Jordan Jensen was one of a handful of stand-up comics booked to perform at this past summer’s Phish festival, Mondegreen. In a recent clip posted to her Instagram, Jensen comments on her Phish experience—and why she’s definitely not down. In short: “Dude, you need Black people.”
“I just went to a f—ing Phish concert,” she tells a comedy club crowd in the clip, “Brooooo. I went with my heart wide open, I had a little bedazzled jewel [on my face], I took mushrooms, I was like, ‘Here we go.’ There’s so many people here who are so happy.”
While she was into Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon, and Page McConnell‘s playing to start, she continues, they quickly lost her when they started to sing. “It’s literally like, ‘and the little choo choo train goes choo choo! Yee-haw! And all the little boys line up on the bus then we go to school to-day,’” she jokes. “Like, I was like, ‘This is insane.’ And then I start having a bad trip ‘cus all these people were having a good trip at that. … Like they were all like, ‘Yeah!’ And I was like, ‘Nooooo.’ It was so weird, dude.”
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She thinks she’s figured out why the experience freaked her out: “I was on stage [later, at the festival grounds’ Leigh Fordham Hall comedy venue] in this giant room full of people. I was like, ‘Are there any Black people here?’ Silence. And I was like, “So, that’s what this is. It’s like a giant Narnia where all these people go and they’re like, ‘For some reason, I feel safe tripping here and I can wear my flip-flops and have my gay Nalgene stickers.’ … I’m like, yeah, ‘cus no Black people are here to be like, ‘… what the f—?’ That’s all it is.”
She echoed her distaste for Phish alongside fellow comic Ian Fidance on their Bein’ Ian with Jordan podcast. “[Phish fans] were actually very nice, I just think… I cannot believe how bad Phish is,” she said. “This is baby music. It’s for wittle babies.”
Fidance sounded a bit more open to the music, noting that he liked ‘Character Zero’ (even if he couldn’t remember how it goes). “There’s a song called ‘Fuego’ … that I like,” he added. “I used to listen to them when I would do lesson plans when I was teaching.” As Jensen quipped in response, “Yeah, because it’s little kid music.”
To all the Phish fans about to grab their torches and pitchforks and go after Jordan Jensen: relax. She’s a comedian. It’s her job to make fun of stuff. We definitely laughed when we watched these clips. Also, you’re a Phish fan; people not “getting it” should be a very familiar feeling for you at this point, and poking fun at the band’s fanbase is half the fun of being a part of it.
Plus, the “you need Black people” joke was already in her repertoire—she uses it to mess with particularly white crowds—and, I mean, the Phish scene is, indeed, so white. For what it’s worth, Jordan, many people, like those behind Phans for Racial Equity (PHRE), are out there actively trying to change that trend. But yeah, we know, it’s not great.
As Phans for Racial Equity co-founder Malcolm Howard noted in a recent GQ profile on Phish and its Mondegreen festival, “If you have racists in the broader community, you’re going to have racists in the Phish community. We have to stop thinking of ourselves as an aberration but as an evolution. How do you take this home and make your world better?”
Watch the two aforementioned clips of Jordan Jensen ripping on Phish and its fans below.
Phish will head to Albany in October for a run of three performances benefitting the Divided Sky Foundation. Find tickets to the Phish Albany shows here. Jordan Jensen has a number of upcoming performance on her calendar. For a listing of Jordan Jensen shows and ticketing information, head here.
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The post Why Comedian Jordan Jensen Had A Bad Trip While Seeing Phish At Mondegreen [Videos] appeared first on L4LM.
