Phish, the quintessential '90s hippie rock band, first played Boston's Paradise Rock Club on Jan. 26, 1989. Their Paradise debut included some of Phish's early greats, including "Alumni Blues," "YEM," "Sanity," "Divided Sky," "Foam," "David Bowie" and "AC/DC Bag."This past Thursday, almost 14 years later, the quasi-eponymous Phish drummer, Jon Fishman, returned to the Paradise to wow post-Phish-craze "phans" with two funk-filled sets, as he performed with his now five-year-old "side project," Pork Tornado.

This five-piece band hails from Burlington, Vt. and is comprised of musicians Phil Abair (keys), Dan Archer (guitar), Aaron Hershey (bass), Joe Moore (saxophone) and, of course, Fishman on the drums. Pork Tornado started playing together in 1997 as an ad hoc conglomeration of local musicians, and has only recently evolved into a record-producing, nation-touring band. Tornado keyboardist Abair explained the band's genesis to me in a backstage interview prior to the performance.

"Dan, the guitar player, who is a recording engineer also, recorded the first few Phish records. That's how (he and Fishman) became friends. So they said 'Let's get together on Monday nights at this club called Club Toast in Burlington," Abair said. From there, the rest is history.

The rest, that is, except the source of Pork Tornado's striking name.

"I've heard a few different versions," Abair said. "But I've heard a version about those snow things that you shake. There was one with a farm scene, and when you shook it all up, the animals flew around."

Coincidentally, this snow globe imagery is symbolic of Pork Tornado's eclectic sound, which draws from a multitude of styles to create a veritable musical potash. This phenomenon is described on www.porktornado.com: "Try to imagine a giant cyclonic inferno sweeping across the musical landscape, sucking up and then regurgitating some unholy combination of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, James Brown and the Fabulous Flames and Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys." Imagine this, if you can, and you've got the rock-funk-pseudo-country amalgam called Pork Tornado.

Pork Tornado's current tour, of which Thursday's show was the second stop, follows the October 1 release of the band's self-titled debut album on Rykodisk Records. The band plans to make 30 stops on this 35-day run, at which point they will stop performing to allow Fishman to prepare for his much-awaited New Year's gig at Madison Square Gardens with the rest of Phish.

Opening for Pork Tornado, for the East Coast portion of the tour, is the Winooski, Vt. trio The Seth Yacovone Band, led by guitarist Seth Yacovone. This group, a typical local jamband, has good energy and decent technical skill, but little impetus toward innovation. The highlights of their Thursday set were "Country Pie," a Bob Dylan cover, and one original song, "Dipper Blues."

Pork Tornado, on the other hand, brings a Fishman-impelled whirlwind of bouncingly rhythmic, ever-captivating, joyous sound to the stage. Although Internet gossip has dismissed the group as a rough bar band, Thursday's show proved conclusively otherwise. From the show's opening, the band showed its ability to play in a cohesive and structured, but at the same time creative, manner, extrapolating on their studio work to create a unique sound. Particularly impressive are the technical skills of saxophonist Moore; his and Fishman's constant rhythmic interplay is the principal driving force behind Tornado.

Still, the most remarkable aspect of the show was Fishman's amazing ability to mesh perfectly, at any given moment, with whatever sound the band produced. This quality of Fishman's drumming is clear to any discerning listener, and, interestingly, is something that he himself acknowledges and fosters.

"I'm kind of like a Zelig of drummers," he said. "[Zelig] sort of takes on the characteristics of the guys he hangs out with. I kind of do that as a drummer. I like to adapt."

Fishman claims that it is only thanks to years of intensive training and through careful listening during performances that he is able to adapt in such a manner.

"How I play is when I practice on my own, I play lots and lots that I can't do. But when I play with people, I try to listen to everyone and hear it all," he said.

He qualified this statement in a November 7, 1996 interview with Michael Renshaw in London. "When you're playing music, you shouldn't be thinking, you shouldn't be counting, you know, you should be playing music. You've done your homework, you're as good as you're gonna be, now just go out and bomb it on the stage," he said.

Fishman's careful listening and self-taught versatility have consistently been his most compelling characteristics as a drummer, and, in the opinion of this writer, were some of the primary reasons for Phish's great success. Accordingly, as Phish's fall 2000 tour became a Trey-fest to the detriment of audiences' ability to even hear the other musicians, particularly Fishman, the endearing quality of interdependence and mutual responsiveness that once made Phish an extraordinary band was lost.

Fishman seems contented with his current project ("It's a fun band"), as well as with his plans for the future. Thursday night found him with his nine-month-old daughter Ella (after Fitzgerald) and her mother, his brother David (a Cambridge resident to whom he dedicated "You Sexy Motherfucker"), and some long time New England friends, as well as with a box of brownies sent by a former Phish travel agent.

"Life is good," he said.