I woke up the day after my first phish show a new man, and it had nothing to do with the chaotic events that occurred after the show. These events included: me going to a bar with a fake id, did i mention it was a nudie bar? Did i mention my girlfriend was waiting at a party while my friend took me to this bar with his roommates id that said i was a foot shorter than i was, or that the bouncer at the bar didn’t look twice at this id and let me in but hassled my friend for five minutes. I learned a few things at that bar, the one that i’ve kept with me was my love for Budweiser, my friend ordered two bud bottles and told me that i should always order bottled beer cause girls will think you had money and that Budweiser is the king of beers, it says it on the label and that is all you need to know. That same friend now drinks yingling because Budweiser sold out to a foreign conglomerate. Cracks me up thinking of this night. My friend Hippie Mark also broke my friend’s blender, it shattered all over the kitchen floor, good times. My girlfriend wanted to kill me but we survived, mostly cause we woke up and had that feeling. If you are a fan of phish you know that feeling. The feeling that you get to see phish play a concert that night. I had no idea about this before my first show but now i cherish this feeling and always will moving forward.
We drove from Pittsburgh, stopping in Erie, then heading straight to lot. My one lot memory is this dog that walked by us and Hippie Mark telling me that that dog is at every show. It really cracked me up. I was convinced that Mark knew this dog, had seen it at every show and maybe he had. God love lot dogs. I sort of felt bad for the dog though, it was cold, snow flurries in the air, we headed inside to the brand new hockey arena. I think it was one of the first events in the arena. That was the first year hockey took place there. The Marine Midland Arena was pristine. Felt like walking into a giant palace or something. We found our seats and soon the lights went down.
I really didn’t know any of the songs, and nothing struck me too hard in the first set, or rather, nothing stood out in the sense that i loved it all. Completely taken by this world. The band together are one, the music flying around, trying to catch up to it with your mind/body. I was still learning to dance, and still am, always on going. At some point in my phandom i put it together that dancing is just trying to move your body to the music, becoming one. I doubt it was at this show, happened much later i believe. The highlight of the set for me was the closer, again the only song i knew all night and this time a cover, my classic rock upbringing had paid off and i recognized Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group. It is a famous instrumental that was the quintessential example of “ping-pong” stereo as my dad called it. This was his definition of how when stereo became big, producers loved putting big back and forth moments to show it off. This song has one of these moments and that was why i knew the song so well.
I was in a hurry to get to the bathroom and beat the crowd to the concourse, i’ll never forget seeing a hippie girl flying towards me. She wasn’t flying but rather simulating this act arms as wings and screaming as she pingponged down the concourse. She also graduated with me from our tiny high school about two and half hours south of our current location. We recognized each other and had one of those great minute long conversations you have at set break, recounting the set and how great it was and then remembering you are on a mission to the bathroom. She was shocked to see me there as i wasn’t part of that crowd in high school. We’d run into each other a lot over the next few years and soon the second set was upon us.
The second set was another adventure and i fell in love with “Slave to the Traffic Light”. I didn’t realize it to a while later, stuck in traffic oddly enough a weekend later i asked my crew what was the song they played after the “laughing laughing fall apart one”, i went on to describe it as a long “guitar thing”, i guess this was also the beginning of my being a “TreyFan”. There is so much more to Slave but Trey’s guitar got to me that night and i was sad to learn in traffic a week later that there wasn’t a studio version of Slave. How silly was i that i thought studio versions of songs were superior. The Set ended with my first acapella experience which just made things even crazier. I knew the second encore song “Rocky Top” which was fun as all get out and i couldn’t wait to get to another show.