I Do Stuff…

I took a few more pictures last week of the seasonal change.

Photo Gallery

bee doing his thing

Photo Gallery

Just a quick post with some pictures of Spring from around my house.  The weather is slowly getting warmer and the rain is falling, sometimes ruining the weekend.  I am hoping to get out this weekend to hike Old Rag on Saturday and check out the Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin in DC on Sunday.  For more pictures check out the link above.

Cardinal

Bradford Pear tree

Daffodils

summer tour!

Words you always want to hear while waiting on mail order Phish tickets.  Oh happy days!  Not 4 minutes ago I got confirmation from Phish about my order for tickets to Merriweather and Saratoga.  Finally, I get some redemption on my quests for tickets.  The last two times I got screwed, not mail order and no public on sale.  Eventually I scored tickets to Knoxville and Pittsburgh for the first half of the summer tour, but I was not looking for those shows.  Now I scored big.  Merriweather is my home town venue for Phish, every show I have seen here is one of my favorites.

So I wouls say I am very excited about this.  Going to make it a mini tour in mid August with Merriweather and then up to New York, I might even spend an extra day hiking around or camping.  So to conclude, I am seeing four shows over the summer months.  The boys of summer are back!

Purple Rain...I mean lights.

Oh yeah baby!  Phish has announced additional dates for their summer tour.  Many of the dates are old stomping grounds.  One that I am particularrly interested in is a return to Merriweather Post Pavilion!  I saw Phish there in ’98, ’99, and 2000.  In fact my fist Phish show was at Merriweather on August 8th 1998.  It was a fiasco getting to the venue and I arrived late.  Since I had never been to one of their shows before I was not prepaired for the traffic and I completely missed the lot scene that day.  When I finally did arrive the first set was almost over.  The second set was absolutly killer.  Not till my later years did I realized just how special the show was.  Can’t wait for that one.

Also thinking about hitting them up for a Red Rocks show.  My friend Jeremy and I have been talking about a road trip out to the venerable venue sometime this summer for a show, but didn’t know who to see.  With the additional summer dates from Phish I think we found our reason to travel out there.  Not sure if we will try for all shows or not, but at least one Red Rock show would be great.

07/30 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO
07/31 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO
08/01 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO
08/02 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO
08/05 – Shoreline Amphitheatre – Mountain View, CA
08/07 – The Gorge – George, WA
08/08 – The Gorge – George, WA
08/11 – Toyota Park – Chicago, IL
08/13 – Darien Lake Performing Arts Center – Darien Center, NY
08/14 – Meadows Music Theater – Hartford, CT
08/15 – Merriweather Post Pavilion – Columbia, MD
08/16 – Saratoga Performing Arts Center – Saratoga Springs, NY

Friday night Phish started their come back tour in Hampton, VA.  I of course didn’t get tickets after a lot of trying so I said “fuck it” and I went to Hawaii with Nancy instead!  When I get some time I will be doing a big write up on that trip, lots to write about.

Phish Hampton!

When I started to go through my emails for the week I was gone I noticed one from Phish.  They are giving away free downloads of all three nights at Hampton Coliseum.  I for one think this is a great idea on the part of the band.  I have a feeling the biggest reason for this give away is to keep people away from the small city of Hampton that don’t have tickets, or that have only one or two of the three nights.  The little city just can’t handle tens of thousands of extra people that don’t have tickets.  Another big reason for this is to keep the fans happy.  Many people, like myself, got screwed for tickets and this is a small way of saying they are sorry for the fiasco.  I know it was not the bands fault, but for me they were the recipient of a large portion of my anger.  And lastly there is the whole money thing, after all they are in business to make money (and play music :P).  Many of Phish’s fans could be described as audiophiles, so offering a free version on mp3 is not enough, they will upgrade to the paid version in FLAC/CD format.  The extra traffic to their download site might get some people to purchase other concerts while they are there getting Hampton.

I for one will be downloading all three shows in crystal clear mp3 format, they end up on my iPod any way.

Update:
I downloaded Fridays show and listened to it.  Not bad, but nothing really spectacular either.  The band has at least practiced for the reunion run and upcoming summer tour.  The setlists are decent, but again, nothing to shout at the top of your lungs about.  Second set was better than the frist, jams are good but could use some more exploring.  I don’t expect the world from these guys at their first three shows.  The show I bet was killer to attend, the vibe must have been incredible all night long.  Especially the moment when the house lights went out and the band walked on stage.  No longer was this a “maybe” thing, it was actually happening, Phish was playing again!