Phish Stories by Pholktales.com

PholkTales: Tour Journals... courtesy of Russell's Travels

The decision to fly out to Shoreline was an easy one. I had never seen Phish on the west coast (though I did drive by Shoreline in the summer of '99), and the two-night stand was going to be the last shows of the tour, of the year, and for an indefinite period afterward. Or, as Trey put it in Vegas the previous week, "The first extended hiatus in about 17 years." I haven't missed Phish's last show of the year since the first time I saw them (1994), and even though it wasn't quite New Years' Eve, I wasn't about to miss it. Plus, with my brother living in Tahoe, only four hours from San Francisco (less than an hour north of Shoreline), I could see him less than a week after partying with him in Vegas. And since it was, officially, a visit to my brother, the airfare was on my father. Thanks, Dad!

So, after raging for a three-day weekend in Las Vegas, then flying back to New York for a four-day work week, I flew out to California for more Phish shows. I even cleared it with my boss at TPR. (Thanks Dave!) Over 10,000 miles logged in under 10 days, just for fun. The shows would be at the legendary Shoreline Amphitheatre, the home of the Dead. The tape that turned me into a Deadhead was of a Shoreline show in '91 (Jack Straw, Bertha to start, plus Desolation Row), so the place had magic to me. Landing on the Friday morning, (Oct. 6), J and I had hours to kill before this show, so we spent the day in San Fran; it was only fitting that Jordan and I visited the actual home of the Grateful Dead from the 1960s, on Ashbury St., in the Haight, below left. The famous picture of the boys sitting on their steps in the Sixties was taken below. Later (below right), a former resident of that historic home, Bobby Weir, joins the members of Phish for a three-song encore.


	Mr. Bobby Weir, taking some lessons from Trey Anastasio

One of the most beautiful outdoor venues in the country, Shoreline Amphitheatre is located in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. A spacious, friendly lawn accompanies a cozy pavilion area. It helped that mail order hooked me up with seats in the 100s (the front of the pavilion) for both nights.

For Phish, playing their last two shows before their first playing hiatus in 17 years, it was a perfect place to end the tour.

It was a great time to be a New Yorker in the Bay Area. The Yankees were playing the Oakland A's, and the Mets were playing the Giants. As pennant fever gripped both cities, NYC came out on top.

It was funny to see so many baseball fans rooting for the wrong teams. During the 13-inning Mets-Giants game, I overheard a fan mutter to himself, "Friggin' Barry Bonds!" I asked curiously if Bonds had won the game, and he responded, "No, he popped up with the winning run on base. Again." In the Shoreline bathroom, after Game 4 of the 2000 ALDS where the Yanks got crushed 11-1, I witnessed an obnoxious chant of "Fuck the Yankees! Fuck the Yankees!" Bizzarro-world.

Jordan had met a cute blonde in Vegas, Collyn, and was chilling with her in our actual seats (about 20 rows back on Page side), so I went to find an even better spot. Able to maneuver solo, I ended up in row F (about 10 rows back) in dead center. The row seemed pretty empty, so I went with it. But about five minutes before the show, the row started to fill in. Specifically, the seat to my right was occupied by none other than Phish's brilliant lyricist Tom Marshall. I looked at him for a moment longer than I should have, just to be sure it was him.

After a minute, a phan came up to Tom and offered him about 20 pins like the one on the right. The guy, who I recognized from Jordan's pictures from Japan, then scampered off, leaving Tom to figure out what to do with them. Then he handed them to me. (And said this isn't who it would be if it wasn't who it is.) At first I tried to put one on my shirt, then I said to him, "I somehow don't feel right putting this on." He replied, "We just have to find the cutest girls we can to give it to." We shared a laugh, and I was buzzing with the excitement of having a conversation with Tom. I'd seen him at many shows, and we've shared a smile or two after a great show, but I've never known what to say to him.

Later, when I struck up conversation with the woman to my left, I asked her if she knew who the guy to my right was. She laughed, "I'm Page's sister-in-law." I had stumbled into Phish's VIP row, and I was now sandwiched between Page's sister and Tom Marshall.

The show started with Carini, a la first night Las Vegas 2000. A great opener, intense and wild. Carini had a lumpy head! Then the notes to Stash hit my ears, my first in too long a time. I'm grooving in my space, singing the lyrics to myself ("The solar garlic starts to rot; Was it for this my life I sought? Maybe so, maybe not.), when I realized that the man right next to me wrote the very words that I was now lip-synching. The concept blew my mind, and I laughed out loud at the very idea.
View from Row F, next to Tom Marshall

After the second-song Stash, I turned to Tom and told him of an interview I had once read in Skeleton Key. The interviewer told Tom that the lyrics to Stash were very similar to the Grateful Dead's China Cat Sunflower, and while I couldn't remember his exact response, I remembered that Tom blew off the question in a terrific way. Tom laughed at the memory. "That was Steve Silberman," he said, "and my response, I believe, was 'I didn't realize China Cat even had lyrics!'" We both cracked up. He could tell I was a big fan of his.

During the set break, I talked with Page McConnell's sister-in-law (his brother's wife) Paula about my fond feelings for her brother. I told her of my experience meeting him backstage in Germany in 1996, and how much his friendly conversation meant to me. (The other band members intimidated me, but Page made it a point to shake my hand and say thank you to me!)

She nodded and handed me the VIP pass to the right (The Clinic). I was dumbfounded. Not only was I chilling with Tom Marshall and Page's sister but now I had a pass to The Clinic, Phish's private club.

Toward the end of the set break, I headed to The Clinic for a free beer. Passing the security, I felt like a real VIP. And after getting into Les (and Trey's) show at the House of Blues the previous weekend, I've never felt more a part of the Phish community.

I didn't scam anything, I didn't beg; the tickets and passes just fell into my hands. As I headed into The Clinic, an open tent with an equally open bar, I spotted Tom immediately. He looked up from his small cluster of female followers to holler to me, "Nice seats, huh?" I felt like he was an old friend, and he apparently enjoyed my company too. The recognition was a nice bonus to the VIP experience.

Back in my section for the second set (I felt weird about crowding the VIPs), I was ready to rage. My seats were still pretty good (I took the photos of Bobby on top of this page from there). I was wearing my Voters for Choice shirt from the Phish concert in Lowell, Mass, in 1995. That was the show that debuted Spock's Brain, among others, so it was fitting that the band broke out that tune for only the second time since 1995. This time, unlike Vegas, I recognized it. The second set Cities, the underrated Talking Heads song, was also appropriate--after traveling 3,000 miles to my second favorite American city.

The Axis: Bold as Love second set closer was a wonderful way to end the set. I screamed every word, and my brother was doing the same a few seats over, to the rainbow pictured above. In fact, I later told him that the line "Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted" reminded me of him. (Keep Tahoe Blue!) After covering Bob Marley (my third Mellow Mood!), Stevie Wonder, the Talking Heads, and Jimi Hendrix, what else could they do? Before the encore, the stage technicians set up a mic stand, with the stage's fifth microphone. Who could it be? Phil Lesh, the ex-Dead bassist who joined Phish during their last trip to Shoreline (9/17/99), was playing his own tour in the East (I'd see him the following weekend). Probably Les Claypool, the virtuoso bassist that Trey jammed with in Las Vegas the previous weekend. He was in the San Fran area. No, of course, it was Bobby Weir, the cowboy rhythm guitarist from the Grateful Dead for 30 years.

To say that El Paso was a surprise would be an understatement. Of all the Dead songs, of all the songs that Bobby could sing, El Paso? It was not the favorite choice for most of those around me, also. Jordan later lamented, 'That was the song that I'd go take a piss when the Dead played." Nevertheless, I never had time to become a jaded Deadhead, so I enjoyed it. The chorus stuck in my head all night.

It was a relief to see that El Paso was not the lone encore (for the lone ranger), but it was equally weird to see them go into the Chalkdust Torture. Not only is it a youth anthem ("Can't I live while I'm young?") and not very Bobby, it's a complex, fast-moving composition that is very difficult to follow. Bobby lost his position in the music a few times, but Trey was shredding, and it was one of the fiercest Chalkdusts in my long (seen 36 times) history with that song.

Bobby was a crack-up, acting as if the boys from Phish were his personal backup band. He lead the band into the third encore, the 1980s Dead original, West L.A. Fadeaway. A great Jerry tribute.

On the way back to New York City (following the second show), I had a transfer in Dallas. The gate next to mine was for an instate flight to El Paso, the west Texas town. I bet a few people in the waiting area had to wonder about the sanity of the tourist who was taking pictures of the C37 gate to El Paso (above).

After the first night at Shoreline, we drove back to Kenneth's place in the Berkeley Hills. His parents had just moved to a new house, and Ken was house-sitting it with his sister Olivia and their dog Matilda. Ken and Olivia played terrific hosts, offering comfy couches, ESPN (we watched the Braves get eliminated in three games), and chocolate chip cookies. Their châteaux had 21 rooms, but one will do.

Ken had been my brother's buddy through college, and he joined the Kahns on the trip to Boston for New Years' Eve 1994. That show, my third Phish show, was a major turning point in my life. Ken joined me again for the New Years' Eve show in 1998, in MSG, for another powerful moment. Now he joined me on the end of my long trip with the band.

The Shoreline shows were my fifth and sixth shows of tour (the two Albany shows to start the tour and the two Vegas were the other four). The shows were also my 12th and 13th shows of 2000 and the 115th and 116th of my Phish career.

Many thanks again to Olivia and Kenneth for putting us up in their incredible home in Berkeley. The photo to the right is of Ken, Jordan, and me on Ken's balcony. It was a hazy day, but you can just make out the Oakland skyline behind us.

We headed to the show on Saturday, half-excited for the last show of tour, and half-heavy hearted for the last show of tour. We all understood that while Phish wasn't breaking up, it could be a while before we'd see them again.

A truism we'd known all along never seemed as true: Phish is not Dead.

Ken, Jordan and me In Front of a Foggy Oakland

Before the second Shoreline show, we all converged outside the entrance to meet up with friends. Two Jesus freaks stood by the gates, one of which was condemning us with a megaphone and a hand-held sign. He told us we were going to hell because we were all pot-smokers, alcohol-drinkers, and masterbaters. I heard a few people ask the loud guy, "So, you never wack off?" I overheard one girl on her cell phone tell her friends, "meet me by the Jesus freaks."

The zealot also reiterated the crazy-man motto, "The end is near." It was the end of the tour, so, for once, he was right on the money. We entered the venue a little before the sunset so that I could catch the view from the top of the lawn. You could, apparently, see the shore from the top of the lawn, thus validating the name "Shoreline." The view wasn't spectacular, but we did run into some old friends of ours at the top of the lawn: Gabe's family.

The last show. The hype was outrageous for it. There were many rumors, and a few of them were even "confirmed." There was going to be three sets. In fact, Phish had applied for a late-night permit to play past the venue's curfew, and they were going to play The Beatles' Abbey Road for the second set. In a year without a Halloween or New Years' Eve concert, it made sense. At least in our deluded state of mind. (You believe what you want to believe.) I'm not sure where the rumors stemmed from, but strangers in the bathroom screamed it (It's confirmed!), and people, supposedly in-the-know, said that Phish had been rehearsing the album. We were singing, "I'd like to be... Under the sea" all weekend.

Alas, there was no Abbey Road. There was no third set. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary at all. No crazy bust-outs, no rarities. Phish simply played the meat and potatoes of their last 17 years, and nothing else. While disappointment was evident on many faces as the show commenced with standard song after another, who could really complain with such tight performances of each? And unlike the many new Year's Eve shows, the band played a very low-profile show. They mixed the new with the old, starting the show with First Tube, one of the newest masterpieces in the band's repertoire, then following it with the classic Mike's Groove, played consistently for the last decade and a half.

I snuck down to the front row for Wading in a Velvet Sea, soaking in the beauty of that song. Later, for the Bowie, I freaked out in the aisles, making friends with a security guard. She was grooving to the music, and she couldn't care less about people dancing in the aisles. At one point she said, "Ah, what the hell!" before breaking loose and busting some moves.

The second-set Tweezer was one of the sharpest, most note-for-note perfect renditions ever. And for the cynics complaining about yet another Tweezer, just listen to the music. The encore made perfect sense: You Enjoy Myself, the most performed song on Phish's history. One of their oldest songs, YEM caused the musical rift between Phish's two original guitarists, Jeff and Trey, practically defining the musical direction of the band. (Trey was right.)

You Enjoy Myself morphed into its trademark Vocal Jam, and the band hummed their way off the stage. No goodbyes, no long-winded thank yous. Phish left their music to speak for itself, allowing the Vegas narration to explain the situation. When it was all over, at barely 11:00 p.m., the stunned audience was finally treated to some Beatles: The post-show music was The Beatles' Let It Be. Perhaps the greatest song written in the Rock & Roll era, Let It Be spoke volumes about the status (status) of the band. Written by Paul McCartney for his late mother (Mary), the song signified the extended peace (hopefully temporary) that the band was going to undertake.

About 20 seconds into the song, the entire audience broke out into a thunderous standing ovation. Everybody stopped in the aisles and faced the stage, now full of crew members taking away the equipment. There was no chance of a second encore (there never is), yet the crowd refused to let up in its appreciative applause. It was a special moment.

After the show, Jordan, Ken and I meandered through the lots for one last time. We grooved in front of an RV blasting Hampton Comes Alive (at least we heard Quinn that night), and said a sad farewell to the scene. Then we headed over to the Dan's place, two miles down the road, for more partying (although, unlike Vegas, I spent most of the weekend entirely sober.) Dan, Jordan's friend from Japan, was nice enough to play host to a large group of travelers from as far as Japan and New York. The phans gathered one final time, and Jordan drove me to the airport the next morning.

Peering out the airplane window, full of positive reflection on the last six and a half years of my life with Phish, I snapped the picture of the sped-up sunset above. One last wonderful journey with Phish, and I had 3,000 miles to ponder it.