It all sort of came together in the little town of Bethlehem, Pa. There I found a gentle, longhaired wanderer named Nazzarine ("Nazz" for short), who is among the many followers of a group whose symbol is a fish. Generally I don't consult Scripture, but that night after the concert I did. The Gideon Bible on the hotel room dresser was already open and turned to Psalm 31, which was written "to the chief musician."

This I took to be a sign.

"Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength," the psalmist wrote. "Thou hast set my feet in a large room."

Yes, rock-and-roll works in mysterious ways. Hear now the tale of a band called Phish.

They've been together for 11 years, and touring the country for seven, but most of America has never heard of Phish. The Vermont-based quartet has never had a hit single or a gold album. Radio deejays ignore them because their sound fits no format; it's capable of roaming from dissonant classical to mellow bluegrass, from screeching rock to syncopated funk, sometimes in the same song. MTV shunned their one and only video, from the latest album, "Hoist."

And yet: On Saturday, Oct. 8, the night after the Bethlehem gig, Phish broke Patriot Center's all-time attendance record, selling 10,356 tickets. That's more tickets than Jimmy Buffett, who established the record in 1987; more than such million-album-selling acts as the Spin Doctors, Kenny G, Pearl Jam and Mary Chapin Carpenter, all of whom have played Patriot Center in recent months.

Why? All Phish fans -- be they suburban teeny-boppers or erudite college students, grimy homeless hippies or married-with-kids professionals -- talk about the uplifting "vibe" of the band's live performances, the inexplicable "connection" they feel with the musicians, though they rarely address the crowd. Some fans cite the spiritual charge they get from a Phish concert, although the band itself espouses no religious mission or message.

At best, the members of Phish offer awkward explanations for their cultlike following. "It's an intangible energy," attempts Trey Anastasio, the shaggy red-haired guitarist. "This spiritual aspect," theorizes bassist Mike Gordon, "is that there's something universal that exists and can come through the musicians and the music, if we're not blocking. To put it all in words sounds kind of pretentious. It sounds like a bunch of words, until it's actually an experience."

Phish frequently has been compared to the Grateful Dead, another touring band blessed with a trailing caravan of seekers. Jerry Garcia and Co., having been at it for more than a quarter-century, draw far larger audiences -- selling some 1.5 million tickets compared with Phish's 650,000 this year. But, says Dead researcher Rebecca Adams, "Phish is the heir apparent to the Dead. It's quite clear they are winning the lottery."

An academic cottage industry and an Internet debating society have formed around both bands, allowing sages and neophytes to proselytize, soothsay and trade revelations.

"It's a spiritual phenomenon, not just entertainment," argues professor Adams, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina who's writing a book about Deadheads and discerns connections to Phish's fans. "But it's not a belief in musicians as deities. It's a belief in the power of music to create community."

"It is an experience unlike any other," insists Shira Koch, Phish Head, Wesleyan Class of '98, by e-mail message. "For a few short hours or days, we can almost lose ourselves in music, fun, youth." (Though she feels compelled to add: "Maybe I am just a spoiled college student who tries to give meaning to an activity which is senseless.")

True belief requires going "on tour," committing oneself to an ascetic lifestyle of following the band's every stop. But unlike hard-core Deadheads, some of whom survive on food stamps, Phish fans tend to arrange tours around their lives -- knocking off in the fall when school starts, working toward real-world careers. The tour community, even if only temporarily joined, offers more than mere fellowship; it is an example of how children of unstable modern households have reinvented the very concept of family.

"Definitely the scene is a surrogate family," says Nav Jiwan Khalsa, 21, whose American parents (now divorced) adopted the Sikh religion in the '60s. "Anywhere you go that the Dead and Phish are playing, you find people of like minds."

Big Piney Pilgrim My journey to Bethlehem really began in July in the remote mountains near Big Piney, Wyo., where I camped along with 13,000 other people in search of something transcendent, or at least something you'll never see on C-SPAN. It was the Rainbow Gathering, an annual celebration of woolly-headed idealism and primitive collectivism that attempts to transplant the Good Samaritan spirit -- usually at loose in America only on Christmas Day -- to a national forest for an entire week.

Incredibly, it works. Everyone belongs, everyone pitches in, everyone gets fed -- for free.

"Where you headed?" I asked a skinny, dirt-caked youth of 18 who was hiking down the two-mile trail from the Rainbow encampment. He was struggling with his box of meager possessions, so I offered a hand.

"Vermont," he said. "Going to follow Phish."

Who?

"Brother, you should check them out. When Jerry Garcia dies, they are gonna be it."

A chain of equally crusty teens, friends of his, soon filed alongside us, offering water and fruit.

"Mmmm nomm me nommm," they loudly hummed. "Do do do do do."

The tune sounded familiar. It made everyone smile against the drudgery of the hike.

"Is that Phish?" I asked.

No, they giggled. "It's from 'Sesame Street.' The Muppet theme."

Phish and the Dead Last week, many of those who journeyed to Fairfax for Phish's show moved on to the Dead's three-night stand at USAir Arena. The parking-lot villages for both bands often feature the same characters and rituals: tribal drum circles convened by dread-headed white kids; the wandering, LSD-dosed bliss ninnies in search of "miracle" free tickets; the unmistakable musk of patchouli oil and BO; and the insistent hiss of nitrous oxide tanks, as kids suck $5 balloons full of laughing gas -- called "hippie crack" because the rush lasts about 20 seconds.

Though the bands' followings intersect, it's not because the music is the same. Many years ago Phish covered Dead songs, but any comparison today is wrongheaded; the only similarity is that both are jam bands, offering hours-long sets and extended improvisations capable of sending listeners into a twirling dance of ecstasy. ("If you need to find me later, I'll be spinning at Portal 4," Buckley Kuhn, 20, a former debutante from McLean, told me at the Patriot Center show.)

What Phish shares principally with the Dead is a marketing strategy that breaks down the barrier between artist and audience. Both bands invite fans to record their live shows, and tapes are traded extensively (never sold). Both use hot lines and mailing lists to enhance the word-of-mouth network. All of this builds a more intimately connected, and loyal, fan base. Today both the Dead and Phish generate their main income from touring rather than album sales, subverting the music industry wisdom that touring is something a band does to sell records.

Several other young groups -- Blues Traveler, Widespread Panic, God Street Wine, Aquarium Rescue Unit, Leftover Salmon and the Dave Matthews Band -- are applying the Dead-Phish formula with varying degrees of success. Matthews, a regional favorite based in Charlottesville, has caught on with Phish fans and last month sold out the 3,400-seat Roseland Ballroom in New York.

Many of these bands share something else: a rejection of the voguish alienation and anger of so-called alternative groups, and a return to a celebratory spirit of rock's barefoot-and-tie-dyed past. Phish in particular is a fun band, as playful as children (though the members' average age is 29 1/2) and inventively wacky: for example, when drummer Jon Fishman, dressed in a frock, sings Prince's "Purple Rain" while accompanying himself on an Electrolux vacuum cleaner.

Add in expertly honed, unpredictable sets and onstage trampoline gymnastics, and the Dead start to look like what they are: a bunch of old men.

"With the Dead, you're going to get an average to lame show," says Steve Logan, 27, a computer salesman from suburban Philadelphia who used to collect live Dead tapes but now concentrates on Phish. He's seen them 73 times; he has stockpiled nearly 500 hours of digital audio tape. "With Phish, for the most part, it's an excellent show," Logan says after setting up his $600 Sony recorder. "The majority of the crowd is going to walk away saying, 'That's one of the best shows I've ever seen.' "

Says Jonathan Epstein, 21, a Massachusetts correspondent on the Phishnet, a computer bulletin board: "I lost my faith in the Grateful Dead. I lost my faith in the Dead when I heard Phish."

On the Road Stun the puppy!

Burn the whale!

Bark a scruff and go to jail!

Forge the coin and lick the stamp!

Little Jimmy's off to camp.

-- From Phish's "The Squirming Coil"

Nazz and his four friends were road-tripping from Cincinnati in a red Bronco packed with sleeping bags, flannel shirts and sustenance that included a case of Pete's Wicked Ale. First stop, Bethlehem, then on to Fairfax, then Louisville before returning to reality at the University of Cincinnati.

Many Phish fans attend college. But some, like Scott Nazzarine, are taking a break. He is 20, an architecture school dropout. He follows both the Dead and Phish, and tramped to Wyoming this summer for the Rainbow Gathering. He wrote his high school senior thesis on Jack Kerouac.

"I try to avoid working as much as possible," he says, laughing. He doesn't worry about surviving, he says, because "people are so friendly" on tour.

But like the hippies of yore, today's self-seeking transients often have middle-class roots to return to.

"I've worked Phish into my master plan," says Todd Overbeck, 21, a ponytailed sociology major at the U of C. That blueprint includes: graduating with a good GPA, mastering Swahili and enrolling in the Peace Corps (he hopes to work in Africa), then getting a graduate degree. But for a year or two in between, starting in fall '95, he will follow Phish.

Why? It's part of his religion, he says, but not the conservative Catholicism he was raised in. "It's the spirituality of carpe diem -- of seizing life, being happy," he says. "It's the spirituality of having a good time."

Do Phish's lyrics contain deeper meaning? Of course, Overbeck and his friends say. They cite the parable of "Possum": "I was driving down the road one day and I hit a possum. Possum, possum, possum."

Nazz smiles, as if revealing a secret. "Sometimes whatever they're saying doesn't matter," he says. "They could be saying anything."

Sacred Music Before the Bethlehem show, the rabbi tends the cookstove, stirring beans to make veggie nachos, a quick nosh for the parking lot faithful.

How much?

"By donation," he demurs. He also offers Camel wides for a more worldly sum of $3 a pack, and a free glimpse at his set-list catalogue of Phish's live shows, back to '86.

"This is part of my research and part of my occupation, because I'm clergy," says Yanni Cohen, 25, an assistant rabbi in Manhattan. "I get a spiritual boost big-time from Phish shows. And I'm here for advice if someone needs it."

It pleases Cohen that Phish sometimes breaks into the ancient chant "Aveinu Malkeinu" ("Our father, our king") and other Hebrew songs in concert. (Though no longer an observant Jew, bassist Mike Gordon attended Hebrew day school.) "It's a right-on message," the young rabbi says.

I offer Cohen my extra free ticket to attend the concert. Sorry, he says, but the sun has set, his observation of Sabbath has begun. He cannot attend.

So I offer it to his friend, Wanda D'Orta, 32, a former dental hygienist who now sells tie-dyed clothing, who was raised by strict Christian parents and still follows Jesus but rejects the institutional church. D'Orta says she finds truly Christ-like "unconditional love" among Phish fans.

"There are a lot of disciples here," she says, gesturing to the assembled, "even if they don't know it."

She has never seen a Phish concert. She marvels at the free ticket and seems on the verge of weeping with happiness.

"This is such a blessing," she says. "God bless you."

Present at the Creation Amy Skelton is the legendary Phirst Phan. She alone was there to applaud Phish during its debut live show 10 years ago on a winter night in Burlington, Vt., at Nectar's -- a tavern that is now a sacred site, drawing pilgrims by the carload.

"The second week there were two people, literally," recalls guitarist Trey Anastasio. From there the affinity circle kept expanding, as Skelton used her pickup truck to haul loads of 10 fans to bar gigs. "And we met all of them," says Anastasio.

He and other band members still wander into the parking lot after shows, but nobody treats them like gurus, or even rock stars. They dress like perpetual grad students. Their idea of a wicked good time on the bus is a chess match (keyboardist Page McConnell and drummer Fishman ended the spring tour tied 11-11).

"The guys have never taken themselves too seriously," says Skelton, 29, who now handles the band's merchandising on tour. That's her horse, Maggie, dangling on the cover of "Hoist," which has sold about 250,000 copies.

Phish's third album for Elektra, "Hoist" was an exercise in, well, fishing for radio and MTV exposure. Elektra hoped for a breakthrough after earlier releases flopped commercially.

"So we made a conscious decision," Anastasio recalls. "They want a couple of radio songs, they want a video, let's just do it and see how it feels. And we did it, and I didn't like it."

Why? "It's too commercial."

Anastasio realizes the irony of this. Most bands, no matter how loudly they bray about the evils of selling out, actually are willing to enter pacts with Lucifer to get a record on the Billboard chart. Phish is genuinely fearful of becoming too popular, of losing the intimate relationship with its fans (up until last year, band members even answered all mail personally). Many Phish Heads denounced the making of a video for the song "Down With Disease."

"We don't think we'll make any more," says Gordon, who directed it.

So far, the band has played to no audience larger than 18,000; New York's Madison Square Garden, an upcoming stop, holds 20,000. Anastasio says that's the limit.

"We won't be hitting RFK Stadium," he vows. "It's too big; it's just a stupid place to have a concert. The only reason to play in a room like that is because you make a whole lot of money."

It is a very large room, indeed. But perhaps the Great Tour Manager in the Sky will decide the size of the room into which this man sets his feet.

Phame Within minutes of asking Phish to pose for photos, we are surrounded by a frenzied swarm of pre-pubescent girls demanding autographs. The girls play for a 13-and-under soccer team in Cold Spring Harbor, on Long Island, they're in Fairfax for a tournament, and not only have they heard of Phish, they have CDs right here for them to sign! Albums their 15-year-old sisters told them to buy! They looooovvve Phish!

The band is ecstatic, yet surprised that their fame has reached this level. "This is new for us," Anastasio says, shaking his mane.

But it's no wonder: Phish's music has built-in kid appeal. Anastasio used to write songs with his mom, once the editor of Sesame Street magazine. One of Phish's songs, "The Divided Sky," takes its melody from a family musical, "Gus the Christmas Dog."

It turns out the soccer team has no idea Phish is playing that very night, right down the street. Instantly, Anastasio invites all 15 girls to the concert. A few hours later, in the middle of "Cymbal," the Cold Spring Harbor Muppets file in front of 10,356 spinners, seekers and just plain astonished music lovers, and chant:

"Everywhere we go, people wanna know! Who we are, where we come from! So we tell them: North, south, east, west -- Muppets are the best!"

It's too perfect. The lesser deities that watch over feature journalists are clearly working overtime. And in the end, the story of Phish becomes a simple lesson:

To find happiness, be as if a child. Play and share. Love one another. Dance and sing. Somewhere in there, you may even find God.

POSTHASTE2 CTH 10/16 ADV

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