------------------------------------

I'm supposed to be rewriting a document called the "Joint/Combined Configuration Management Support Plan" at the moment, but I don't want to. For weeks now I've had all of these "reflections" about the Phish summer tour in my head, and I've been procrastinating about putting them down on paper because they've just been too numerous and too disorganized to express effectively. It's not something new for me. I've got unfinished stories about last summer's Merriweather show that are on disk somewhere in a directory called "haphazard stuff."

So instead of doing my work, I want to write about an incident that happened last month at 7/16/99, the second PNC show. I had to go to Office Max at lunchtime, and there was a guy who ran across the street in front of my truck, and instantly reminded me of the following story. It's not that it's such a remarkable story. Actually, things like what I'm about to tell you happen at Phish shows many more times than are worth repeating. But so many of the significant little episodes at a show tend to get lost in the glorious chaos of the total experience. So rather than trying to tell you about all of the wonderful things that happened the week the circus came to my town, let me waste your time on one which was just kind of chill .......

-------------------------------

Marie attended the second night at PNC with me. I really love when she's with me at Phish concerts. When the band gets things cooking, and you know that you're hearing and feeling something truly exceptional, a major musical love feast, spawned by the boundless crescendo of rhythm piercing through your entire existence, a complete obliteration of the physical barricades which separate you from everyone in the auditorium and the world .......... and then as you slowly re-compose, the body solidifying as the world takes form, and once again you return to the self-aware state of the "me and not me" ...... at this point, when I turn to share in that very first glance of ecstatic afterglow from such a rush, the only person I expect or really need by my side is, as always, Marie.

Seems kind of defacto in my mind. That's probably why there's such a cavernous gap in my reflective functioning when she's not at a concert with me. It's like the SETI signals that search the heavens for some cosmic ears on which to fall, an unrequited quest for the heartfelt question, "Do you exist Here also?" I knew Friday night was going to be my personal favorite of the three shows I attended shows this summer, even before the first note was played, mostly because she was going to be with me. [Aside: this paragraph is dedicated to a truly phunky person who once posed inside a gorilla suit. I believe in reality she's actually an angel posing inside a human suit.]

And Marie was up for this concert as well. She had just started her new job, and two weeks worth of nervousness had begun to subside. We found our incredible seats, six rows in front of Trey, and settled in with our neighbors. By stroke of mail order luck, our neighbors were actually New Jersey tour neighbors. Shelly and company had seated the same ten people together for the three NJ shows we MO'd for.

By Friday night, we were well into hooking each other up, getting refreshments, comparing notes, and generally reveling in the newly found friendships, just one of the better aspects of being part of a Phish audience. Two weeks after this show, Marie and I attended a BNL show at the same venue. Although the crowd was just as into the music when it was playing, there wasn't nearly the same level of "connectivity" with your "neighbor" when it wasn't.

Both of us noticed how, even though Phish crowds seem to appear much more chaotic, unstable and threatening ..... and in isolated incidences may actually be so; overall, they are much more friendly, and make you feel, in a very real sense, as part of the "family." And it doesn't take much to sense this at a Phish show.

So Marie, who normally requires more time than I to relax into a show, was pretty psyched and ready to go when the band came out and gave us a really solid first set that night. I'm not writing a show review at this point, so I don't want to go into detail about the music. What seems worthwhile mentioning is the "difference" between that first set and the previous four sets I had seen so far. Something was different. Something about the night had the band into a slightly different vibe.

The songs were less jammed out, more concise, there were more songs of lighter rotation, and generally there seemed to be more structure, more control, more togetherness. It seemed kind of obvious to our new little group that we had witnessed a slightly extraordinary first set..... nothing really that knocked your socks off, just basically solid Phish music. In retrospect, maybe the first set "togetherness" or "tightness" laid the groundwork for an even better jammed out second set. I don't know.

In some ways, I've given up trying to over-analyze the music...but that's a topic for another post, half started and waiting for completion in my haphazard file. It's filed right next to the one entitled, "The Psychosexual Meaning of the Change in The Ending of Harry Hood". Maybe one day.

----------------------

We hung at set break with our row friends, reliving the moments of the night so far, and coming to some of the conclusions I've just mentioned. As normally is the case at Phish shows, well before the second set begins, fans without the appropriate tickets begin to move down toward the front of the venue to fill the empty row spaces and unused seats. I get a little nervous about the overcrowding in our general area, especially when Marie is with me.

The crowding is one of her biggest discomforts, and I was assuring her as the masses started to trickle down, that we would move off to the lawn if it got too "hairy" for her. As we talked about our "contingency" planning for the second set, a young guy who did not own the seat to my immediate right, jumped over from the row behind and took up residence there. I figured the real owner would be back for the second set, so I didn't give him much mind, although he did seem a little antsy, and made me kind of nervous in a short period of time.

He was about twenty years old, give or take a year or two. He had short crew cut hair, wore no shirt and a pair of safari shorts in which he seemed to have shoved all that he owned into the many pockets, including a bottle of water, a baseball cap and the aforementioned unused t-shirt. He was about five-ten or taller, and of trim, but broad build, and he showed signs of weight training and had some kind of tattoo, about five inches in diameter on the back of his right shoulder.

In my mind, before the second set began, I was beginning to pigeonhole this guy as a "frat boy" poser who immediately lost some points with me, just by his attempts to "grab" some space up front. His lack of concern for the other people in the row dis-ingratiated his general presence to me the more he fidgeted and moved around in the seat.

Marie quickly read my behavior and began asking me if I wanted to move. Fighting an internal anger that was gradually building since he arrived, I tried to convince her that he was not a bother. At least that's what I was trying to believe. Even though my evaluative mechanisms had sized this person up and decided that he would probably detract from our overall concert experience, I attempted to convince myself not to trust those reactions. I'm convinced that people are worth more than our basic generalizations about them. Some aren't, but most really deserve the benefit of our doubting our own conditioned responses.

-----------------

The band started the second set with a really wonderful ASZ. Short on the buildup, more to the point and really just marvelously played. One of the best dancing tunes of the night, and that's just what our new friend started doing almost immediately. The original seat owner never returned, so this sweaty, half-clothed interloper jumped up with the first beat of the ASZ rhythm and began to dance himself into a frenzy, arms and body flailing in all directions, encroaching, if you will, into the space I considered mine.

My attention was being constantly drawn away from the music because I was adamant about maintaining my "space" over and above the desire to just chill with the sound. Marie was incredibly aware of my discomfort and it was beginning to detract from her enjoyment of the show. I kept reassuring her that everything was fine, as I wrestled with the thoughts of dealing with him myself.

I hate confrontations, and of course, Marie knows this about me. To help assure her that I would handle the situation, and to thank her for being so tuned in to me, I leaned over during this wonderful music and kissed her for several moments..... or maybe a lifetime. I said, "I love you," and then returned to my defensive posture.

We must have been a bit more obvious than I thought. Maybe the "I love you," to be heard over the music, was loud enough for more than just Marie to hear. As I settled back into my place, lifted my head, grabbed my air guitar and settled into the song once more, my nemesis leaned over to me, very matter-of-factly, and said, "This is the best place you could have ever taken her, man."

I finally looked into his face and eyes, something I avoided doing as long as I was "mad" at him. And even though there wasn't anything special about him, he suddenly became what he always was, but what I was pretty incapable of seeing ...... just another basically nice person and a lover of Phish. I uttered a meager "thanks," and we both just returned to a totally raging ASZ at this point. He stepped forward a little and I stepped back, and neither his dancing nor my air guitar really made much difference for the rest of the show. When the neighborhood chocolate came drifting our way, I passed it along to him, and he, in return, later offered his pipe. We didn't talk after that, the music was much more important to both of us. I admired him for that level of respect as quickly as I had condemned him a little while earlier.

Marie became aware that our "differences" had been settled, and relaxed as quickly as I had with our new neighbor. Our concert experience turned out to be, if not our singular best together, then not much less than number two. The music was tight, varied, and played with a spirit which may be more a subjective function than anything real or supposed within the band's performance.

But in the final analysis, when I'll remember this night, it won't matter. There is so much about a Phish concert; so many feelings, insights, observations and "connections" that amplify the total experience way beyond the quality of the music. This just happened to be a night where all of it just seemed to come together.

Consequently, I have this unrequited need to personally thank everyone who was there that night, since I believe if one small part of 7/16 were any different at all, the whole thing would have been different. I've thanked my sweetheart for that night many times over. I'd like to thank the rest of you who were there for your contribution to the wonderment. But I'd mostly like to thank my nameless friend for his simple sentiment that night, and hope that he finds the one to share his future Phish shows with.

Trick of the Century: be truthful, be kind

- Bill

~ ~ ~ ~ may

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ the four winds

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ blow you safely

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ home