I Do Stuff…

I was able to catch two shows on the reunion tour early in the summer, Knoxville and Pittsburgh.  After they announced a second leg of their summer tour I of course wanted to score some tickets.  I was hoping to do a four show run, but decided on a more reasonable Merriweather and SPAC.  These two shows happened on a Saturday and Sunday, so less time off from work and were the last two shows of the tour.  Fortunately I lucked out and scored my tickets via mail order so I didn’t have to mess around with getting my tickets via TicketBastard.

copyright: Dave Vann

Merriweather was the place I saw my first Phish show back in 1998 and I have always had great shows here, I was excited they were coming back to this great venue.  Jeremy and I planned on tailgating so I purchased a mini grill to cook up some great tailgate food.  We arrived to late to get a spot in the lot and were forced to park in an over flow parking garage near Columbia Mall.  This meant we were not allowed to tailgate as security came around several times telling us we couldn’t tailgate, finally the cops came around and forced everyone out.  We couldn’t even sit in chairs.  We had all this time to kill and some great food to cook but were stuck doing nothing.

As the show time approached we made our way to the venue entrance to grab a good spot on the lawn.  Security was a none issue getting in, however later I read that 31 were arrested for various offenses.  Non of which made the front page like they did with the three night reunion show in Hampton.  The weather was hot but with the quickly setting sun things were starting to cool off, if we could only get ride of the humidity things would have been perfect for a concert on the lawn.

When the show started both of us were pumped!  It was great to finally have my boy out on the road with me and our hopes where high.  Memories of Sabotage (8/8/1998), Harry Hood (8/8/1998, 7/9/1999), glow stick wars, 2001 (8/8/1998), Fluffhead (9/17/2000), Rock and Roll (9/17/2000), the list goes on and on.  One of the best shows in my life was my first Phish show at Merriweather 8/8/1998.  The boys always crush it when they play here, so my hopes where very high for this show.

copyright: Dave Vann

After giving this show such a huge buildup, now it’s time for the actual show.  In short I was very disappointed with the performance.  I had heard that the night before in Hartford was off the hook and I was expecting a similar performance tonight.  Not only because the band should have been running on a high but the pedigree the venue brings to Phish shows.  Looking back the performance was a solid one, but I was expected a more upbeat show then what was delievered.  They played a ton of new songs, some of which I am a fan, others I am not.  There was just a lack of energy that night and Trey was also pretty horrible on the guitar.  Both Jeremy and I noted off key playing, missed notes, simply sloppy playing in songs like HA HA HA and Party Time.  I guess they were saving themselves for the tour closers in Saratoga.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some great highlights including another great version of Foam that was jammed out again, HA HA HA I had not heard live, a new Fishman song called Party Time (crazy vocals, the man just can NOT sing), a version of Tube which was good but waaay to short.  The second set opened strong with Tweezer that lead into Taste, I don’t get that combo.  A long version of 46 Days which was played well and a long running Merriweather staple, Harry Hood as the set closers.  That was the song I wanted to hear, at least I got that.  Jeremy was hoping for a Down with Disease, but we later found out they played that in Hartford so there was no chance of it at Merriweather.  The encore was decent, they played Tweezer Reprise, which was a surprise because of my short memory I forgot they played that as the set opener so it is always a safe bet to get the reprise some time later in the set.

copyright: Steve Moyles

On the long drive home we reflected on the performance and although we were not that satisfied with the song selection and the lack of tailgating, we agreed it was still a great trip.  Even the worst Phish show beats any other day.  I was just hoping for a killer set Sunday night in Saratoga to make up for this poor performance.

Set 1: 7:38pm start
1. Crowd Control
2. Kill Devil Falls
3. The Sloth
4. Beauty Of A Broken Heart
5. Axilla I
6. Foam
7. Esther
8. Ha Ha Ha
9. Party Time*
10. Tube
11. Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan
12. Strange Design
13. Time Turns Elastic

set 1 ends at 9:02pm

Set 2: 9:31pm start
1. Tweezer >
2. Taste
3. Alaska
4. Let Me Lie
5. 46 Days
6. Oh! Sweet Nuthin’
7. Harry Hood

set 2 ends at 10:44pm

encore: 10:46pm start
8. Good Times Bad Times
9. Tweezer Reprise

show ends at 10:55pm

notes:
*first time played

Phish

I was so excited when Phish posted their summer tour dates shortly after Hampton sold out.  I, like so many, tried to get tickets for Hampton and got shut out, for all days.  I was hoping that with the summer tour I would have better luck.  More shows would be available, venues with large capacity, and hope of all hope that there would not be a mad rush from hundreds of thousands of people from across the country.  I thought I would be able to put together a small three show run: Mansfield, Camden, and Asheville.  When they added a new show in Knoxville it turned into four days.  Things were looking good, it would be like days of yore.

I, like an idiot, forgot to pre-order my tickets via the web.  I was not holding out much hope to score tickets this way, but I will take any extra opportunity I can.  So early Friday morning I was all excited.  Tickets for Asheville and Mansfield would go on sale at 10.  I figured my best shot was for Mansfield, it was a big outdoor amphitheatre offering over twice the seats of Asheville, if not three times.

When 10am struck on my atomic clocked synced laptop I hit refresh on the info page looking for that all important “Buy Now” button.  The problems started immediately when I hit refresh.  The Live Nation ticketing site was absolutely smashed with people, server response times were horrible.  Seeing that stupid little Windows flag in IE waving constantly and the progress bar at the bottom not moving, made my heart stop.  It was Hampton all over again.  What seemed like a miracle I did get through to the site and saw the important drop down to select the number of tickets I wanted to purchase.  I couldn’t believe it and I started to enter in my info.

To proceed I first had to register with Live Nation.  All these stupid web sites now require you to register if  you want to buy something.  Once that process was complete onto the next step of entering in my billing and shipping information.  I was originally suppose to get 10 minutes to completely my order, but every time I would complete a section the time would drop significantly on the next.  When I got to the last page to submit my credit card info it literally hit zero a second before I could hit the submit button.  Again the page times out and tells me it has released my tickets and I have been put back in the cue.  Of course at this point it was to late and I had lost my ticket forever, because of a broken system.

the light show

After that disappointing waste of 15 minutes I figured I would give Asheville a try.  I knew in my heart that it had already sold out, but I needed to make sure.  This time I got dumped to Ticket Masters web site to purchase tickets, one of my least favorite companies in the entire world……every.  These guys are scum of the earth.  Anyone who has bought tickets knows what I am talking about.  At least with there web site it was a little more responsive, no waiting around to find out tickets were sold out.  But fret not, right on the rejection page  was ticket for Asheville, starting price was over $200 per ticket.  And the kicker is the company offering these scalper tickets is a Ticket Master owned company.  There is something fundamentally flawed with this.

So in fifteen minutes my heart was crushed, I have lost most of my faith in Phish.  I think they try hard to get tickets into the hands of their fans, but “the man” is against them every step of the way.  Ticketing companies like Ticket Master and Live Nation write the rules in their favor.  Not long ago I wanted to get a ticket for The New Mastersounds at The 8×10 in Baltimore (review).  The face value of the ticket was $12, after all the Ticket Bastard fees the price ended up over $25.  An over 100% increase in price, there is something just wrong about that.  I ended up getting my ticket at the venue for $14, with only a $2 service fee.  That kicks ass!

Completely discussed I went into work.  Not even Starbucks and a cigar cheered me up.  Yet again I got screwed over by “the man“.  I am totally upset with Phish and it’s not even there fault.  The more I thought about it I didn’t even want to try on Saturday for tickets…..why bother.

traffic jam for Coventry

By about 2pm I decided to start writing this post about my experience.  I told everyone at work that would listen to my how upset I was.  Now I needed to put it into words permanently for the world to see.  When I started compiling my information I checked out Phish’s tour page  for the venue information and I noticed something, the show in Burgettstown, PA was not sold out.  I figured I would give it a shot for tickets, wouldn’t hurt.  To my surprise tickets were still available.  With fewer users the online ticketing system was a breeze.  I finally got my first ticket to the reunion tour of Phish.  Not the show I wanted but I was happy to get anything.

With my luck on Friday I figured I would try Saturday morning for my two remaining shows, Knoxville and Mansfield.  I was hoping to score the Mansfield show, mostly because it was on a Saturday and wouldn’t require me taking off from work.  But again, the Live Nation web site was hosed and it was hopeless trying to get a ticket for Mansfield.  After 15 minutes I gave up and tried my alternate show in Knoxville.

This show, like the Burgettstown, was a breeze to get a ticket.  There were no problems with the web site and I was quickly able to get a ticket for this show, 20 minutes after they went on sale.  I have a feeling this was partly because the show was during the middle of the week.  It also could conflict with people going to Bonnaroo, something Phish is rumored to headline for one or more nights.  Well what ever the reason I scored a ticket.

I am a little disappointed I couldn’t put together my 4 show mini tour like I planned.  But I did get tickets for two different shows.  It will be interesting to attend to two shows, 8 days apart.  Not sure what my plans will be, but since I will be in two new areas I figure I will take a few extra days and do some exploring.  I look forward to finding some great places to eat and check out each town.  I might also do some camping and hiking while I am there.  Again, a great opportunity to do some exploreing.

See you all on tour.