missed it.
Phish kicks off their summer tour in Chicago on June 11 with their only West Coast stop in Berkeley in August.
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