The Set Break Joint That Preceded Phish’s Bassist Mike Gordon’s ‘Peak Musical Experience’

Bassist Mike Gordon owes his membership in Phish to his fateful decision to answer guitarist Trey Anastasio’s flyer that was posted on the University Of Vermont campus in Burlington in 1983. According to Parke Puterbaugh’s book Phish: The Biography, the flyer simply read “Looking for a bass player with a P.A.”

Not long after responding to the flyer, Gordon, Anastasio and fellow UVM students, guitarist Jeff Holdsworth and drummer Jon Fishman, had formed a band, playing their first concert in December 1983.

Holdsworth left the group and by early 1985 keyboardist Page McConnell solidified Phish’s lineup. Gordon began his time at UVM studying engineering but before graduation switched his focus to film. While Gordon’s passion for filmmaking continued and eventually led to his directing the feature film Outside Out and documentary Rising Low, among other video projects, another fateful event occurred later in 1985 that helped solidify Gordon’s commitment to Phish.

Gordon remained at UVM while Anastasio and Fishman were lured by McConnell to transfer to Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. Phish played at Goddard several times, including a performance believed to have occurred on November 23, 1985.

In Richard Gehr’s The Phish Book, Gordon explained the importance of the show, of which little artifacts remain outside of a partial tape recording and Gordon’s recollection.

“I had my peak musical experience of all time during a gig at Goddard College in November 1985,” Gordon relayed. “At the time I was an engineering student pondering a transfer to film. I’d just completed a series of tests, and the pressure was temporarily off me.”

Gordon went on to describe the scene, recalling, “Only about 50 people were on campus the night we played, and of the 10 people who came to the dance, eight left after the first set.” The band played while facing each other inside the circular school cafeteria. According to Gordon, the first set included a cover of Steppenwolf’s “Wild Thing” and other songs written on a request board, but the remainder of the set and much of the rest of the show’s setlist is unconfirmed.

As the saying goes, correlation does not equal causation but the facts, as Gordon remembers them, are this: at set break after the first set he smoked a joint and got “really, really high,” which precipitated the aforementioned “peak musical experience” that occurred during the subsequent second set.

Here’s how Mike recounted the show in The Phish Book

“We were playing two kinds of gigs at the time: either loose gigs with great jams or tight gigs where we got the changes right—but never at the same time. Our light show consisted of one red floodlight, one yellow flood, and one green flood. A couple of band members began playing while we were still setting them up, and I knew even before picking up my instrument that this gig would be infinitely tight and loose at the same time. The sun was setting, and it looked perfectly white and tranquil outside. During the first set we played ‘Wild Thing’ and a few other songs that had been scrawled on the blackboard we set up for requests.

“We went out into the hallway and passed a joint around with some strange people after the first set. I got really, really high, and as the rest of the band returned to the cafeteria, I realized I couldn’t stand up. When I finally did, I just sort of glided like a hovercraft back downstairs.

“Jeff was playing volume swells on his guitar, which I thought was the most incredible sound I’d ever heard. We turned off all the lights, and I started jumping up and down with the beat, not caring how I looked for perhaps the first time in my entire life. As we jammed, I felt more spiritually in tune than ever before. I felt at one with the buildings, wall outlets, chandeliers, and these people I loved.

“As we kept jamming, my ecstatic state didn’t diminish no matter how I played or what style we played in. At one point I had a vision of Trey standing beside me in whitetails with a pocket watch, as though we were performing during the 1920s. The whole experience was like viewing a huge well-lit room after having been blind. I felt completely illuminated.

“I decided then and there to start a journal, and I’ve kept one ever since. The first two volumes were completely about that experience, then they branched off to concern related experiences of life, art, and music. How do music and art help me and others to actualize ourselves? What’s the formula, if there is one? What conditions make it most likely to occur? I was more like myself that show than ever before, but I was also part of Phish, five people in a circle who seemed to hover above the forest and move slowly through the trees. I wandered into the woods after the second set and decided never to return.

“Yes, filmmaking was better than engineering. But film had nothing on the musical experience I’d just had, and I was afraid I’d never be able to recapture it. So why bother? When I did return, the rest of the band decided to play another set. I was terrified another set would soil my peak experience, but it turned out to be just as great! We played for hours to the two or three people listening to us in the darkness.

“I decided my goals in life were to live in the woods, travel around from city to city, and try to replicate the experience I’d just had as often as possible. The whole gig’s on tape, but I’ll probably never listen to it.”

Along with Mike’s recollection of “Wild Thing” being performed in the first set, a tape purporting to be part of the fateful second set circulates. The show notes on Phish.net describe the recording:

[A] “Whipping Post Jam” fades in after “Mike’s Song” on the recording that circulates. This “Jam” contained a jam reminiscent of “Dark Star.” It also featured “Norwegian Wood” teases from Mike, a “Slave to the Traffic Light” tease from Trey, and a jam reminiscent of the early intro to “Harry Hood.” “[Run Like An] Antelope” fades in after the “Whipping Post Jam” fades out.

“Antelope” then segued into the retired Phish instrumental original “Dave’s Energy Guide.” While Mike has chosen not to listen to the tape from that fateful night 38 years ago today, you can listen to it (plus a bonus filler acapella “Frankenstein” Fish left on Phish manager John Paluska’s answering machine) below:

Setlist (via Phish.net)