This little story goes out to all the wonderful people (you KNOW who you are) who helped make my seven year-old son's first Phish tour with me such a success for both of us. And for all the folks that ever think about bringing their kids along, especially grade school kids - it's definitely worth it.

By last summer, I had attended over 30 shows, usually when Sam was visiting his Dad, and I remember thinking while at the Went that not only was he old enough to appreciate it, but that I was feeling incomplete without him. I had a gut feeling that I should combine Sam and Phish summer tour.

Sam loves Phish - he sings Bathtub Gin in the bathtub. Besides which, Phish is as much about being a big kid as it is anything else. So I brought him along for the end of tour from Merriweather Post forward, and we had a phantastic time.

If you saw a converted school bus painted red, that was us - we were set up right next to Deep Banana Blackout, and curled up to sleep at night to funky vibes. Sam charmed all the girls with his easy confidence and played frisbee with the guys in the lot, who were happy to make room for him. If you saw a little blond guy with devil sticks on tour this summer, that was him - I got him a set and he took to them easily, getting free lessons from everybody. He had an amazing time, diving after glowsticks at the shows, scampering around - by the Wheel, Sam was Down With It, he was the Ace of the Base.

We had brought our roller-blades and we zoomed all over, loving the colour and vibe of the place, that was pretty much at pace with Sam's own energy. We had discussed drunken people and nitrous balloons - ordinary balloons inside the concert area were fine, but any balloons in the lot were "POISON, Sam, and the people with them are sick" - and he got it, keeping his distance and poking me whenever he saw someone with one. I knew he had good judgment and so I relaxed.

Only once did he get away from me - right before the first set, we were at our bus and he kept blading off and coming back, blading off and coming back. "Stay where I can see you," I kept saying. "Mom, I KNOW where the bus is," -rolling his eyes. I said, "Well, listen, I know you're cool, but I worry, so just stay around so that I can see you and be chill. It's about ME, not you. Think about me. I worry." 

But the sights and sounds, and the fun of blades, and the fact that my son is Tom Sawyer and Dennis the Menace all in one (you boyz know what I'm talkin about) had him forgetting about Mom and her silly concerns, and away he went, out of my sight. I stood on the bus, anxiously shading my eyes to see him, and eventually I strapped on my blades and went to find him, heading up towards the gates.

I found him casually heading back toward the bus, accompanied by a cool- looking guy who was keeping up with him on an orange Executioner skateboard, one of the old kinds right out of the seventies (some of us were around then) :)"Where WERE you?" - me, upset.

"Oh, Mom"-him, airily-"I was with Mike."

"Mike WHO?"

"YOU know - Mike Gordon, the bass player."

He and his new friend explained. Turns out he saw Mike's golf cart and zoomed up, and hung on along with the Executioner guy (whose name, it turns out, is Wabe) and a bunch of other people. At one point, Wabe's Executioner got stuck under the golf cart, and when Mike said -"hey - the Executioner is stuck, we gotta stop the cart"- Sam sailed around to the front of the cart and said to Mike, "Would you like to play Split Open and Melt? You guys haven't played it in a while." 

Mike apparently just looked at this little ballsy kid and smiled. (What the heck - they HADN'T played it in a while. Why not?) "Um, sure." Well the guy with the skateboard - Wabe - he and Sam had made friends, and he and I had made friends, so the three of us went in to the concert together. During the first set, when they paused between songs, Wabe noticed Mike conferring with Trey, putting his hand down waist-level as he spoke, indicating short stature. "This is it," Wabe said to me. "Sam's about to get his Split Open and Melt".

Sure enough, they busted it into it, and Trey, laughing, said into the mike, "this is by request, for a tiny little boy named Sam." Sam flipped - and Wabe's brother Simeon (equally cool d00d) - lifted Sam up on his shoulders, putting his own velvet imperial crown on Sam's head. Sam was the King of the World, headbanging from the waist. Everybody around us was grinning and yelling, "Sam, Sam!" Trey spotted us and had a big grin on his face as he leaned into the jam. (It was a phatty SOAM, too).  I thought it just couldn't get any better. Love my kid, love me, it's all the same. He's happy, I'm happy. It's that simple.

But after the set, an older guy came over to Sam and said, "I just want you to know, that's one of my FAVORITE songs, and I'm glad you requested it."  He looked up at me, this nice gentleman with the merry eyes. He extended his hand. "I'm Trey's Dad," he explained. I took his hand and shook it, laughing. "Nice to meet you," I said. "I'm Sam's Mom."

- Katie Holloway (kholloway@mbs.ca)