Although the group received little radio play or MTV exposure, Phish developed a large following by word of mouth. Phish's music has elements of many genres including jazz, bluegrass, country, heavy metal, reggae, folk, rock, ska, pop, blues, progressive rock, show tunes, classical, acoustic, barber shop quartet and calypso.



The band performed 226 originals (of the 234 they penned) and 383 covers for a total of 609 songs.



While often compared to the Grateful Dead, Phish finds their roots in jazz and alternative rock as opposed to the Dead who were more influenced by folk, country and blues.



Each Phish concert is different in terms of the songs included and the order in which they appeared, and (for many songs) in the way in which they were performed. Also unique to Phish are their large summer festivals which draw upwards of 70K people to remote areas in Maine and New York State as well as close to 100K for their epic Millennium Show in the Everglades of South Florida.



Along with Bob Dylan and The Beatles, Phish were one of the first bands to have an Internet newsgroup - rec.music.phish - launched in 1991.



In regards to Phish, Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed "Given their sense of community, their ambition and their challenging, generous performances, Phish have become the most important band of the Nineties."



User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.

rock, alternative, classic rock, jam, jam band