It was the fall of 99; the two Cincy shows. My best friend Jeremy is good friends with phish's road manager Brad Sands. Well, he goes backstage after the show while I waited outside with a friend, and Jeremy comes out and says, "hey, no one was backstage, but Brad said to go to this bar, Teaks, and that's where they will be."

Okay, enter EXCITEMENT, SHOCK, FUN. The whole ride to the bar, which was super hard to find, we are so excited we almost threw up. There were 4 of us. Now, all of us had met the band on many occasions backstage, thanks to Jeremy's passes from Brad (thanks brad and jerms!) but only Jeremy had met Trey, none of us had. Anyway, as we finally find this bar, we see the bus pulling up at the same time!! okay, this bar was tiny, let me tell you.

It was in a residential area of north cincinatti. It's actually a Thai restaurant, and only the bottom floor is a bar. When we walk in there is a sign that says, max occupancy 82. well, i counted and there were 12 people there when we walked in. Just some men in business suits drinking their nightly cocktail at a nice thai restuarant. And more importantly... NO PHISH FANS anywhere in sight.

So the guy at the door goes, "are you with Phish?" we say yes, and he then locks the door behind us, saying they are now closed to the public. Then he takes us upstairs to this small room that leads to a beautiful back porch.... he's telling us this is the room the band will be in if it's too hectic downstairs. So we order beers and sit up there like little kids going nuts. After about 30 minutes, we realize the band is not coming upstairs, and we're like, "wait a minute... there wasn't really even anyone downstairs, why would they be up here?" so we walk downstairs and there are mike and page.

Well, then at the bar are Kuroda, Carini, and Brad. WE see Fishman chatting with some friends and then the business suit men. Laurin and i get some drinks and start taking shots with Kuroda and Brad, who are good friends with jeremy. This is nuts in itself. We couldn't even believe we were doing this. A little while later, my friend Reed goes off to hang out with Mike, and Laurin and I escort Page upstairs to the 'secret room' where we hung out. 

Then Page decided it was "too much like our practice room and wanted to mingle," so we went back downstairs. Reed asked him why they didn't play any Who songs that night, b/c it was the anniversary of the deaths from that Who concert in Cincy.  Page of course answers, "why would we do that, it's not a celebration anniversary, but a sad one."

SO, after many more shots of crown royal with the crew, I meet the chiropractor and fishman's friends. Meanwhile, Jeremy says, "Bacon, stay here... I'm going to get trey for you."  I had unknowingly passed up the opportunity to meet trey in 96 when he said those exact same words, and so this time I stay put. Somehow, two very annoying blondes had made their way into the bar (i was too drunk to notice when they came in), and were going around asking all the band members for their autographs for their little brother. 

Anyway, a few minutes later, laurin and i are on the barstools, and I see Jeremy walking in, pointing downward. Through the small crowd, I look down to see a very small (thought he was bigger) Trey Anastasio in the toboggan. He walks immediately to me on the stool and says, "you must be Bacon... jeremy's told me all about you," while sticking out his hand.  He then offers to buy me and Laurin whatever i was drinking (guiness) and then orders himself a vodka tonic.

From then on... the story is magic. we all sat around chatting about any and everything.  i got to ask him questions i'd always wanted to ask.  Finally, about 3am the bar was closing, and the band was leaving.  AS we were all walking out together (them to their bus, us to our car), I totally slipped and fell in the ice on the street. Fishman was exiting the bus to go drive his friend's car, and points down at me on my ass on the ground, laughing into hysterics. It was so embarrassing, but really funny as well.

By far it was the greatest night of my life!!

 - Bacon