Phish’s Breakup? That Was Then. But Tough Times Call for a Reunion.

[groovedaddy]

HAMPTON, Va. — Onstage at the Hampton Coliseum, Phish was rehearsing for its resurrection: its first shows since it announced it was breaking up forever. That was in 2004, when the jam band played one last summer tour that ended with a marathon weekend festival for 65,000 people on a farm in Coventry, Vt. At the time the band’s guitarist and main songwriter, Trey Anastasio, had announced, with purposeful finality, “We’re done.”

Final wasn’t final. Now, with three shows here this weekend and a summer tour — all sold out — and recording sessions next month for a new album, Phish is gearing up not for a brief, grudging reunion or a second farewell tour, but for a sustainable Phase 2 in the band’s peculiar career. “We’re trying to create a format to keep playing for a long time,” Mr. Anastasio said backstage.

He also has another mission in mind. As a longtime fan of Depression-era swing bands, he has been thinking about Phish’s role in the current recession. “For people in hard times, we can play long shows of pure physical pleasure,” he said. “They come to dance and forget their troubles. It’s like a service commitment.”

The demand is there. When seats went on sale for the first announced concerts through Live Nation Ticketing, 10 million requests — from both rabid Phish fans and brokers’ automated Web bots — overwhelmed the relatively new Web site (livenation.com), which nonetheless sold more than 250,000 tickets over a weekend. “This was like a tsunami that they weren’t expecting,” said Coran Capshaw, Phish’s manager who runs Red Light Management.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/arts/music/05phish.html?th&emc=th