Concert Guide: The East Bay's biggest Phish fan reviews the Shoreline show

Alamo's Debbie Kanner gets Diablo's Ultimate Concert Guide "Miracle Ticket" to Phish's sold-out concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre.

All summer long we have been giving away free tickets to Bay Area concerts, as part of the Ultimate Summer Concert Guide that we ran in the June issue. On Wednesday, I took a lucky Diablo reader to see Phish at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. To the uninformed, Phish is a Vermont-based, four-piece group that Rolling Stone named as the most important band of the 1990s. Famous for their intense live shows and their feverish following, the band is on its first tour in something like five years. This was unquestionably one of the summer's hottest concert tickets.

I happened to secure a couple of killer seats—20th row, center—and thought that the Diablo reader who most deserved a "miracle ticket" should get to go for free, then review the show on Diablomag.com. Anyone who has been to a Grateful Dead concert, has seen the people in the parking lot, peacefully pleading, "Who has my miracle ticket?" hoping that someone will walk along and "good vibe" them into the show. I had always wanted to give away such an extra, and mentioned in the Concert Guide that I would give mine to the person who wanted it the most.

I received a number of very nice and extremely eager e-mails form Phish fans all over the country. The one who stood out was an Alamo mom-of-two named Debbie Kanner. Debbie jumped out of bed while reading Diablo at 11:30 p.m. to send me an e-mail, professing her adoration for the band, and explaining that the Shoreline show sold out so quickly that she could not secure a ticket. So, without further ado, here is....

Debbie Kanner's review of Wednesday night's Phish show at the Shoreline:

Several months after Jerry’s Garcia’s death in 1995, while still in a deep state of mourning, yet desperate for some “real” music, I was dragged against my will, kicking and screaming, to my first Phish concert. That night at the Cow Palace, just as last night at Shoreline, Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman convinced me that musically, they are the tightest four humans ever to have played together on one stage…..yes, even over my beloved Grateful Dead (notice I didn’t say they had more heart). After the fiasco that was the last few years before their break-up in 2004 (and more specifically, the fiasco that Trey had become), Phish have redeemed themselves—they are on fire!

I was the lucky winner of Diablo magazine’s “Tell Us Why You Should be the Person to Review the Phish Shoreline Show” contest – just one more wonderful story to add to my arsenal of Dead and Phish adventures. I had written my e-mail response after reading about the opportunity late one May night in bed. I flew out of bed, only to return a while later to my half-asleep husband, wanting to know where I had gone. When I told him, he asked, in his usual tone of frustration on the topic, when I was going to give up all this craziness and settle in my suburban life of wife/mother of two young children, etc. – I said “never”, and that by the way, I would definitely be the one who would be chosen to go to the show and write the review, given my wonderful Dead/Phish Karma. Fast forward two+ months, I don’t have my tickets to the show, and I’m literally just about to make a deal with the devil vis-à-vis Craigslist (will only sit in the 100’s), when voila, what appears in my in-box, but a simple one-liner from Diablo Magazine – “Hi Debbie – Do you still need a Phish ticket?” OMG!!

The Show - As always, just walking into the venue is like entering that zone where you just know “you are home”. People who are not familiar with the scene always ask if it is more about the music or the fans. I always say that it is absolutely 100% both, and they all play together just perfectly. The music, of course, is magical, and the people at the shows just love the music. But the people also feel a special connection to each other, as well, plus feel a real kinship with the band. It’s as if we are all one big family, and the music is the language of our family – the code is that we treat each other with love and respect. If you ever want to see more smiles in one place than any other place on the planet, go to a Dead or Phish show.
 

The Music – The set list was a wonderful mix of everything you’d expect from Phish.

Set One
     Golgi Apparatus
     Halley's Comet
     Chalk Dust Torture
     The Divided Sky
     When the Circus Comes
     Time Turns Elastic
     Ya Mar
     Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan
     Suzy Greenberg
     David Bowie
Set Two
     Backwards Down the Number Line
     Down With Disease >
     Limb By Limb
     Oh Sweet Nothin'
     Cities >
     Maze
     Mike's Song >
     Simple
     Weekapaug Groove
Encore
    Let me Lie
    Bold as Love


Set I - at one point, the planes were flying in very low over Moffett Field, and Trey broke into "The Divided Sky". I had never heard "Time Turns Elastic", but by the end of it, they had my (and everyone else’s) attention. They closed the first set with a mind blowing "David Bowie". At one point, I thought Trey and Page were going to just come right off the stage. 

Set II – By now, Chris Kuroda (the bands Lighting Director, and the man they consider to be their fifth band member), and his mastery were in full swing. The show would not be the same without the subtly and perfect timing of his lighting wizardry. They performed a "Down with Disease" that was phenomenal, only to be topped at the end, by what could be best described as a “space” type experience. I’d never heard anything like this out of Phish before. Absolute perfection! The rest of the set was just one tight song after another, letting both Page and Mike strut their stuff, for sure. "Maze", "Mike’s Song", "Simple" and "Weekapaug" – what more can you ask for! The encore was slow and light – a nice way to end an otherwise raucous evening.

Overall, they are as well-oiled and tight as I’ve ever heard them. Page is even better than before, if that’s possible, and while it will always be Trey’s band, it feels more collaborative and equal. I think they’ve all grown up.  

I would like to say a special thanks to my host, Pete Crooks, Sr. Editor of Diablo Magazine. Something tells me he will be sure to make the show next time Phish rolls thru town.