I stood in shock, not quite believing that the moment had arrived. I watched as the members of Phish bowed for the last time, keenly aware I was witnessing a chapter of my life coming to an end. I blinked and they were gone, the stage suddenly empty, abandoned instruments bathed in soft blue light. I stared and stared and stared, not wanting to believe that they weren't coming back.
Swimming Upstream
I'm a relative newcomer to the Phish phenomenon: I saw them perform for the first time in March 2003, in Greensboro, N.C. The energy, the community, the music, the lights — it was the complete package and I was hooked. After that I did my best to catch up, traveling to 15 concerts from Miami to Maine, from New York to Nevada.
But I'm a cynical optimist. I hope for the best and think positively, but when things go well, I start getting wary. Because I got into Phish after their two-year hiatus, I was excited when they reunited but skeptical about how long it would last. And sure enough, here it was — their final concert, a weekend farewell in their home state of Vermont.
The beginning of our trip was exactly what a cynical optimist would expect. It all went well, for a while. There were seven in my party, we hadn't forgotten anything, we were skipping town just in time to miss Hurricane Charley and we encountered no holdups on the way to the airport.
So, of course, the flight was delayed three hours. We missed our connection in Philadelphia, then reserved seats on another flight that was two hours late and arrived in Manchester, N.H., at around 2 a.m. Our luggage, with all of our camping gear and necessities, didn't show up.
Frustrated and tired, we all shared a single hotel room. I spent the night tossing and turning, dreaming about clean, dancing socks. Thankfully, our bags were waiting for us in the morning and after a not-brief-enough shopping trip, we were off.
A few hours later we were cruising through Vermont. At a gas station outside of Coventry, a few locals warned us to avoid I-91, which was apparently backed up almost 20 miles. We ended up taking some back roads and hit the end of the line on I-14 on Friday at 4:20 p.m.
Waiting to get into a Phish Festival is like hanging at an all-night party. You park your vehicle at the end of a long row of traffic, kill the ignition and by default become part of the festivities. Phishheads wander up and down the street chatting away about anything from the Phish break-up to the qualities that make up a good brew. This year, I heard more than a few folks discussing the upcoming election and the "sad, sad state of our nation." Between the seven- and eight-hour mark, many (including myself) were listening intently for traffic updates on 92.1-The Bunny, a radio station set up specifically for the festival and run by volunteer DJ's.
The chief concern was the weather. While we passed the time in a line that barely crawled, the concert organizers were frantically trying to figure out how to work around a huge mud problem caused by steady, torrential downpours in the week leading up to the festival. Many of the camping areas were so flooded that cars were getting stuck. Organizers were letting in as few as 150 cars per hour, not many when you consider that there were 70,000 people coming to the show. We didn't make it onto I-5, the last 4-mile stretch to the concert entrance, until around 8 a.m. — 17 hours after getting in line. We cheered and hugged but were soon faced with a devastating news broadcast from The Bunny, delivered by Phish bassist Mike Gordon: Because of the severe weather conditions and serious flooding, the Vermont State Police and concert organizers, in the interest of public safety, were forced to limit entry to the festival and would have to start turning cars away.
I was ready to puke. Then, I got mad. I hadn't just spent the past 17 hours in traffic to be turned away!
"Screw this," I said to my boyfriend. "I'll fucking walk in if I have to."
Luckily, we soon learned that the warnings didn't apply to us: everyone on I-5 would be getting into the show. However, all the remaining traffic on I-91 (now a procession more than 25 miles long) would be, quite literally, sent home. But Phish phans should never be underestimated. These folks had followed their beloved band all over the United States — what's a little mud? If cars were being turned away, the solution was to leave the cars behind. So, they pulled over, packed up essentials and trekked to the concert grounds by foot. News reports later confirmed that several thousand vehicles were abandoned on the side of I-91 and thousands of others were scattered miles and miles along every road leading up to the festival grounds.
My gang made it in safely, by car, though we were all drained from 22 hours in traffic. We took in the scenery, rolling green hills covered in tents and in the distance, mountains in the mist. I was finally satisfied — we had made it to Saturday, the sun was out and we were about to see Phish.
The Beginning of the End
Walking to the show, I realized how much I would miss the Phish community. I always loved being surrounded by happy, friendly heads, all excited and sharing a common love of a great band. I studied the masses, entertained by everything: a couple dressed as Oompa Loompas; two hot air balloons, fat and yellow and cheery; a two-story stagecoach with a live bluegrass band on board; everyone's valiant attempts to avoid the mud, only to plunge in ankle deep.
I tried to live in the moment. Before the first set, I opened my eyes as wide as possible and breathed in the anticipation, I listened to excited gossip and unsuccessfully tried to forget about my exhaustion. As slowly as the time elapsed in the first half of my travels, the second half passed in a rapid blur.
The music was splendid, if occasionally sloppy. Near the end of the set, they launched into "Run Like an Antelope," the ultimate tension-and-release number progressing from bouncy fun into rockin', jammed-out madness, offering the ever-classic verses beloved by all Phishheads, "Set the gearshift for the high gear of your soul/ You've got to run like an antelope, out of control."
I was missing it already, this energy. I came to the show dog-tired and depressed and by the end, I was higher than a kite, wound up and utterly content.
This is why I went to see Phish over and over again, and this is what I'll miss the most: the utter satisfaction at the end of a great set.
The second and third sets were filled with monster jams and a handful of composed pieces, the boys on fire with music, the crowd dancing frantically and trying to keep up. There were plenty of candid and heartfelt exchanges between the band and the fans, far more than I've ever seen at a Phish show. During the encore, the mellifluous reggae-inspired jam odyssey "Harry Hood," guitarist Trey Anastasio explained the importance of seeing the expressions on people's faces, and he and Mike moved closer to the audience, playing the remainder of the song on the large rocks that had been strategically placed in front of the stage.
'Have no regrets …"
The special, late-night set that Phish usually plays at their festivals never happened, and suddenly it was day two and I wasn't ready. The entire adventure had been leading to these last three sets, my final moments with Phish. On this day, I was more conscious that I was hearing songs for the last time and thus more disturbed and less attentive than the day before, unable to appreciate the funk jam and the band members dancing with their moms on stage (another atypically personal moment). Mike and Trey dueled for the last time, facing each other, bass against guitar, and I felt the world shift a little, a cheerless sigh.
The second set opened with the fat, watery sounds of "Down with Disease" ("This has all been wonderful/ But now I'm on my way"). This was followed by a mass of glow sticks pitched into the air, one of the last glow stick wars, the velvety night sky streaked with neon lights.
(And the glow sticks weren't the only things illuminating the sky. Did I forget to mention that a Phish show boasts the Aurora borealis of light shows?)
Phish continued, shaking off tears at times. Trey declared, "We need to blow off some steam," and the band launched into "Split Open and Melt," a dark, brooding groove so spacey that I looked up, expecting to see the Mothership landing. They followed this with a funky, epic version of a song called "Ghost," which caused another eruption of glow sticks, shining orange balls of fire.
I was suddenly overcome with a sense of loss so great I couldn't breathe. I sobbed and then stopped, laughing at myself for crying over a band.
Then — after all the concerts and the anticipation and the 24-plus-hour journey to get here — it was time for the final set.
The house lights went out (or in this case, the floodlights) and a roaring, joyous cheer passed through the crowd as the band took the stage. They hit the first notes and, overwhelmed, I danced through the set in a wash of tears and laughter, lifted by their music for the last time. "The Curtain With" encore proved to be a fitting end, a final curtain on their almost 21-year history with a farewell message ("Please me, have no regrets"). And then — just like that — they were gone.
—leilani.polk@weeklyplanet.com
This article appears in Aug 25-31, 2004.