Phil Leshis one ofMike Gordons biggest heroes.
Gordon, the bassist forPhish, became aware of theGrateful Deadin high school and soon zoned in on Lesh.
I thought Phil was the most unique part of the Grateful Dead.
Lesh (far left), with Gordon and Trey Anastasio of Phish in 1999Jay Blakesberg/Retro Photo Archive
Phil didnt have any of those allegiances.
He avoided them all.
Do you ever gush a little too hard?
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.
I asked if he would have lunch with me.
He said, Im going to keep this forever.
It was only four years after Jerry passed.
With people that know about addiction, its more complicated than that.
[But the lunch] was special.
He was like, Nope, Ill walk.
Which is probably a good thing.
Guys from Little Feat were playing.
He also invited me to play at this gig he called the Bass Summit.
It was one of the times I played his bass.
He asked me to help figure out what songs I wanted to play.
We played The Maker, the Daniel Lanois song, because it has two bass lines.
I suggested doing All About That Bass.
He threw that one right out.
This was a huge gig.
So Trey [Anastasio] gave me his guitar.
And I was raging on the guitar.
It was just bigger than life.
The only thing I really cared about was being up there and hearing Phils tone.
The day he passed away, [Phish] opened our concert with Box of Rain.
Phil liked to write these songs that didnt 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 couldnt it be easier to remember?
We just had to go for it and see if we could iron out a couple of kinks.
So its only every couple of decades that we play a Grateful Dead song.
Phil always talked about the music coming from God.
I think Phil just wanted to see where it could go.
As people go through longer periods of their career, there are different ways to handle it.
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.
I think itll last for a long time.
Its that ability to conjure, to be able to say that magic is going to happen.
Its going to happen because the universal spirit is going to come through me and allow it to happen.
And it will never be like that again.
