A Very Phishy New Year

After a two-year vacation from themselves, the jam-happy members of Phish announced Wednesday they will reconvene for four New Year's concerts.

The first reunion show--a marathon three-set gig in typical Phish fashion--will take place December 31 at New York's Madison Square Garden, followed by a trio of shows at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia, on January 2, 3 and 4.

Formed in the early 1980s at the University of Vermont, the quartet of singer-guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, keyboardist Page McConnell and drummer Jon Fishman developed an avid Grateful Dead-like following thanks to their epic jams, seemingly unending tours and eclectic mix of musical genres (including rock, bluegrass, jazz, ambient and even barbershop quartet, often combined in a single song). Supported by the fanatical Phishheads, the foursome went from relative obscurity to the top-grossing concert act of the 1990s--without the benefit of a hit single or album.

Phish became so popular that Entertainment Weekly hailed them as the "new Phab Four" and the biggest cult band in America. The band even inspired its own Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor, Phish Food.

The band's 2000 show at the Big Cypress Indian Reservation saw the four musicians jam non-stop from midnight to dawn. The event drew more than 70,000 diehards to the middle of the Florida Everglades and became known among aficionados as simply "The Show."

Ten months later the band announced they were going on an "indefinite hiatus." Their final show was Oct. 7, 2000 at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California.

The bandmembers have spent their time off pursuing solo projects. Anastasio formed Oysterhead, a supergroup with Primus' Les Claypool and ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland. He also released a self-titled solo album last April. Gordon made a documentary film about late Gov't Mule bassist Allen Woody. Fishman toured with the Jazz Mandolin Project and his own band, Pork Tornado. And McConnell formed a funky trio called Vida Blue.

To help the patchouli-soaked faithful make it through the coming months, the band has announced four new volumes in its ongoing Live Phish series. The group will officially release its legendary and much-bootlegged Halloween shows from the '90s, at each of which Phish covered a classic rock album: the Beatles' White Album (1994), The Who's Quadrophenia (1995), the Talking Heads' Remain in Light (1996) and the Velvet Underground's Loaded (1998). The albums are due, appropriately enough, on October 29, just in time for trick-or-treats. (The CDs can be preordered at phish.com.)

Phish also plans to release its first live concert DVD on Nov. 12. Phish: Live in Vegas will feature the boys' Sept. 30, 2000 performance at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The albums, concerts and DVD are a precursor to what may become the Year of the Phish. If all goes according to plan, the band will hit the road in 2003 for an extended tour and then head back to the recording studio to lay down tracks for a new album.

Coincidentally or not, the end of Phish's self-imposed exile comes on the heels of the reunion concert and announced fall tour by the surviving members of the Dead, the band to which Phish is most frequently compared.

Tickets for Phish's New Year's Eve show will go on sale via Ticketmaster on September 20, the other shows are on sale September 21. There will also be a limited number of tickets available through the band's online ticketing system beginning September 5. More details are available at phish.com.