What will Phish Be for Halloween?

Fast approaching the smallest Halloween show by Phish since 1994 in Glens Falls, it's a good time to speculate as to what's going to go down in Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall at the end of next month. Let's recap Phish's Halloween cover album adventures thus far:

1994. The Beatles' White Album.
1995. The Who's Quadrophenia.
1996. The Talking Heads' Remain in Light.
1999. The Velvet Underground's Loaded.
2009. The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St.

2010 isn't a year to be swayed into esoteric choices: Phish will cover an album whose pop greatness deserves to be idolized, digitized, whose hit singles still exist on more than one Pandora station. That being said, no Bruce Springsteen album is an obvious choice: though it's the Boss' home turf, I suspect, at most, some musical nod to that catalog Saturday night... at best, a "Rosalita" jam. His debut album "Greetings from Asbury Park N.J." is unlike any other Bruce, in that its pop-inflected grooves are more representative of Van Morrison than of the E Street sound: songs like "Spirit in the Night" and "Growin' Up" would move quickly, and give rise to familiar backbeats and new lyrical challenges... but in the earliest days of Phish, it wasn't Springsteen that the boys were listening to, to dig the grooves.

I don't believe it'll be any Grateful Dead, though Mike joined Kruetzmann and Mickey Hart's ensemble at the Higher Ground in Burlington this past weekend: "American Beauty" breaks out harmonies and slow grooves that truly belong to a different era, and certainly a different generation than the one that'll be huddling for warmth in the late October ocean wind in Atlantic City: though Phish deserves to rekindle its own roots by fully exploring "Truckin'" and "Til the Morning Comes" before an audience, "Attics of My Life" is too daunting for this band, for its tempo, harmony and humility.

It also won't be Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde," and not because it wouldn't be a good choice: I don't believe "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" and others contains enough musical structures to satiate a Halloween show cover album. The novelty of "Rainy Day Women" would soon devolve into a crowd of 5,000 feigning respect, as Trey muddies incessant verses of "Visions of Johanna." Dylan is built of lilting repetition; while a setlist from Dylan's 1974 Rolling Thunder Revue would prove this wrong, there isn't one work that would do both Phish and Bob justice. Harmonica and trampoline don't mix.

I want to say it won't be "Thriller" or "Nevermind," for all their pop glory: Trey's unique way to smell like teen spirit would run the risk of being one of the most downloaded mp3s of all time. Let's hope they don't fall prey to those sensibilities (Randy Newman: "It's Money I Love").

MY TWO BEST GUESSES:

"Physical Graffiti" by Led Zeppelin (thanks to Leah!). Fits the requisite length (four sides of vinyl, like every other Halloween pick so far), is from the time period Phish has chosen in the past to emulate, and would help the boys continue to reclaim their pre-eminence, as Keepers of the Jam. Then, I saw this video, of a cover band doing a decent job with the opener, "Custard Pie" and realized: of COURSE this is a logical Phish Halloween choice. While I'd prefer to hear them rip through Zeppelin's fourth album, "Physical Graffiti" is chock full of live Page/Plant staples: Trey gets to show off appropriately, Mike and Fish get to jive in the way they do best, and Page gets to manufacture a string section for "Kashmir." They've done a few Zep covers through the years (haven't we all?), but never a full-out assault on a mammoth work.

My other best guess strikes more at the ideological heart of Phish, over the musical side: Bowie's famous gender-bending 1972 concept album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" meets most of the criteria for consideration, and adds an important element of psychedelia. Songs like "Lady Stardust" and "Hang Onto Yourself" should have been covered by now by Phish; most of the set could consist of a jam based on "Suffragette City." Besides Bowie being a namesake of one of Trey's finest early fugue-based compositions, there's a weirdness these two parties share that should be embraced: I want to know when and how Mike has 'freaked out in a moonage daydream;' I want to know how Page would deal with the drama of "Rock and Roll Suicide." As much as Phish could represent the adolescent torment at heart in the Who's "Quadrophenia," they may be even more well-versed in covering Bowie's fully-displaced persona album. "There's a starman waiting in the sky/he'd like to get to meet us/but he think's he'd blow our minds"-- these lyrics might as well be found on the upcoming Gordo album, and the man in the dress will emerge from behind the drums, to rally the troops in singing "Lady Stardust:"

all right
the band was all together
all right
the song went on forever
really quite outasight...