Saratoga Springs

Christopher Gerow was a sight to behold at Friday's Phish concert.

He never stopped moving. He practically bear-hugged the speaker system when the band jammed its way through a cover of Talking Heads' "Cities." He had the biggest smile in a sea of happy faces.

But when Phish noodled its way out of a long improvisation and Trey Anastasio started singing again, Gerow focused on the woman dancing in front of him, her arms doing their own routine.

Sharyn Klipstein was translating Anastasio's lyrics into sign language. Gerow, 35, is a profoundly deaf Phish head who hears partially thanks to hearing aids. His favorite Phish album is "Rift," and he has seen 50 shows since his first show at the Worcester Centrum in 1995.

At a concert, the music pulses through the floor, vibrates the seats and rattles your organs. Most people are so focused on what they're hearing that they don't realize that they're also feeling it. For a deaf music fan, this is the whole show.

On Friday and Saturday night at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Gerow, who is from the Boston area, was in front of the speakers and subwoofers.

"This is every deaf person's dream!" he wrote in an email interview. "I've always been able to feel the bass, but lately I've been wearing high-tech digital hearing aids that allow me to hear the bass."

Klipstein, who works as a freelance sign language translator, said she studies the lyrics in advance. She and her partners, who are based in central Massachusetts, review set lists and work on interpreting the lyrics. It's similar to the translation of poetry from one language into another — it requires creativity and is hard to do on the fly.

"All we're doing is making the lyrics accessible," she said. "We rehearse constantly; you have to know the lyrics going in."

Still, there was Klipstein, keeping up with Phish bassist Mike Gordon as he debuted a brand-new song, "Yarmouth Road." It had a reggae backbeat and she never stopped moving her hips as her arms translated the words for Gerow. Klipstein, who was hired by SPAC, is a Phish fan herself and translates lyrics at many jam band shows in the Northeast. On Tuesday, she signed at Paul McCartney's Fenway concert.

The dancing at any concert follows a particular ebb and flow. At a Phish show, fans get swept along to Anastasio's joyous guitar riffs. Between songs, they hang breathlessly, waiting for the first few notes to hear what's coming next and then dissolve into a glorious excitement when the telltale chords of "Story of the Ghost" or "Down with Disease" begin.

Gerow described the way he hears as being similar to a broken intercom at a McDonald's drive-thru, when it sounds loud and garbled. His sophisticated hearing aids help with that, enough that he can enjoy music while driving in his car. But at a live Phish show, the lights pulse with the music and he is close enough to the band to see if Page McConnell is taking a keyboard solo or Gordon is launching into another bass run.

"It helps me to see the band performing so when I'm listening to a specific song, I'll know that Mike Gordon is about to drop a bomb on us," Gerow said.

swaldman@timesunion.com • 518-454-5080 • @518Schools