Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Local Review: Phish @ nTelos Pavilion
Words Jesse Scaccia
Photos Sam Shinault
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 at 10:44 am
If you find life an easy thing live, please take two steps forward.
The rest of you may go.
Those still standing here, I’m sorry. You will now be shot.
***
Last night I came home from the Phish show to find that the majority of my living room had been evacuated. Gone were the couch and the lounge chair, the set of bookshelves, and the bench with all the ugly silver pillows.
I wasn’t robbed. Hannah’s moving her stuff out, so you’ll have to excuse me if this review is less music-focused than it should be. We’ve been broken up for a little while, but she’s just getting around to the actual moving of things. I thought all this was happening in two weeks, at the end of the month. I guess I got the dates wrong. It happens.
Right now she’s in the other room finishing up the job. I am faced with a series of choices that generally fall into either the categories of healthy or destructive. I’m listening to music and writing about it all. I’m doing my best.
Everything happens for a reason is an aphorism that becomes true the instant you start believing in it. I also believe that people place unnecessarily confining limits on their perception of the extent of their free will.
Those two sentences, to me, encompass most of what amounts to happiness: If you are the willful director of your life, and if you allow yourself to find meaning in your failures, letdowns, and transgressions, you will probably be happy.
With that said… If doing all that life thing is easy for you… Well, we don’t have to shoot you. But we’re at least sending your happy asses to the Moon. Go on, smiley. Scat. The ease of your happiness is, to me, an impossible knowledge, like this super-destructive axiom that erodes the credibility of all the other axioms. Because if we’re not all struggling here, fuck, I just don’t know what any of us are doing here.
Smiles.
Which–finally–brings me to Phish. See, everyone at the show last night was smiling. A lot. Beaming, even. I’ve got a feeling that those people are not of the Undead-Always-Happy People Clan. I think they’re a bunch of regular old dregs that have consciously decided to make choices that make them happy.
They choose to dance. They choose to like music that’s kind of silly. They choose to be nice to strangers. They bring their babies to concerts and have the babies wear giant blue earphones to protect their tender infant eardrums. Yeah, they choose to smoke a little pot, but they also make a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches, and they share those sandwiches, and the decision to share a grilled cheese sandwich is a choice of mundane-cum-impossible grace and compassion.
***
One thing I love about Phish is that, back in 2004, they broke up, at or near the height of their popularity. Ostensibly, they made that choice to be happier, to have lighter hearts.
Lead singer smiles.
I love the message this sends: If people doing the coolest job in the world can quit to protect their hearts/minds/souls, then surely, all of us living lives we can’t live in anymore can find the courage (and cobble the foresight and planning needed) to walk away and start fresh.
You can choose to let the girl in the next room pack in peace. You can even offer to help with a box or two.
Phish’s music is space cadety, and a lot of the people at the concert were stoned like geologists, but the whole experience pushes you to see the world more beautifully. I was a Phish fan for one album, Billy Breathes. During that phase my thoughts were just a bit more relaxed and whimsical. Given that my dad died of a heart attack, and this world is far too complicated and hard for any half-compassionate soul to bear, relaxed and whimsical count as solid values.
**
I wondered, at the concert last night:
Dancing.
Why isn’t dancing in public something systematically encouraged (and possibly financially incentive-zed) by the government? I mean, what are our goals here? Do we want to be remembered for war and technological innovations (that might lead to the end of our species), or as the society that danced whenever we could?
Bonobos or gorillas?
At Phish concerts, they chose bonobo. Yesterday DPK wrote about all the people who hate Phish and its fans. Phish is not the enemy. Their music is fun. If there’s a heaven, the beautiful miniature weeping willows of girls from last night’s show will be dancing there. Their fans like to do things like roll down hills. One of them told me, “It’s a lifestyle of acceptance, of loving the experience and loving anyone who is part of that experience.”
It’s increasingly often that I feel like I can see the future with a crystal clear prescience. As I walked around nTelos last night, and I saw so many people I knew, so many strangers who knew me and greeted me warmly, as the city of ships kept passing on the water, as Norfolk glowed majestically against the dull summer sky, as everyone made the choice to dance, as Hannah took the things that were ours and made them just hers… I could see the future, so clearly.
We have a chance. We can live better. We can do better. We can make our little world here as beautiful as we want it to be, we just have to choose to love our little world, and to love everyone else just for being in it.
It’s like any other Truth: You can’t know what it looks like until the moment it’s in front of you; from that moment on, it’s the one face you can never forget.
Phish made last night’s show available for download. Click here.
And as far as a review of the actual concert goes… Uhm… I dunno, sounded fine to me?
Like Sam Shinault‘s pictures? Here’s more shots from last night’s show.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Jesse is the editor in chief of AltDaily, and he's going to take this bio seriously, but not so seriously that he's going to continue in the third person. I've been involved with a bunch of local projects and civic groups in various roles, including: Hampton Roads, The Canvas; Art | Everywhere, Street Performance in Norfolk; Survive Norfolk; Hampton Roads Pride/Out in the Park; Bike Norfolk; re:Vision Norfolk, and such.
I originally came to Norfolk as a Perry Morgan fellow in ODU's creative writing program. Before that I bummed around quite a bit, writing stacks of books that never got published, hitchhiking, couchsurfing, riding the Greyhound up down and back across this country. Some of my favorite jobs and volunteer gigs have included working on organic farms in Ireland; being first mate on an old sail boat in Holland; working at a long-term home for young men in South Africa; being a journalist and high school teacher in New York and California; washing dishes in Yosemite National Park; teaching English in DC and swimming in Florida; and interning at ESPN in Bristol, which was much less cool that you'd want it to be. My career highlights have been having three of my op-eds run in the New York Times, and being the executive producer of a six-part docu-drama on BET. Because school is cool I have three master's degrees (ODU for MFA, NYU for magazine journalism, University of Connecticut for secondary English education). I live in Norfolk because I believe in its potential. Email your ideas or nicely couched criticism to jesse@altdaily.com.
Other posts by Jesse Scaccia.
Other posts by Jesse Scaccia.
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This is simply the worst Phish review ever.
Love-
Virginian Pilo…
I mean Jay
I actually agree with the Virginian Pilot. What is this review about? Certainly not Phish. Was the Phish concert good? Bad? What songs did they play? How was the sound? I guess it doesn’t matter; what is more important is you telling the world it is not up to your standards.
This is just you ranting about whatever you feel. It does not make any sense whatsoever. If you want to make a statement about our post-industrial capitalist society, then do that. Just don’t call it a review of Phish.
Hang on, Shoopy, hang on. You’ll like other stuff we publish.
Best Phish review ever.
Just another ruffled Phish head with too many opinions. Be glad they tour and live the life you love!
I agree that narrative is, put simply, just storytelling. It’s what I do when my wife asks me how golf went and I describe how it was that I nearly birdied but eventually bogeyed the last hole of the day, shot by shot, with insertions about the weather, the conditions, my state of mind, the unfairness of life, how I set out to reduce my stress and wound up creating it. Some of this I render for her in pictures. Some I cannot. But it’s all still a tale, a yarn, a story, a narrative.
— Bryan Gruley, Wall Street Journal
I got that from the Society of Professional Journalists’ compilation of definitions of “narrative journalism.” http://www.spj.org/nww2.asp
There are plenty of other versions of that definition on the linked page which validate your approach.
I think your piece is angled just fine.
Oops, I meant to put Gruley’s quote in quotes.
I have read at least six Phish reviews worse than this one.
Moreover, wasn’t it established some time ago that a local review consists of something other than basic review fare? That it involves a little soul, a little humanity?
Dude, I dig the phrases you invent. “stoned like geologists”, “the beautiful miniature weeping willows of girls”, “mundane-cum-impossible grace and compassion”. Overall, very well written and definitely worth the time it took to read. We really don’t need more Phish concert reviews but we do need more philosophical musings. Thanks.
Best. Phish Review. Ever.
It’s about the experience…not which songs, not the wooks or geologists, it’s what happens to you and through you during the experience. And the realizations that come from being a part of this bigger collective energy (and phish ain’t the only place to catch it!)
You either have the capacity to let go and be a part of it or you focus on whether the song was “good or “bad”.
Bravo to you kind sir, the community was glowing on this review today!
And in case you were wondering about your breakup….there’s plenty more phish in the sea!!!
I thought this site was done reviewing shows without a single mention of any songs? Guess not.
Anyhow, the crowd was ragin and ready to go. This was the smallest venue they’re playing all summer, so people were hyped! So much so that we didn’t even want to wait to see what the first song would be, we TOLD them what it would be. Tube, and let’s get this party started right!
Placing the Slave in the 3rd slot was exciting too, because it’s usually saved as a 2nd set closer because of the emotion if evokes. Other highlights included the drum breakdown in AC/DC Bag, the My Friend, My Friend, getting dark and evil. The 2001 > Simple was just great as the this pairing has only been seen once before, in ’94 or ’96 I believe to kick off a 2nd set. Oh, and Page’s seamless transition from Theme from the Bottom into A Day in the Life should be noted as well.
Any show that ends with Trey doing the Jedi (here during First Tube, check the clip below) is a damn good show if you ask me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRUatQEuh7Q
I joined the ranks last week of those that “get it.” I attended my very first Phish concert. I’m a little embarrassed to admit I fought it for years. “Only hippies are into that shit!” Well… I was right… but there is still something deeper.
Imagine watching 6,500 people all connected into something beautiful and powerful at once. Even better was that all were connected into one. An amazing experience to be a part of! I have already purchased tickets to their next concert at Merriweather.
As for our friend Jesse… thank you for sharing that with us. It’s ok that some didn’t connect… but I did. And that concert allowed me to better understand what you are feeling and communicating. I too have been working on my “perceptive” and finding peace and happiness in everything. It’s a very powerful thing.
Jesse – Your vulnerability is greatly appreciated. We could probably all take some lesson from it. All the best my friend.
GREAT REVIEW/BLOG!!!
I found it unusually refreshing. The guy who posted above me loved it and it was his first show. This was like my 50th or something and I feel about the same as he does. Beautifully written!!
Way to capture the truth.
I thought that this was one of the bravest, smartest, and most eloquent concert reviews I’ve read. Sure, it didn’t discuss in detail this or that song, or whether Trey used the “whale call” pedal too much (he did), but when has Phish ever been about just songs, notes, sounds? They are on record since the very early days as seeking connection, encouraging joy (‘our intent is all for your delight’), and seeing themselves as simply the conduit for something much, much larger than rock stardom. Jesse Scaccia captured that vibe beautifully and reminded me, at least, of what matters in the end. You go, Jesse! Live happy! Be strong! Write on!
this blog reminds me of the col. slade:
“It’s fuck your buddy, cheat on your wife, call your mother on Mother’s Day, It’s all shit”