Mike Gordon Remembers Phil Lesh & Discusses Phish’s ‘Box Of Rain’ Cover
“I think if people can allow themselves to get into the Dead’s music, they’ll find that there’s never been more beautiful bass playing.”
By Scott Bernstein Nov 11, 2024 • 9:34 am PST
Phish‘s Mike Gordon wrote an emotional tribute to Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh published by Rolling Stone. Gordon wrote about Phish's “Box Of Rain” cover within the article, which the band played just hours after Phil Lesh died at age 84 on October 25.
“I thought Phil was the most unique part of the Grateful Dead,” Gordon began his remembrance. “It didn’t surprise me that Bob Dylan said that in his book Philosophy of Modern Song, when he was talking about [‘Truckin’’]. Usually there are all these expectations about the bass: a lot of repeating patterns, having an allegiance to “the one” and to the root note. Phil didn’t have any of those allegiances. He avoided them all.”
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Mike Gordon shared memories of his first extended meeting with Lesh at the Phil & Phriends shows in April 1999. “I was there for all three [shows]. For one of them, I sat behind his bass, up onstage, practically leaning against his bass. It was pretty thunderous,” Gordon recalled of a run featuring bandmates Trey Anastasio and Page McConnell.
Gordon invited Lesh to have lunch together and Phil accepted. “This is a big hero of mine, and he came to my hotel, and they had made special menus that said ‘Bass Players Luncheon’ on them. He said, ‘I’m going to keep this forever,'” explained Gordon. “It was only four years after Jerry passed. I remember him talking a lot about that and having some anger that Jerry seemed to choose drugs over his friends. With people that know about addiction, it’s more complicated than that. [But the lunch] was special.”
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Phish was preparing to take the stage at Albany’s MVP Arena for the first of three Divided Sky Foundation benefit concerts on the day Phil Lesh died. The quartet debuted their heartrending version of “Box Of Rain” in memory of Phil Lesh to kick off the run. Lesh co-wrote “Box Of Rain” with GD lyricist Robert Hunter and it was one of the few GD songs featuring Phil on lead vocals.
Mike Gordon recalled the experience of finding out Phil died and going to work on “Box Of Rain,” writing:
The day he passed away, [Phish] opened our concert with “Box of Rain.” We didn’t have much time between learning the news and the show, and there was all kinds of stuff going on. I had some guests who I wanted to meet, catering, and warm-ups, and all of a sudden the news comes down the pipe.
So all of a sudden I’ve got 30 minutes till the band is going to go into our little rehearsal room and then put on the show. Phil liked to write these songs that didn’t repeat their forms. Never mind the bass notes; each verse is an unbroken chain, each verse is different. I know the other band members were sometimes frustrated: “Why couldn’t it be easier to remember?” I’ve got 10 or 12 pages of “Box of Rain” spread out on a coffee table.
[Phish] jumped into our room and decided we were just going to do three-part harmony the whole way through [“Box of Rain”], and we couldn’t work it out. We just had to go for it and see if we could iron out a couple of kinks. Other than our first couple of years, it’s been taboo to play Grateful Dead songs — not just Grateful Dead songs, but grooves that they would use — because early on we were compared to them too much. So it’s only every couple of decades that we play a Grateful Dead song. I have this picture of all of these people in the front row just crying from “Box of Rain” that night.
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Mike Gordon also wrote about several other times he performed with the Grateful Dead bassist including their last collaboration on Phil Lesh's 84th birthday. “I got to give him his cake for his 84th birthday before the encore,” Gordon shared. “He asked if there were any songs I wanted to do. I picked a few I had not played before, and I sang one of them.” The song Mike sang that night was “Sugar Magnolia.”
The Phish bassist summarized Phil Lesh’s playing as “beautiful and powerful” after writing, “I think if people can allow themselves to get into the Dead’s music, they’ll find that there’s never been more beautiful bass playing.” He added, “There’s this quality that can’t be put into words, that just blossoms like a little bud turning into a flower, and then a forest of flowers in front of your soul all in a few minutes, period. It’s that ability to conjure, to be able to say that magic is going to happen. It’s going to happen because the universal spirit is going to come through me and allow it to happen.”
Head to Rolling Stone to read Mike Gordon’s full tribute to Phil Lesh.
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