You've been crawling in the wilderness for the better part of two years. You've had enough food and water to live sufficiently; there have been little brooks and streams for water, berries and nuts to eat, and the occasional fruit tree for a special treat. You've subsisted. All this time, though, you've been craving one thing: A 30 oz. Porterhouse steak, grilled and seasoned to perfection. In the wilderness, clearly, this is not an option. But one day you cross paths with another traveler who tells you that in a few short weeks, you'll have reached the end of the wilderness and your wait, at points seemingly endless, will have reached its conclusion. Your mouth starts watering. All you can think about is sitting down to dine on your Porterhouse. You have dreams of the steakhouse at the end of the road. But one day, after you've learned that there is no steakhouse at the end of the road, you happen upon some man on the side of the road, working a grill. You approach him, fully knowing that he has no proper seasoning, let alone Porterhouse steaks, and find that he's grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. They're pretty cheap, so you buy a dog, and as you continue walking, you eat it. It's no porterhouse, but it's good. It'll tide you over.

Admittedly, I'd had my doubts. Any Phish fan able to rattle off setlists from 1991 quicker than a fifth grader doing their multiplication tables would have their doubts. After virtually making a case for the academic legitimacy of Phish with the time and thought and study I had put into the band and their music over the past 6 years, I'd absolutely had my doubts. But past that initial knee-jerk reaction of indignation, I grew curious. So when the call from Phix came into Live Live, I let my curiosity get the best of me. And because of it, doubt was turned into understanding.

Before we dive in, a few premises:

1. Phix is not Phish. This seems obvious to most, but it needs to be stated. Furthermore, Phix is not trying to be Phish. Drummer Chris Sheldon does not wear a muumuu, nor does he play a vacuum cleaner. Guitarist Paul Murin isn't too keen on pedals, delay loops, and certainly does not commission his soundman to build a guitar for him. What Phix is after is the music of Phish, not the band Phish. And because they acknowledge the differences between their own personalities and that of Phish, they are smart enough to leave it at that.

2. Phix wouldn't be doing this if they didn't think they could pull it off. They are acutely aware of just how carefully Phish fans listen and how familiar fans are with Phish's compositions. They know that certain members of every crowd they play to are waiting for them to make a mistake. They are living life, as it were, in a fishbowl. And yet, Phix plays.

3. Phix is not getting rich off of their endeavor. This is not a case of four entrepreneurs making a quick buck off the sweat of the true innovators. Keyboardist Derek Berg was quick to point this out to me. "We all have day jobs," he said, almost disgusted. The fact is that Phix gigs 28 days out of 31 this tour and is barely covering their expenses. Why go through with it, then? The general consensus was summarized nicely by Murin: "We love playing for crowds with energy. Being in an original band is really tough work. Playing to empty bars can take its toll on you after a while."

Phix's main asset is that they know their limits, and their role. They are the first to admit that they have very few fans of their own. Rather, nearly everyone who pays money to see them is a Phish fan. They play with the crowd in mind, always structuring their setlists as to maximize enjoyment. When in Phishstory would you ever hear an Antelope, Lizards, Maze, Divided Sky, and Slave all in the first set? (Note: Phish never played these five songs all in one show.) The effort to pack setlists like this does not allow Phix the freedom to engage in exploratory jamming.

This, musically, is one of the hallmark differences between the music as played by Phix. Setlists are played straight through, even if segues are included. So while a nice Bathtub Gin->PYITE segue might be unexpected by the crowd, the band saw it was coming and had been planning the tight transition from hundreds of miles away. This practice does not allow the music to flow as naturally as it might if PYITE was not a preconceived end goal, and it generally shortens the time spent exploring the possibilities that lie in between Gin and Punch. But because Phix has chosen to involve the crowd in picking their setlists, they have consciously forefitted this aspect of the Phish experience.

Because setlists are preconceived, and because the band feels pressure to play tunes that the crowd wants to hear, one will rarely find Phix trailing off into uncharted territory with their jamming. The brand of improvisation termed "type II", then, is virtually nonexistent. You will never hear Phix pull off something to the order of the 11/14/95 Stash, the 12/29/94 Bowie, or the 11/28/94 Tweezer. Phix, rather, prefers to focus on reproducing the most equivocal of musical items: the Phish Epic Composition, as well as playing within these given song structures. This is project enough.

In that I generally did not scowl at missed notes or botched phrasing, Phix did a thorough and admirable job of reproducing some of the most technically demanding compositions in music today. Their job here is not stacked in their favor. People expect to hear the compositions they know better than their own neighborhoods played perfectly; anything short of that receives demerit. But again, they wouldn't be doing this if they didn't think they could pull it off.

What, then, is the draw to Phix, especially with the real McCoy returning to the public eye after an extended hiatus? Berg pointed out that Phix plays smaller venues than Phish ever would these days, which gives younger fans a chance to see Phish's music in a club atmosphere as opposed to a hockey arena or outdoor shed. Furthermore, as many a Phish fan could tell you, tickets are not cheap. Reasonable, perhaps, but not cheap. Those lucky few who will attend Madison Square Garden this New Year's Eve will pay $50 minimum for that privilege. Those looking for a more economical Phix can plan do drop somewhere around $8-$10. Berg also pointed out that Phish was only touring four months out of the year in 1999 and 2000, which would leave plenty of room for a 2-month Phix tour every year. Murin smiled in relief at that. "A lot of people don't realize this, but being on the road is really tough on you." Nevertheless, Phix does not plan to stop playing Phish tunes in smaller venues even after Phish's four day New Year's run.

Harper's Ferry marked the twelfth night in a row that Phix had a gig. Over dinner, it was clear that the band was road-weary, but excited to be in Boston. "I've never been to Boston before," said drummer Sheldon. "It looks like a cool town. I'd love to be able to check it out a bit." But the life of a gigging band does not allow for luxuries such as the Freedom Trail and Fenway Park. Showtime was in under two hours, and a couple hundred angry at Phish Mail Order and Ticketmaster were in desperate need of a Phix. At around 10:30 pm, the boys took the stage, and despite the folded arms and raised eyebrows, kicked things off.

The carbonated opening vamps of Antelope came bounding across smoke-filled air. It's been a good long while, I remember thinking to myself. Verbalized, this just came out as, "Huh. Antelope opener." The patchworked patron down the bar looks over, smiles, and says, "Yeah." It has been a good long while.

And even though I knew full well that this was not Phish, even though I had braced myself for maybe, hopefully, a whisper of some sort of feeling I may have remembered from years past, I got that long forgotten little twist at the corners of my mouth. Of course this isn't Phish. What do you want for eight dollars at Harper's? But it was undeniably familiar, and fun. I realized that the rest of the night would be a project in internally battling my Phish snobbery and enjoying the night for exactly what it was.

Set 1: Antelope, Ya Mar->Lizards, AC/DC Bag>Maze, Funky Bitch, Divided Sky, Rift, Slave

The opening section of Antelope is rife with potential pitfalls and traps of accents and phrasing. Phix stuck each accent as Phish traditionally would, sometimes almost too much. Because of the venue, and because of the era in which most members of Phix had listened to Phish ('91-'94), their overall sound came across as a much more raucous celebration of sound than later era Phish. This served them quite well as Antelope escalated to its inevitable explosive peak. We who discovered Phish after, say, 1991 forget that they was a point when they frequented joints like the Paradise, and the Fleet Center was the farthest thing from their mind.

Phix proved themselves in the art of the group build, with each player adding necessary ingredients to the tension stew and making sure the pressure was in place for the top to pop clear off the pot. This handy little trick, a trademark Phish maneuver, served them well throughout the set, especially in their mid-set Maze.

I realized what fun songs like AC/DC and Funky Bitch must have been to play in small bars for Phish, because they are Saturday Night Bar Rockers. Phix's boisterous treatment of AC/DC Bag had much more distortion than Trey had ever thought fit for it, which to me was highly appropriate. Again, Phix knew their role, knew their limits, and came up with an appropriate and entertaining rendition of two Phish tunes that might normally slip under the radar. In fact, I would go so far as to say that AC/DC and Funky Bitch are songs that are meant to be played with a Bar Band's intensity.

Set one finished with a Divided Sky and Rift that were played tightly and accurately. Rift especially, admitted Sheldon, is an extremely tough song to pull off due to its tempo and frenetic volley of notes, rhythms, and phrases. Sheldon held the potential train wreck at bay during Rift, and set the band up for a soaring version of Slave to close set one. Despite some phaser/leslie speaker simulator effects on the guitar absent in the Languedoc, Slave left the crowd on high ground. The build on Slave showed patience and direction, with an initial quiet section featuring interplay of the bass and keyboards, and ended as one would expect a Slave to properly end.

A quick poll of the crowd at setbreak turned up mixed reviews. "Scott," while liking the overall experience and giving credit to the Murin's guitar work, was not satisfied with the drumming. He also thought that on the whole, "they played too fast." Robbie and Jennie, up front near the stage, couldn't have been happier. "I hope you're going to write a good review," they chided. I kept my counsel, and anxiously awaited set two.

Set 2: YEM*->Possum, Bathtub Gin->PYITE, Stash->Cities, Sample->Stash

Phix once again appeased the crowd showing that they could execute technical feats such as YEM and Stash without too many problems. As the beer flowed and the crowd loosened up, the build to "BOY!" brought with it the loudest cheering so far that night. The crowd had seemingly hurdled the obstacle of comparative analysis and was enjoying the show for exactly what it was: a Phish tribute band playing Harper's Ferry on a Saturday night in September. Phix has never claimed to be anything different.

The only tune in the second set that was in need of some serious polish was Bathtub Gin. Just as Murin's guitar work had troubles harnessing and utilizing dissonance and chaos in Maze, Berg's piano was far too tame for the opening sections of Bathtub Gin. Furthermore, the song itself is open ended, a launching pad for exploratory improvisation. Since Phix focuses on the packaging of a Phish experience, the jam outside Gin's given song structure was not to be. A few quick modulations, an abrupt drum beat change and PYITE came through with driving force. The segue worked, of course, but with hindsight, one could tell that it was their intention all along to move from Gin's ambiguous ending into Punch. The same was true of the Stash sandwich, although as Sample moved back into Stash, there were a few suspended moments where the music was the band's own, the improvisation was original, and music was being created live, new, for the first time. This, to me, was one of the most exciting points in the show.

I left the show happy to have gone. This, after all, is the bottom line. Were my doubts put to rest? No, just the opposite: they were reinforced. Of course this isn't Phish. Of course this will not be the same. And most importantly, of course I should not expect it to. If you go see Phix, be mindful of this. Don't bother to compare and contrast. Celebrate the music you love, unfold your arms, lower your eyebrow, and let yourself have a good time. We can't always dine on seasoned Porterhouse, but a healthy meal of hot dogs and hamburgers will most certainly quell our hunger, tide us over, allow us to keep moving on our journey towards that blessed steak at the end of the road. Or in this case, seafood.

-David Taus