It was so hot, that my dress was soaked and my eyes burned. My choice to down several hot Coronas and a mouthful of shrooms was probably a bad one, but too late. As it turns out, I thought I was either tripping so hard that I was dying and didn't know it, or I was just tripping and thinking I was gonna get carried out on one of the stretchers, like other people I'd seen that day that were "having a hard time."

To try to get some control over the situation during intermission, my brother and I walked to an area that seemed to be somewhat to the back and side of the stage. No one was there. It looked safe to stop and catch our breath, so we sat down to figure out whether or not we were dying.

Just then comes a friendly guy that you may know as Mike Gordon. I looked at him, standing, by himself, about ten feet away from us, with an impish little grin on his lips, hands in pockets . I looked again to make sure I wasn't exceptionally delusional. My brother saw him too, so I said, "Well, it's Mike, so I better go talk to him." I did, and told him about our dilemma.

He said he hoped we could stay, because the sun would be going down around the time of the second set, and it would cool off and get better. I offered him a beautiful bone and turquoise native-american necklace my brother had made, and Mike said he gets so many things from phans, and we better keep it. He knew we needed the money. Then we said, "Bye Mike."

We decided to go back to the show. He was right. The sun went down, and the sky was black and purple and soft with a little lightning cracking across in the distance. That's the first time I heard "Wading in the Velvet sea." I cried then for it's beauty and timeliness....and I cried last night at Coventry with Paige. We are so blessed to have had them while we did. Good job guys.

- erica v.