Phish: The Ultimate Experience B(r)and

I’m sure there are more than a few Phish fans out there that would be outraged for me to associate Phish with brands and business, but I’m going to do it anyway. Because I, myself, am a huge Phish fan, and I guess I can be considered to be pretty businessey as well (that’s totally a word, look it up…well, no, don’t). And to be quite honest, Phish is the definition of an experience brand, at least in how it relates to music and live entertainment. And when you think of what they’ve accomplished in their 20 plus year career, it’s really quite amazing. They have never had a number one single, they’ve never had a hit music video on MTV, and they have never ever been played on Mix 94.5, or most radio stations for that matter. Yet they can still pack hundreds of thousands of fans into a three day festival headlined by only them. How is it that a band can be so out of the mainstream, yet so popular right outside the confines of it? Well, in case you haven’t gotten the point of this post so far….it’s the experience! The experience of going to a Phish show is unlike any other now a-days; the people, the community, the pre-show excitement, guessing what the opener will be, not having any idea of what is in store for the set-list, the lights, the on-stage antics, the dancing…and last but absolutely not least, the music! What draws people to a Phish show is the experience of all the above, plus much more that you can only understand if you’ve been to a show…and trust me no Phish show is ever the same.

Phish has built a massive audience as well as massive brand recognition through that live show experience, and they have done a great job to sticking to their core brand. For example, if you were to stop a random person on the street and ask them to name a Phish song, they probably couldn’t. That’s because the songs themselves aren’t at the center of their brand equity. Now, if you asked that same person if they know who Phish is, they probably do…or would probably say they’ve at least heard of them, and maybe say something along the lines of “aren’t they that Vermont stoner hippie band?” Which is fine, because I’m sure that Phish would rather be known as that Vermont stoner hippie band than as that girl who needs to wear dresses out of meat to gain notoriety. But at any rate, the point is that people know Phish as a live experience jam band, not as an in-studio, radio friendly pop act that puts out singles. Phish sticks to their core brand, and you can bet that they know exactly where their brand equity lies.

Along with the live show experience, connecting with fans has always been a priority for Phish. Audience participation is a guarantee at any Phish show. The beginning of the song “Wilson” is a great, simple example. Trey, who is the guitar player for any non Phish fans reading this, starts out the song by just strumming two quick notes, and the audience almost immediately responds with an elongated two pitch response of “Wiiiiiillll-sonnnn”. This repeats a few times and then they start playing the rest of the song. Another great, slightly more involved example is the song “Meatstick”. “Meatstick” is a song that came about after a European tour in 1997 when, looking for food backstage, the band was only able to find a refrigerator full of sausage. The song was never released on an album, but is a crowd favorite because of the Meatstick dance. Phish came up with a little dance for the chorus (you can watch the over the top New Years 2010 here, go to about the 3:40 mark…they’re doing the chorus in a different language, but they do the dance…and then they have dancers from different cultures come out…talk about an experience!) For the rest of the 1997 tour they showed the dance to the audience and taught them how to do it. Then, at a festival in upstate New York, they told the audience that they were trying to break the world record for the most people dancing exactly the same to the same song at the same time….and it was true, there were Guiness Book of World Records representatives there to judge. Unfortunately, part of the dance required the dancer to jump 90 degrees to the left after each run through, and then repeat the dance, and then jump again, until you came full circle (kind of like the Macarena)…and at the festival the audience wanted to keep facing the stage, so they did not count the record because the audience failed to turn angles. Talk about being robbed. The last that I’m going to mention, and one that I think one of the funniest, is the Audience Chess move. And yes, it is exactly what you’re thinking. Phish played chess against the audience at a few shows during one of their tours. They had a large chess board on stage, and at each show the band would make a move in the first set...audience members would gather at the set break and decide what move to make, and then one of them would make a move on stage during the second set. To say that their live shows are an experience is an understatement.

But with all the talk about the live shows, the music is really what ties everything together. The eclectic mix of rock, jazz, blues, classical, funk, country, psychedelic, bluegrass, improv, and of course face-melting guitar solos really brings the experience home. You don’t go to a Phish show to hear their newest single played live, you go to have a good time and hear some really great music, whether it was released 2 months ago or 15 years ago. If you’re lucky, you might see some classic antics along the lines of playing chess on stage and the Meatsick dance, like jumping on trampolines while playing, vacuum cleaner solos, the band members switching instruments for some songs, and some a-capella songs…but at the very least you are always guaranteed a great show that is unlike any you’ve seen before. And the experience of the show is what sticks with the audience, or the consumer, and inspires them to buy their music and keep going to their shows. To me, that makes Phish one of the best experience b(r)ands.

P.S- Go to a Phish show at some point in your life if you haven’t.