Do You Like The Greatful Dead?

[AdironRider]

For saying Phish songs all sound alike? You guys sure are a protective bunch.

I'll give you they are better than Panic, but no more.

[AdironRider]

Ive seen Phish play Strawberry Letter 23, Rocky Top, Killing in the Name Of and O Holy Night. They played 13 nights at MSG and didn't repeat one song.

https://youtu.be/-ItwERSVTSM?t=297

I'm going to leave the notion of covers somehow proving they can come up with a sound that varies alone in and of itself, but having a large collection of songs doesn't mean they can't all sound the same.

I blame Trey's guitar sound. Dude plays everything exactly the same. You put that Rage cover on with no preface and there is no mistaking its Phish, I wonder why?

[redacted user]

I am paraphrasing what someone posted here a while back, but IMO, 50-100 years from now Grateful Dead songs will still be standards in the great American songbook, whereas 25 years from now only a few nerds will even remember Phish.

Totally different league of songwriting/craftsmanship.

True

[Buster Highmen]

I sure did at one point, but I don't listen to them much anymore.

My wife still loves them, she was on tour for most of the 80s ranging up and down the West Coast and as far East as Red Rocks. I'll play them for her.

When I was first waking up, I thought they were one of the most innovative bands around, especially Aoxomoxoa and Anthem of the Sun (and backside of Garcia solo, Eep Hour). Their sound changed radically in those first 3 records and then the whole American Beauty/Workingman's Dead thing was such a lurch return to acoustic folk, at least for their recorded work. The Live Dead records and Europe72 were turntable staples. Saw them first when Pigpen was in the hospital. I thought he really centered their sound, they seemed to be less grounded after his passing. Saw shows in Milwaukee and Dane County Colusium. loved it. Their Jonny B. Goode shook the stones of time.

Mars Hotel and Blues For Allah were also so different to my ear from the Live Dead series or Beauty/Workingman's. I really enjoyed them.

Then Shakedown Street came out and I hated that record. I might have the order wrong there, but for some reason, that one irritated me. Terrapin too.

Maybe it was the popularity, the overly obnoxious deadheads, the crystallization of the whole thing, the pseudo hippies who wanted to share all your stuff, maybe it was just me. But I hated that record. I still went to shows at the Hult in Eugene, Autzen Stadium shows, Portland Paramount and Seattle Paramount and Seattle Center.

By the 80's they had settled into a particular sound and I think AR klonked that a little too clumsily, but I didn't hear the variety I remember. Again, maybe it's just me.

The Dead will always be a part of my psyche, but sometimes it's good to move on.

[Self Jupiter]

I am paraphrasing what someone posted here a while back, but IMO, 50-100 years from now Grateful Dead songs will still be standards in the great American songbook, whereas 25 years from now only a few nerds will even remember Phish.
Totally different league of songwriting/craftsmanship.

But they put VT on the map and are lyrical geniuses. Plus the financial greatness. Back off!

I sure did at one point, but I don't listen to them much anymore..

Maybe it was the popularity, the overly obnoxious deadheads, the crystallization of the whole thing, the pseudo hippies who wanted to share all your stuff, maybe it was just me.

X2. I would add that the lengths to which they capitalized on farewell tours/shows bothered me as well, but they didn’t write the book on that move. None of that discounts their significance as an American band.

[Bobby Stainless]

I'm going to leave the notion of covers somehow proving they can come up with a sound that varies alone in and of itself, but having a large collection of songs doesn't mean they can't all sound the same.

I blame Trey's guitar sound. Dude plays everything exactly the same. You put that Rage cover on with no preface and there is no mistaking its Phish, I wonder why?

You just dont like Phish. Or probably Jam bands in general.

Plenty of Phish songs irritate me and then some are the complete other end of the spectrum. The irritating ones are called "pee songs".

I think Widespread all sounds the same and I've not seen Dead and Co. I dont like John Mayer.

Seen every other iteration of the Dead. Seen Phish closing in on 80-100 times probably. I stopped keeping count. Going to see a movie about Trey tonight actually.

[redacted user]

Dead fans trying to put down Phish is one of the more meaningless forms of pedantry I've come across. Proscribing them for not being serious is to miss the joke: they exist to create fun experiences for them & their phans. It would be inauthentic for them to try and recreate or repackage the zeitgeist of the late 60s, so they try to add some creative flair to an otherwise vapid & shallow musical landscape.

[Bobby Stainless]

[Pegleg]

Ive seen Phish play Strawberry Letter 23, Rocky Top, Killing in the Name Of and O Holy Night. They played 13 nights at MSG and didn't repeat one song.

https://youtu.be/-ItwERSVTSM?t=297

That has to be one of the worst covers of any song by any band ever. I appreciate some of what Phish does, but holy shit cover songs are not their strength.

[Parvo]

Followed the dead through college and for a few years afterwards. Not so much for the music, but wanted a hot hippie chick which at the time seemed like a pipe dream since I look like a mormon insurance agent. But met one, dated, married and divorced the hippie girl. Always found the tapers beyond annoying. Still like to have dead station playing in the background, and if they play Jackson as rumored then I'm going and yelling "Help Slip Frank!!!"

[rideit]

Full disclosure.
I have known John Fishman since 1986, I went to shows with his parents. (My sister is really good friends with him, and they live a mile from my parents in Syracuse)
Used to have tour passes, and I would leave during the music...
Never quite got ‘emotional’ while listening to any Phish song, whereas that happened regularly with the Dead.
Oh, well, rock on, kids!

[I've seen black diamonds!]

Never quite got ‘emotional’ while listening to any Phish song, whereas that happened regularly with the Dead.

This. I'm not a huge Dead fan but they have their have their soulful moments. I've become patient with their music over their years because of those moments when they dig deep and get it just right.

Phish? No soul.

[k2skier112]

No. A girlfriend years ago dragged me to a show. If you're trippin' balls on acid I suppose it might sound ok. Out of synch and tune, just awful.

[wyeaster]

doesn't kanye love phish?

[Harry]

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[irul&ublo]

They have some pretty catchy tunes. My wife loves them. I can definitely tolerate them much more than that Phish crap she listens to.

Shut The Fuck Up You Stinky Fucking Hippie(STFUYSFH)

[PhishingME]

To understand Phish you need to see them live, and have an open mind. Not the same songwriting prowess as Garcia/Hunter but when they're in the groove its magical.

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[schwerty]

Full disclosure.
I have known John Fishman since 1986, I went to shows with his parents. (My sister is really good friends with him, and they live a mile from my parents in Syracuse)
Used to have tour passes, and I would leave during the music...
Never quite got ‘emotional’ while listening to any Phish song, whereas that happened regularly with the Dead.
Oh, well, rock on, kids!

A few weeks after Garcia died I hit Phish tour hard. There have been more than a handful of emotional moments for me with Phish. Different emotions tho. Not in a good or bad way just different. Didn’t give em so much of a listen from ‘98-2015. Now....back on the train in force. Fun shit! Never gonna compare to the Dead feeling for me though.

Phish is on fire. See em!

[rideit]

I think if they came close enough I would give them a try again, I haven’t seen them in 20 years.
Wish JRAD would come play the Pink Garter!

[DaveTV]

[riser4]

Bummed is what you are
When you go out to your car
And its been towed

[RockChalk]

wrong forum.

[Bobby Stainless]

Countdown to Dicks. Ill be at the Piper Inn pre show eating Chinese food and drinking beer. Same for post show.

[Foggy_Goggles]

I used to water Trey's pot plants but I still don't like Phish. Well I used to kinda like Phish when they played 3 minute songs in bars. More than anything, hate the scene, really any scene. And the Phishead Scene is the Deadhead Scene 2.0.

If you don't like there is always a superior vibe thrown your way that you don't get it. If it is a religious experience to you, that's totally cool. But to the rest of us, it is just a song, a band, a concert etc.

[Danno]

I used to water Trey's pot plants but I still don't like Phish. Well I used to kinda like Phish when they played 3 minute songs in bars. More than anything, hate the scene, really any scene. And the Phishead Scene is the Deadhead Scene 2.0.

If you don't like there is always a superior vibe thrown your way that you don't get it. If it is a religious experience to you, that's totally cool. But to the rest of us, it is just a song, a band, a concert etc.

Yep.

I was a hardcore deadhead in the 80s, but retired from the Dead in 1990 because of the scene, and the air of superiority that (some) people in the scene demonstrated to people not in the scene. Like the hippie spare-changing outside a 7-11 (and sometimes shoplifting inside the 7-11) believing and acting like he is more enlightened than the cashier working inside the 7-11.

I saw maybe a dozen Phish shows from 1989-1992, but quit them when I noticed that the scene was becoming the same.