I've always had a dream to professionally write about Phish. This counts, right?
As you all know, the people that make up Shenandoah Bicycle Company love bicycles. With this said, all of us have respected hobbies outside of the shop. Mine happens to be live music. Since the age of 13, my passion has been going to see live music, jam bands specifically.
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A picture from the lot Friday night in Raleigh.
Just got to poke around |
This weekend, for the first time in over a year I got the chance to hop on the road and travel around seeing my beloved Phish, a quartet of middle-aged white males from Burlington, VT. The description is appropriate when I look back over my young 22 years and calculate how much money and time I've spent following (phollowing) these guys around.
An 800-mile weekend on the road is a piece of cake when you know what lies just beyond the sunset inside a worn-down pavilion.
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| As the sun sets, the fun begins in Raleigh Friday night |
The band, who got their start in a Burlington, VT bar back in the 80s has built a career based on the live performance. Their records, while not successful have served as a tangible way to compliment their on stage magic. This weekend wasn't my first rodeo. One must know that you cannot simply see Phish just once. This was my 32nd, 33rd and 34th shows.
I've been everywhere from Essex Junction, VT following a 36-hour Greyhound bus ride to multiple nights sleeping in the back of my car with insufficient funds to afford a hotel after tickets.
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| You won't find a more professional and synchronized light show |
The shows are always different and the smiles are always larger. It simply never gets old for me and it always leaves me wanting more and more. Friday afternoon, I arrived in Raleigh, NC to catch up with friends, some of whom were in Philadelphia earlier in the week at the band's two-night run.
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| Steeeeeammmm! |
Phish, famous for swift changes and tonal versatility brought the funk early and often that night, which I loved. It's by far my favorite facet to their ever-changing sound. After a surprisingly impressive hotel breakfast Saturday morning, we buzzed out of Raleigh and began the six and a half hour trek to Columbia, MD where more friends would be met and more good times would be had.
Slightly after seven, we began funneling through the tapered Merriweather Post Pavilion entrance and flowed out onto the spacious lawn as the sun set to our right. When you see a band this often, the nuances of the group and the individuals become more evident.
"7:37"
"No, last night they came on at 7:26, no way it'll be that late."
"I say 7:42."
Yes, it becomes a nightly trivia battle on when the house music will dissolve and the house lights will give way to the band emerging from backstage to the roar of 19-plus thousand people.
Saturday night, the band continued on a tear as if they had never stopped what they started Friday night, over three-hundred miles away.
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The band closes their nearly month long tour
in elegant fashion Sunday night under the stars in Maryland. |
One of my favorite things while "on tour" is the long Sunday brunch that allows all of us to debrief all that has happened thus far in the weekend as we usually gear up for the final show of the run.
Inside Plato's Diner, we convened around a half circle table and enjoyed breakfast burritos and stacks of french toast while guzzling dark, diner coffee. It wasn't a full weekend without some bike-oriented events. I visited College Park Bikes and Proteus Bicycles while in the area.
Sunday proved to be yet another great show, which left me sleeping, once again in the back of my car.
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| Panoramic shot from the lawn at Merriweather Post Sunday night. Never miss a Sunday show |
"This has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way," frontman Trey Anastasio belts out during "Down with Disease."
We'll meet again, Phish. Sometime very soon.
