Photo by Michael Bush

So now I’ve seen Phish. I dug it, but it wasn’t a life-altering experience. It was, however, a live example of the pleasure we take in having common reference points.

If you know nothing about Phish and the devotion they inspire in a veritable subculture of fans, you won’t fully get the humor in hearing that three complete strangers engaged me—at separate times—in conversation that included detailed analysis of Phish’s set list, which varies from show to show. “Who would have called ‘Suzy Greenberg’ as an opener?!” a friendly fellow who’s seen them 130 times enthused during intermission. “I mean, what is that?“

I didn’t know what that was, except a nice song to kick things off. But it was impossible not to grasp the joy the boy took in rehashing our shared experience. We were both there, brother. Remember in 2012 when Phish came to Long Beach and opened with “Suzy Greenberg”? Man, that was tight!

Phish fans know—and I mean know— the band’s music. And considering the studied meandering of some of the tunes, the ability to anticipate every little detail takes some doing. But that’s part of the fun for them: they’re all on the same page. And having the songs mapped out mentally means that in synchrony they get the same special tweak of pleasure (a tickle to the cerebellum) when their expectations are violated slightly by the variations inherent to a live performance.

The elaborate lighting at a Phish show serves to reinforce that experience of having an experience. It’s using one more sense as one more way to guide a large group of individuals to focus on the same place, to be in the same, shared moment. As truly social animals, we humans respond the shared. It’s nice to know that everyone knows where (s)he was on 9/11. New Orleans residents wouldn’t have wished Hurricane Katrina on their friends and neighbors, but there’s a comfort in the commonality. And how ’bout them Saints later that year? Imagine the togetherness, and what that did for their souls.

Phish shows add another ingredient to their stew of the shared by incorporating cover songs, played with extreme faithfulness to the originals. They opened their second set with The Velvet Underground’s “Rock and Roll”, to which any fan of Lou Reed and co. could sing note-for-note—the lead and backing vocals, the riffs, the solos, the stops and starts. She started shakin’ to that fine fine music / You know her life was saved by rock and roll.

Rock ‘n’ roll may not save your life—not even if it’s Phish—but shared experiences certainly aren’t going to hurt. I have never been in one place where such a high percentage of the people were dancing so freely. In the midst of our often uneven and cacophonous lives, there we were, fully immersed, grooving to the same reference points in one, big positive place. Despite all the amputations, you know you could just go out and dance to the rock ‘n’ roll station / It was all right.