Many of us in the scene have experimented, or continue to experiment with LSD. Personally, I could never touch the stuff ever again after constant abuse in high school in the mid 90's. Some, however, show up to a show with the intent to buy as many substances as they can in the lot without caring, or sometimes even knowing who Phish is. This doesn't bother me as much as it does my peers, just because more often than not, these kids are great for a laugh, and generally well behaved, but sometimes, god bless them, they just don't know their limits.

A little way down from our tent was, we'll call him, "Alexander Ahlmquest III," for lack of a real name. Couldn't have been more than 21 years old, and was definitely a big man on campus if you know what I mean. A super nice character, Alex was new to the scene and was genuinely worried about being respectful to the longtime phans. He showed what seemed to be genuine interest, and didn't pretend to be someone he wasn't. In this sense he was very well liked by everyone around us, and thought of as a well meaning kid, just trying to get his feet wet.

Alex's friends were dicks.

A friend of Alex' had supposedly bought a vile of LSD at the show, and offered everyone around a dose for the 12/30 show, prior to first set. Alex had seemed real interested in trying it out, and to be honest, we all kind of encouraged him to do it once, after all, what better place to trip than at Phish on the dawn of a new millennium. (Just for the record, that last sentence turned out to be the most dead wrong assumption we could have made).

I myself turned down the dose, but Alex took his first drop right onto his tongue like it was nothing, then a second, and a third... Alex' buddies wouldn't stop until he finally pulled away after three. Now, what I wouldn't know until after the show is that Alex's "Friends" had also dosed his water bottle (NOT F*CKING COOL AT ALL!)

My friends and I decided to accompany Alex to the show... after all, we had become very friendly with him, and three hits of acid can be ridiculously potent, especially for the first trip.

We found a spot about a half hour before the first set to the right of the stage and back about 75 yards, not bad at all. Show opens and Alex just kind of stands there. He looks fine, he's kind of dancing around, but he just doesn't seem right.

Then, disaster strikes as Ya Mar begins. It's coming down to the end of the first set, and Alex just kind of freaks out on us.

"Dude, I gotta go chill out, everything is going to be nothing soon." - Famous last words of a kid on acid for the first time.

Other than facial expressions and body language, these were the last words I heard Alex say as he took off running away from the show.

I started to wander after him, but as I got back to the tents, he was nowhere to be found. The search continued for the duration of the second set, but alas, poor Alex would not be found that night.

We returned for the third set just as Antelope was starting up, and caught all of it. After what I thought was a pretty good show by my standards (Having previously seen 28 shows), I head back for some rest. Still where was Alex?

7:00 AM: I hear a rooster caw inside my tent, except it's not a rooster at all, it's Alex with nothing but his jeans on, just soaked to the bone with either sweat or water or something, I still don't know.

At 7 in the morning I am not ready to deal with kids on acid, but this kid scared the shit out of me the night before, and worse than that, he was going to be real pissed if he didn't get any sleep and missed the Marathon show. I got up, took Alex to his tent, and tried to chill him out as much as possible, and without the aid of Thorazine, I went with the next best alternative, Dank.

After a few rips, Al chilled a bit, and was finally able to fall asleep at about 9 in the morning. We all slept until about 5 that night, Al got up at like 6 and was in surprisingly good shape.

I'm glad to say Al made up for Thursday's performance with an outstanding rush of energy for the New Years show. It truly made my day to see a kid new to the scene thrive on every minute of it.

To this day I wonder about Alex, and if I'll see him on tour again.

So to you Alex, I want to say thanks for making my NYE 2000 especially interesting, and I hope you don't still feel bad about us missing the second set.

And to the rest of you who may be new to the scene, be careful who you call friends, what you take, and what your limits are. Everyone can take to much... take this however you want to, but please, jam responsibly.

Peace,

Rob