I remember that the word on the street was that Phish was going to do some sort of nearly unannounced show at the Fillmore in SF. For a week or two before it was actually announced, the word was "tickets are going on sale Thursday at the Fillmore Box office" or tickets are going on sale Friday at the wherever."

They ended up announcing the sale of the tickets on the radio, and they sold them at Pier 23 or something like that. I live three hours north of SF, so needless to say, I didn't get in on those tickets.

So the day of the concert was fast approaching. It was right before Halloween in '98. I was working as an editor for a magazine that had nothing to do with music. But it sparked an idea in my brain...what if I tried to get press passes?

But I'm a renown passenger on the lag wagon.

So I waited until the day of the show. I was wasting time at work, and I decided to finally try the last gasp of hope I had to get into the show, looked up the number for Bill Graham Presents and called. I asked for the press relations department--I had my plan in my mind and was ready to try and score those passes--but no one answered the phone and I was transferred to a voice mail. So I left some sort of desperate message that I needed press passes for the show.

So an hour or two pass, I left work for lunch, went home, pulled a tube or three, and decided to give the BGP number a call again. They transfer me to someone live this time. I give my plea, and am immediately shot down. I think her line was, "you should have lined up press passes a month ago".

Oooops, no show for me...so I pulled another tube and headed back to work. So I get back to work and check my voicemail. Amazingly, there is a message on there from someone else in the BGP PR department returning my call.

So with my hopes on the rise again, I call back and ask for the person who left me the voice mail. I tell her what magazine I work for and that I'd like to write a story about this, er uh, Phish show.  So they kindly explained to me that they didn't have any press passes left.

I was bummed.

But then she continued, "But we have a couple of tickets that you can buy if you'd like."

Bingo!

So I get all excited and scramble around and get a credit card number to put the tickets on (I don't do plastic or banks for that matter, so I'm always borrowing someone else's credit card to buy tickets...and I mean borrow in that I actually give them cash, not borrow in the Internet thief type of borrow).

Then I tell my boss that I'm leaving work early to go see Phish in SF, and yes, I'd be in the office tomorrow for the 8am Editorial Department Meeting (remember I live three hours from SF).

Then I realized that I had an extra ticket to one of the most in-demand shows. I had a lot of friends that really wanted to get into that show, and they all had good claim on an extra Fillmore ticket (some had seen 100s of shows, others had seen them back in the day or whatever).

So the only person I could think to take along was a taper friend of mine (so then he could make tapes of the show and everyone in town could enjoy the Fillmore show, right?)

So I call him and tell him that I got tickets for the Fillmore, and you're driving. Of course, the tickets weren't in my hand and he didn't really believe me until we actually got inside the door.

It was fun.

(BTW: I had never been offered so much for an extra ticket than the scene outside that show, people were desperate to get in, I saw people offer $500, I saw someone offer a Nolan Ryan rookie card, I saw someone offer a pair of Halloween tickets and a stinky stinky ounce).

So the moral of the story is "Thank You PR Lady at BGP who saw right through my desperate attempt to get into that show and made it happen."

- BDWW