Phish: Scorching guitar-work and plain ol' noodling

Conventional thinking on Phish holds that it's love or hate - either you are into the world's largest cult rock group or you shower the quarter-century-old jam band with disdain, predictably accompanied by snarky references to patchouli, a trust-funded fan base, mindless noodling, and the like. But the Vermont quartet invited other assessments on Tuesday, its first of two nights in the vast Wachovia Center before 20,000-plus fans.

In a two-set, 20-song performance over three hours - Phish's debut at the center, and the first time in Philly since November 2003 at the Spectrum - the band offered things to excite, turn off, or just be lukewarm about. In short, it shattered another of those curiously enduring false dichotomies in rock, making the take-it/leave-it seem as trite as the notions that one can't love the Beatles and the Stones, one must be either a Lennon or a McCartney fan, etc.

The band seemed tighter and smoother than its June show in Camden, when it was getting back on the road after a five-year hiatus. Like that show, this one kicked off with a positively chooglin' version of "Chalk Dust Torture," Page McConnell's barroom piano moving along the boogie forwarded by singer-guitarist Trey Anastasio. Sporting the No. 18 Flyers home jersey of team captain Mike Richards, Anastasio came out firing, his deceptively light-fingered style and high tone producing a compelling scorch for all eight minutes.

As the night wore on, however, Anastasio's routine wore thin: song begins, bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman (in polka-dot muumuu) lock in on groove, a few vocals, then a guitar solo that goes on - for a long, long time. Notes aplenty but scant dynamic range, and no sense of economy. It could begin to wear, go beyond to unpleasant - but then, on occasion, flower into some choice fretplay. On the oldie "Reba," the solo even suggested a combination of Santana and, of course, Anastasio's key influence, late Grateful Dead string-bender Jerry Garcia, flirting with something that could have easily morphed into George Benson's "Breezin.' "

The first set ended with an up-tempo "Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan," one of only two tunes played from Phish's new studio album, Joy - and, yes, it was hard not to focus on the tall, dreadlocked white guy up front doing the least rhythmic air-drumming imaginable as Anastasio sang, "Got a blank space where my mind should be." The encore was the night's second cover - earlier came Talking Heads' "Cities," a sign request - as McConnell and Anastasio sang, respectively, Lennon's and McCartney's parts on their truly collaborative Beatles classic "A Day in the Life."