, attached to 2003-08-02

Review by smyph

smyph Like others here, IT was my first show. I got turned onto Phish during the hiatus and saw TAB a couple of times. When the guys came back, I never pulled the trigger on going to a show until IT came around. Go big or go home! From upstate NY I journeyed to Maine with a couple of friends. We drove all night on the back roads of VT and NH. Ran into the traffic jam on the main route to the base and everyone was out of their cars drinking and mingling like only Phish fans do. At some point, a local in an old blue Chevy rolls up and informs us that if we take a different way we will bypass most of the traffic. Lots of fans overhear, and there is a brief group discussion on if we should ty it. Why not! So we and a handful of other new friends all take off down a single lane back road until we end up meeting up with another line of traffic. Accepting the situation we hop out and enjoy the nice day and a couple of beers. Did we save any time? Doubt it, but the back road was a blast!

Once we get to the gate, I remember the guy that looked in our car asked me if we had anything besides weed.. "um, no." "Ok, you are good to go." As 20 something college kids, this was hilarious to us. Once inside my mind was blown! I was surrounded by 60k other fans that all trekked to the top of the Main for Phish! This wasn't just a music festival. Art installations, vendors, shake down. IT had everything.

You could tell from the 1st set that this was going to be a non-stop ride. Ya Mar and Reba both set the tone for the next 6 sets to come.

Set 3 was something of magic! Non-stop musical genius came out of the band. The highlight was Seven Below, Scents and Subtle Sounds, Seven Below. Towards the end of the set, Trey talked about the band never thinking about what they were going to play ahead of time. It sure worked with this set!

I wish I had a great story about the tower jam. I remember hearing a strange noise and seeing some lights around the tower. Our camp site was on the opposite side of the base and we couldn't tell what was going on. No one rallied to go check it out. Next day we regretted it.

In the end, I find it funny that the first song I think of when IT comes to mind, Dog Log.


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