I Do Stuff…

view from the lawn

I was lucky enough to get two tickets to the first leg of the summer Phish tour, Knoxville and Burgettstown.  The unfortunate thing about these two shows was they were 8 days apart, so no mini tour for me.  For each show I did take two days off, one to enjoy the show and the other to hike a local park.  For the Knoxville show I hiked the Great Smoky Mountains and had a blast.  For Burgettstown (Post-Gazette Pavilion, aka Star Lake Amphitheatre) I planned on camping and hiking at Raccoon Creek State Park, noticed I said plan.

It is completely my fault, but I didn’t plan out the camping till the day of the concert so when I called to book a camp spot they were booked.  Actually the lovely lady on the phone, when she first brought up the park info, said “That can’t be right, it says it is completely full.”  I informed her there was a concert that night at Star Lake and that is why it was full.  We Phish fans loves nature and camping, so the state park was a natural choice.  I quickly looked online for other options, I was running late and wanted to get on the road quick.  I found Bennett Acres which actually was closer to the amphitheater than the state park.  When I called there for reservations the lady said “just make it before the show, we have plenty of space.”  I felt good knowing I had secured a campsite for the night and the following day I would hike Raccoon Creek.

I was behind schedule but I kept telling myself not to worry.  I needed to take a test at NOVA before I left, but I thought that would be pretty easy.  My truck was almost packed, one last check around my apartment and I was good to go.  A few minutes before 11am my phone rings.  It’s the Woodbridge shop and they have a computer problem.  Of all the days it has to be today.  I am about to make a 5 hour drive for a Phish show and there is an issue.  Usually it is a simple reboot, or check the wire, something easy like that and the problem is resolved.  Well they inform me that the problem is a blue screen of death and a reboot didn’t fix the problem.  I was pissed.

copyright: Dylan Avery

I quickly drove to the shop to take a look at the computer and it was indeed hosed.  The quickest solutions to get it up and running and on my way was to install a spare computer I have in the back.  After 3o minute or so I finally got the register working and transactions processing as normal.  But I still need to take a test, today being the last possible day to complete it.  Would this day ever get better?

With the computer fixed I flew over to the NOVA Woodbridge campus to take the test.  Fortunately it was quick and easy, 10 minutes and I was out the door.  Finally something was going right for me.  So by 12:30 or so I am finally on the road headed north.  But there is traffic, and a lot of it.  As I approached Springfield and the interchange things ground to a halt.  A severe storm decided to roll through causing near white out conditions slowing my progress.  Once that was completely there was more traffic on 270.  I kept looking at my watch hoping I would have enough time to make it to the campsite and then the show before the houselights went dark.

Once I got onto 70 in Maryland things started to open up….until I hit Pittsburgh.  My directions took my right through the center of town to head West towards the venue.  When I reached the outskirts of town it was right in the middle of rush hour, great more traffic.  At this point there was little chance of me getting to the campsite before the show started.  Right now I was just hoping to get to the venue before the band took the stage.

After the drive from hell I finally made it to the parking lot of the venue around 8pm.  At least it was a breeze getting in and parking was a snap.  But only because I was so incredible late everyone else had already arrived.  The ticket said the show time was 7:30 and I remember the band saying they were going to try and honor the start time as much as possible.  I was hoping tonight was not going to be one of those nights they started on time.  I quickly parked my truck and headed towards the entrance of the venue, at least my parking spot was close.

copyright: Dylan Avery

As I approached the entrance of the venue I heard the crowd erupt, Phish was walking on the stage and I had not yet made it into the venue.  This has happened before to me.  Back in June of 2004 they played two nights at Saratoga PAC and for the first night I arrived late.  That show when I parked and started making my way the boys were already playing, for that show I missed a couple songs before I took my spot on the lawn.  Tonight’s show I only missed Golgi and a little of Chalk Dust.

I took my spot on the lawn, so happy that I had finally made it!  I was back with my huge extended family enjoying the great sounds of Phish at a classic amphitheater on a great summer night.  The weather was not particularly hot or humid and as the sun set behind me the sky and clouds looked like they were on fire from the setting sun.  I was finally at peace and just enjoying the vibe.

The first set was peppered with great songs including Chalk Dust, Bouncing, Wolfman’s, Heavy Things, Walk Away, Wilson, Tube, and the closer David Bowie.  In fact the whole set was stellar.  Of course a couple songs, three actually, I didn’t care for but it was a solid set.  Just like at Knoxville I was blown away by the set.  When it ended I was stunned just like everyone else and cheered my head off.  For a few minutes I had to clear my head, cool down, and a relax a little before the start of set two.  I took the time to walk to the top of the hill and took a seat where I quickly noticed all the families were camped out.  There were a ton of kids running around with their parents close behind.  It still trips me out to see all the fans from years ago have grown up, some now with families.

About the time the second set started, night had fallen and things started to cool off.  I quickly grabbed a spot closer to the middle of the lawn and as far down as I could without stepping over people.  If there was going to be a glow stick war tonight I wanted to be a part of it.  In Knoxville there was a Harry Hood played and despite the work of several dedicated fans a full on glow stick war never ensued.

Grind copyright: Dylan Avery

The set opener was a strong choice with Down with Disease and lead into Free.  Piper lead into a much different temped song of Circus Comes to Town.  And I got another Harry Hood out of the nights performance!  This time the crowd was a little better about picking up the glow sticks and continuing the visual display, but only slightly.  A full blown war never happened like I wanted it to.  The set closers was a monster, YEM, one of my favorites.  I just love the long jam in the middle of the song with the crazy vocal jam at the end and light show to go with it.  I thought this was the perfect way to end the set.

For the encore this is where things got really interesting.  When they come out onto stage they head over to the acapella mic and get ready for a song, but there were a few issues.  Grind started off “ok,” as much as they tried they didn’t get the harmonics right.  Trey mentions that “Page blew the wrong note” so they have a quick conference and when they come back to the mic Trey say’s that “If this doesn’t work Fish will sing Bike.”  They got maybe two verses into the song and it quickly breaks down so “Fish will now sing Bike for you.”  They were having so much fun on stage it was infectious, the crowd was eating it up.  Trey quickly runs over to the drums and the “Train wreck portion of the show” starts to a lot of fan fair.  After a quick HYHU, vacuum solo and more HYHU, things get back to a symbolance of normalcy with all band members back to their respective instruments.  They play one last song, Loving Cup, to close out what was a great set, and awesome show.  The show ended just at midnight, which later I found out was also very rare.  The venue has a curfew of 11pm and they completely blew past that and never looked back.

Once the show was over I was on cloud nine and it was hard to come down from.  But I knew I had a long drive ahead of me so I got to.  I never got a camping spot and I didn’t want to a large sum of money for a hotel room so I decided to head back home.  I drove to the nearest rest stop, about 45 minutes from the venue and crashed for the night.  The next morning I noticed I was not the only one in the parking lot from the Phish show, as there were three other cars full of phans all passed out.  I got a cup of coffee and continued the rest of my journey home.  The music was cranking as the sun was rising, greeting a fantastic morning.  I couldn’t wait to get home and download the show, what an experience.

Set 1: 8:10pm start
Golgi Apparatus
Chalk Dust Torture
Bouncing Around the Room
Wolfman’s Brother
The Divided Sky
Heavy Things
Walk Away
Wilson
Tube
Alaska
David Bowie

set 1 ends at 9:36pm

Set 2: 10:06 start
Down with Disease >
Free
Guyute
Piper >
When the Circus Comes to Town
Harry Hood >
The Squirming Coil
You Enjoy Myself

set 2 ends at 11:36pm

encore:
Grind
Hello My Baby
Hold Your Head Up >
Bike >
Hold Your Head Up
Loving Cup

encore ends at 11:57pm

Over the last few months I have been scrambling to get tickets to the reunion show in Hampton and the summer tour.  Of course none of the shows I wanted to attend could I get tickets too.  I however was happy to get tickets to: Knoxville, Pittsburgh, Merriweather, and SPAC.

So first up, Knoxville.  This was the last stop before Phish hit Bonnarro for a long weekend of shows.  Getting there turned into quite a trip being 8 hours away.  Even with the long drive I was able to stop and get a hotel in Pigeon Forge at the Pigeon River Inn for an astonishing $30!  I was going to hike in The Great Smoky Mountains on Friday and this hotel was close to the park entrance.  While driving down 71 to the hotel I was amazed at the amount of crap on the side of the road.  The long stretch of highway reminded me of a redneck Vegas, but without the gambling.  An hour to go before the concert and I still needed to make it to downtown Knoxville.

Thompson-Boling Arena

As I approached the city following the directions I had I started to see signs saying highway 40 was closed and that I would have to take a detour which took me around the city and not into it.  I was able to find further information on the closing and the highway was closed at the exact exit I needed to get off at, and to throw more egg in my face it was being re-opened on Friday.  Ugh.  So I followed the detour around the city and with a lot of luck I found my way to the general area of the venue.  But since my directions to the venue were based on getting off highway 40 they were completely useless to me.  I eventually found a parking lot with a bunch of other fans and the great search for the venue started, for all of us.  No one knew how to get to the venue so we all just followed the people in front of us that eventually lead us to the campus and the Thompson-Boling Arena.

The venue is the basketball stadium for the University of Tennessee and as such doesn’t have much on site parking.  This however did not stop the horde of fans from setting up a shakedown street and totally packing it.  Unfortunately there was no time for me to walk around and take in the sights and sounds, all I could do was pass through it.  One crazy thing I noticed was that as I got closer to the entrance more and more tickets became available and the prices got lower and lower.  To the point that people were just giving them away because no one was buying.

copyright: www.BreakfastOnTour.com

After making it through some of the most inclusive security I have seen ever I was in the venue without incident.  Mission one had been accomplished, I made it to the venue before the start of the show.  Mission two was finding some beer.  Before I got the parking lot I stopped for some Guinness for a little pre-party.  My buzz was mild and I wanted to get it going before the show started.  A quick scan around was worthless so I found an usher.  To my horror they didn’t serve alcohol in the venue, didn’t matter that it was not a school event, no alcohol was served.  Then it dawned on me, not a surprise.  It is on a college campus and the vast majority of the attendants can’t legally drink, so cheaper to not have alcohol.  Crap!  In disgust I walked to my seat to enjoy the show.  I most certainly was not going to let this minor incident put a damper on my first Phish show in 5 years.

My seat was located in section 315.  When I bought the ticket I first was happy to finally get one, then I was a little concerned about the locations.  I was only a few rows from the top at one of the furthest points from the stage.  But when I actually sat down I was delighted by my view.  My seat was a perfect spot to take in the visual aspect of the show.  The lights by Chris Kuroda, in my opinion, are an integral part of the show.  The guy is magic at adding to the atmosphere of a show, without him it would not be the same.

As the venue started to fill up it still didn’t feel like a Phish show, something was missing.  It had been over 5 years since I saw them perform live and after the breakup I pretty much stopped listening to their music and moved on to other acts.  When the lights went off just after 8 and the boys took the stage a chill ran down my spin.  The crowd erupted with cheers and excitement to welcome them to the stage and it infected me.  All seemed right with the world once the lights went down and I got back into the groove of things.

The set open was Runaway Jim, so I knew this was going to be a great show.  First set highlights included a great PYITE which is a classic and a new song I later found out to be Ocelot.  It was very long and jammy with some heavy heavy guitar rifts near the end of the song by Trey.  Very impressed with the new song from the band.  When they started with Foam as the next song I was not particularly excited to hear it, not one of my favorites.  But when they started jamming it turned into an amazing version.  There was so much feeling and emotion from the guys in this version.  It of course had the crazy guitar work by Trey near the end that escalated higher and higher in its pitch with no end in sight.  When the song finally ended the crowd went nuts.  No one had heard a version like that and we could all tell things were back to normal.  It was not just a song for a songs sake, there was emotion and feeling in it.  The guys were feeding off the energy of the crowd. Another new song, Undermind, had some crazy of key bass work by Mike which lead to the classic Weekapauge > H2O > Mike’s.  Another classic played well.  Squirming Coil was the second to last song of the set and features great solo piano work at the end by Page.  I love this song just for the end piano work by Page.  It reminds me of a lullaby that just makes me feel to rested and peaceful.

copyright: not me

The first set alone they crushed it for about 1:20 before walking off the stage.  Everyone was stunned when the house lights finally came on.  No one could believe what we had just witnessed, we all witnessed something amazing.  I talked to the people around me and we all came to the same conclusion, it was a very special show in deed.  And there was  second set to follow!  In my opinion second sets have a better selection of songs with sometimes an oddity thrown in straight out of left field.

Set two rolls around and I am ready for the fireworks.  The opener was Get Back on the Train, nothing to say here, standard fair and personally a slow way to start the set off.  The second song, Waves, brings high energy to the set.  It was a very spacey version with corresponding light show on the back of the arena near the end of the song.  This lead straight into A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing which was very heavy and deep.  This lead into David Bowie, a little more upbeat and high spirited to contract with the previous dark song.  Other highlights included the accapela Hello My Baby, a classic tune when touring the southern states.

The set closers was another trifecta run on jam consisting of Julius > Cavern > Harry Hood.  What ever you do take care of your shoe.  I was ecstatic to hear Harry Hood, it is certainly one of my favorite songs and was actually played at the first Phish show I ever went to.  I was however a little disappointed with the crowd during the song, there was no glow stick war.  Certain portions of the crowd tried three times unsuccessfully to get a glow stick war going, but most people were not having it.  People would not pick up the glow sticks and keep things going.  Even Chris tried to get the crowd into it would much luck.  I am not sure if this is because all the new fans don’t know what to do or everyone has just gotten lazy.  What ever the reason I wish people would participate when they are suppose to.

After the show it was a short lazy walk through downtown Knoxville back to my car.  With it being midnight the city was quit and empty with the exception of all the elated Phish fans heading back to their homes.  There was this buzz among the crowd while walking back.  Everyone enjoyed the show.  As I reflected on what I had just witness I was very impressed.  This was not the old Phish from the late 2000 I remember, this was the Phish from ‘97 and ‘98.  They thoroughly enjoyed themselves on the stage, feed off the crowd, and explored musically some of their songs taking them into way off directions I had not heard before.  I was afraid they would be a cliche of themselves and were getting back together for the money.  This show put all thoughts of that to rest and made my look forward to the Pittsburgh show the following week.

But for this evening it was a short 45 minute drive back to my hotel for a good nights rest.  The following day I was going hiking in The Great Smoky Mountains before making the long drive back to norther Virginia.

Set 1: 8:10pm start
Runaway Jim
Punch You in the Eye
Ocelot
Foam
Train Song
Undermind
Mike’s Song >
I am Hydrogen >
Weekapaug Groove
The Squirming Coil
Character Zero

set ends at 9:31pm

Set 2: 10:08pm start
Back on the Train
Waves >
A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing >
David Bowie
Army of One
Reba
Hello My Baby
Julius >
Cavern >
Harry Hood

set ends at 11:31pm

encore: 11:35pm
Frankenstein

encore ends at 11:40pm

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

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.