The sun rose over the Everglades in brilliant pink and purple hues as thousands of bodies swayed near exhaustion to the trippy tunes of the world's biggest jam band.
Phish, the Vermont-grown quartet adored by transient followers while mostly ignored by the mainstream music machine, had pulled off an amazing feat, drawing nearly 80,000 fans from across the country to the quiet Big Cypress Seminole Reservation near Miami for New Year's Eve 1999.
That first painted Florida dawn of 2000 marked the end of a marathon set that had begun before midnight and gone nonstop for almost eight hours. But as fans returned to the tents, RVs and vans that had turned grazing land into a bustling, tie-dyed city, they were unaware that the dawn brought not only the end of the concert but also the beginning of the end of Phish.
As they left the stage, lead singer and guitarist Trey Anastasio says, he and drummer Jon Fishman turned to each other and said: "That was it."
The band announced a "hiatus" last year - shocking the music world just as it was beginning to acknowledge the Phish phenomenon - and played its final show in the San Francisco Bay area in October 2000. Though originally billed as a two-year break, Anastasio now says that the sabbatical has no definite end. Phish - the nation's premier jam-band and cult tour de force - may or may not play together again. They are leaving the possibilities open. And for Anastasio, that's all right.
"Everyone feels good about the fact that we had the sense to stop for however long we are going to stop before it overwhelmed us," he says. "Now everyone is in a really good place with Phish. It was the right thing to do - now, I know it was."
As "Phish-heads" hold out hope for the announcement of a Phish tour, many will flock to see Anastasio's newest endeavor, Oysterhead, a super-trio with bassist Les Claypool of Primus and drummer Stewart Copeland, formerly of the Police, at a sold-out show tomorrow at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington.
The band got its start last year when Claypool was asked to play the New Orleans Jazz Fest. He called up Anastasio, who suggested recruiting Copeland, his "boyhood drum hero."
Anastasio says that first show - though it sold out in less than 15 minutes and its bootlegged recordings were avidly traded among fans - didn't go that well. Still, the trio felt there was potential and set out to make the album.
