Phish
At the Roxy

Review By Jessee Jarrow

Primed for their March reunion, Phish returns with one more archival box set, At the Roxy, featuring eight discs of music to sate Phishheads (who probably already had the tapes anyway) and completely confuse the crap out of everybody else. If not turned off by the Vermont jam band's early post-modern garishness, At the Roxy is actually a fair place to attack the quartet's 20-year deep catalogue. Recorded over three nights at Atlanta's Roxy in February 1993, several weeks on the heels of the prog dreamscapes of Rift, it’s an in-depth representation of Phish's playbook at its most uptight and insular. Which is to say at their most ambitious and goofy.

The fifth disc — recorded on February 20 — is a Phishhead staple, a spontaneous segue featuring quick-cuts between faves like "Tweezer," "Mike's Song" and "Glide," alongside Phishified covers of reggae, country and rock nuglets. There’s virtually no extended jamming. That's in a 15-minute "David Bowie" (interpolated, via vacuum solo, with Led Zeppelin's "Moby Dick") and el sewhere. Still, Phish in 1993 were more content to use guitarist Trey Anastasio's set-pieces for precise showmanship and good times than to wank away. About once a disc, there’s also utter grace. You just have to find it.