And to think otherwise is fooling yourself. Every single era of Phish, from the 80’s on up has amazing moments worthy of earnest celebration, and in my opinion, Phish has straight killed it from 1992 right through today killed it in in different ways and from different angles, but they have always been killing it. So many fans are often incapable of taking themselves out of the equation, resulting in asinine statements like “Fall ’97 was easily the best tour ever,” or “Phish peaked in Summer ’93 and went downhill from there,” or “Phish never got better than Fall ’95,” or “Once the band turned to groove, their music wasn’t ever as good again.” Obviously I could think of any number of useless perspectives I’ve heard argued time and time again, but my question here is- “Why?” I understand the fun in debate, and in fact enjoy the exercise myself quite a bit, but at some point, music is music and opinions are opinions, and that’s where it begins and ends. More often than not, the pattern I’ve found with peoples’ opinions is that they love the era they saw the most. Trying to place absolute statements on something as flagrantly subjective as music, while fun at times, is a futile effort. Yet, people spend much time and passion trying to, in some impossible way, prove that one era is the greatest, standing above all others.Īny conversation trying to decipher a “best” era in Phish history is inherently rife with humor for me. What about Summer ’99? This was the unanswerable question. I thought to myself…”How could I possibly like anything better than December ’95? Or August 93? Or Fall ’97? Or Fall ’94? Or Summer’95? Or Summer ’98? I felt like I was in a barnyard, blindfolded and spinning in circles, asked to find the needle in the haystack. I began to go over eras of Phish in my mind, going back as far as 1992, but when trying to look at them side by side to declare a favorite, I simply couldn’t. These friendly exchanges, inevitably, reach the question of what is the greatest era of Phish? (Especially with you fans of different age groups.) In a recent conversation about the band, this very question was posed to me, point blank – “What is you favorite era of Phish?” The other two people were able to answer quickly and easily – “December ’95.” However, when it was my turn to answer, the cat ran off with my tongue – I couldn’t really say. Which version is better? Which show is best? In fact, debate has grown into the very fabric of Phish culture, for any time there are so many people passionate about one thing, disagreements are bound to arise.
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