I’ve been searching around YouTube recently for videos of Phish because you can’t really get a feel for this band unless you see them live.

It’s hard to argue against the fact that Phish fans are some of the most loyal fans in all of music. Heck, even Travis McCoy from the pop group Gym Class Heroes went to a show this tour and said on his Twitter account, “Most devoted fans I’ve ever seen…My hat is off to these guys yo.” Not that this means too much coming from a pop dude like this but nonetheless, however annoying you may find them, they’re going to stick by their band through thick and thin.

And with loyalty comes dedication to capturing the moments every Phish fan craves and looks forward to talking about with friends and family members even if their friends would rather they keep their enthusiastic stories to themselves. In the past, this dedication was usually in the form of taped recordings. Phish allows a certain amount of tapers to record each show and in return these tapers trade and share their recordings with the community. In fact, many professional marketers see this as one of the most powerful techniques in marketing – to give your information away for free. David Meerman Scott writes in his book, World Wide Rave, “do you market like Led Zeppelin or the Grateful Dead.” Of course he’s referring to the same type of freedom the Dead gave their fans in recording that Phish gives to theirs. This creates what they call a “long tail” effect. For example, even thought Phish went without playing a single live show or releasing any album for almost 5 years, they still had kids in high school that followed and listened to all their live music that was floating around the internet and from being past down from big brother or sister.

But video is slowly but surely taking on a more prominent role in the Phish world. Many are bringing in cameras that are capable of recording high quality shots. I’m guessing many have the HD Flip cameras. They then post to YouTube to share to the world.

An even more hardcore sharing technique is live streaming of the shows through ones iPhone or other mobile device. Sites like Ustream can have upwards to 2 even 3,000 viewers at once during a live show. And often times these streams are choppy and have poor sound quality yet the fans will continue listening so as to feel like they’re a part of the experiencing taking place at that very moment. One of the more popular channels is the Hood Stream channel.

For me, these clear and crisp videos are remarkable and I look forward to sifting through to find some great jams. Here are some of these amazing video guerrillas at work.

Phish @ Madison Square Garden, NY, NY 12-2-09 “Peaches en Regalia (Frank Zappa cover)”

Phish @ Portland, ME 11/29/09 “Mike’s Song”

Phish @ Albany, NY Compilation Video