NEW YORK -- Stop the presses: Phish played a relatively normal show on New Year's Eve.

On New Year's Eves past, the improvisational rock quartet

from Vermont pulled such stunts as hovering over the

crowd in a 12-foot-long hot dog and performing on a stage

designed to look like a giant fish tank.

To welcome 1999, Phish got the obvious out of the way

early -- they opened their sold-out show at Madison Square

Garden here by covering Prince's soul classic "1999" -- and went on to

perform a four-and-a-half hour show that, fans said, was

pretty much a standard night with Phish.

That meant three sets plus an encore, plenty of improvising,

lots of vintage Phish material, a few other covers (including

the Edgar Winter Group's 1973 instrumental classic,

"Frankenstein") and a drummer dressed in a muumuu.

"On the whole, an average show," said concert-goer Ross

Burns, 24, of New York.

But in the cold Manhattan night outside the Garden, Tom

Delano, 26, of White Plains, N.Y., shouted, "It's New

Year's! Who cares how the band sounded?

"They could have played nothing but Hanson songs and I would have

loved it!" Delano continued, referring to the teen pop trio.

Before the show, which finished a four-night stand for

Phish at the Garden, scalpers asked for as much as $200 a

ticket, and counterfeit tickets reportedly were rampant.

Fans could be seen outside the Garden early, toting sleeping

bags and backpacks, selling ganja goo-balls and plastering

everything they could with white-and-purple stickers that

read, "Party Like It's 1999!" Just up the street, a crowd that

eventually would reach an estimated half a million was

forming in Times Square for the city's annual New Year's

celebration.

Phish took the stage around 8:30 p.m. to the din of 27,000

screaming revelers bouncing and dancing in the aisles.

Guitarist Trey Anastasio beamed in appreciation of the

welcome and waved hello. Keyboardist Page McConnell

settled in front of his Hammond organ and, with a coy

smile, drove his bony fingers into the first few notes of

HREF="http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Prince/1999.ram">"1999"

(RealAudio excerpt of Prince version).

McConnell sang the high parts and bassist Mike Gordon

crooned the low ones. Midway through the song, a crew of

dancers costumed as pixies, nymphs, zoo animals and other

creatures pranced onto the stage. Tom Marshall, longtime

lyricist and friend of the band, accompanied them. The

ecstatic crowd sang along.

Anastasio ended "1999" with an extend guitar jam, after

which the band played a 20-minute-long "Mike's Song"/"I

Am Hydrogen"/"Weekapaug Groove" medley.

Fans who've followed Phish since their Goddard College

days in the mid-'80s (and there were plenty of them)

cheered along, as bassist Mike Gordon sang, during "Mike's

Song," about being at a bad party with no escape.

Drummer Jon Fishman -- dressed in his usual polka-dotted

muumuu as well as a silver viking helmet -- at times held

the band together on his own as Anastasio and Gordon

tripped up against each other.

The second set, which followed a half-hour break, opened

with the snap, crackle and pop of "NICU." Anastasio's

guitar wailed through a non-stop half-hour of music that

incorporated "Tweezer,"

HREF="http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Phish/Cities.ram">"Cities"

(RealAudio excerpt) and "Antelope." The set ended with a

dizzying attack by McConnell on "Frankenstein."

But that wasn't enough to thrill some die-hard fans. "I think

they could give us something extra special tonight -- but

they haven't really done too much so far," Connecticut

resident Josh Higgins, 28, said. "I was expecting them to

play some rare s---, like 'Harpua' or 'Forbin' ['Colonel Forbin's

Ascent']."

Thanks to a devoted core of tape traders and concert-goers,

Phish shows tend to be more analyzed from within than

other bands' shows are. "It's a pretty good show, but they

don't sound too enthused as in other New Year's shows I've

seen," said Tracy Hericks, 23, of Baltimore, Md. "Now

Boston -- that was a show!" she said, referring to the Dec.

31, 1994 concert that featured the giant hot dog.

Phish returned to the stage for their third set at 11:45 p.m.

and ushered out 1998 with a sleepy "Runaway Jim." Ten

digital clocks around the arena counted down to 1999 and

the crowd chanted, "Five, four, three, two, one -- Happy

New Year!" as a barrage of strobes and screams pierced

through the Garden and fireworks and cannons exploded

onstage.

Enormous balloons were dropped from the roof, corks were

popped and joints fired up, and Phish played a jazzy "Auld

Lang Syne." That segued into the Phish song "Simple," as

Anastasio ran around waving his guitar at, and popping, the

balloons that were landing onstage. Fans started using glow

sticks as grenades, turning the floor of the Garden into

something resembling a war movie.

The band carried on past midnight with little more fanfare.

The third set lasted till nearly 1 a.m., after which Phish

returned for an encore – a cover of '60s rockers the Beatles' "While My

Guitar Gently Weeps."