Bittersweet Motel

Yup, the Phish “rockumentary”.  I saw this at 7pm on a Tuesday night and the place was packed, that surprised me a bit.  A director followed the band around for a year or so and edited-together a movie.  I think the movie did capture the whimsical attitude of the band, but there’s a lot more to Phish than this movie shows.  For one, the portrayal of the fans was pretty weak (they’re not all superficial drugged-out jerks).  If you want to know what Phish means to some people, check out the “what is Phish” section on phish.net.  The song selection was odd – a lot of standards were left out, and some mellow rarities were spotlighted and the sound wasn’t as good as it could have been.  Plus, there was a lot of Trey (Phish’s guitarist).  Trey can be pretty darn funny, entertaining and insightful, but he’s not all there is in the world of Phish.  Then again, maybe the editing was just a reflection of what the director really saw… maybe Trey just dominated all the conversations.  Generally, it was a decent film… I have no idea how it would play with non fans though.

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