2022/07/16 - Maine Savings Amphitheater - Bangor, ME - Post show Discussion

[susep]

MAINE SAVINGS AMPHITHEATER
Bangor, ME
Soundcheck: My Soul, Something Living Here

SET 1: Free > I Never Needed You Like This Before, 555 > Possum, No Men In No Man's Land > Ocelot > Reba, Axilla (Part II) > Run Like an Antelope

SET 2: Sigma Oasis > Down with Disease > What's the Use? > Fluffhead > Twist -> Sigma Oasis

ENCORE: Roses Are Free > First Tube

[mistercharlie]

Man, I cleaned the shit out of the house today listening to set II. Really nice flow with lots of 'synergistic energies'.  

[VDB]

The Disease delivers. High-octane stuff, big finish.

[rowjimmy]

Set one is strong energy and flawless. Ocelot almost crosses a line into jamming. Trey wants to push it out there.

Ummm Set two is FIRE. Sigma opens strong but obviously that DWD is immense. The back half of it in particular is crazy intense. WTU is a lovely cool down and needed because one of the Strongest Fluffheads in memory follows. Then that Twist > Sigma Reprise is an awesome wrap up. Great show.

[Buffalo Budd]

I was digging the Free opener but then cooled down for the next 2. The Possum was fun and got the energy back up. I had been hoping for a Reba during my brief run and this one did not disappoint. This was my first Axilla (Part II) so that was a major treat and a ripping Antelope that sent us into setbreak.
The new venue is a major upgrade since the last time we were here in 2019 and the floor was easy to move around, plenty of dance space.
Set 2 was just a total mind melt for me. Sigma is one of my favourite new tunes but the way they segued throughout this set had my jaw on the floor. The DwD lives up to the hype with some really thought out themes. It gets really out there around the 17-18 min mark. WTU? was sublime but when it rolled into Fluff, I just about lost my marbles. They nailed this Fluffhead to my ears and I could not stop smiling. To close it out with Twist -> Sigma had me so confused after that journey. I turned to Wen and tried to piece together that piece of music we'd just witnessed.
My first Roses was icing on the cake to this show.
Fack, I love this band!

[Caravan2001]

Set one is strong energy and flawless. Ocelot almost crosses a line into jamming. Trey wants to push it out there.

Ummm Set two is FIRE. Sigma opens strong but obviously that DWD is immense. The back half of it in particular is crazy intense. WTU is a lovely cool down and needed because one of the Strongest Fluffheads in memory follows. Then that Twist > Sigma Reprise is an awesome wrap up. Great show.

I stopped paying attention for a minute and then couldn't figure out what song it was.  First time that has ever happened to me during Ocelot, hopefully not the last. It was short lived but that jam got there for a fleeting moment.

[Marmar]

I was digging the Free opener but then cooled down for the next 2. The Possum was fun and got the energy back up. I had been hoping for a Reba during my brief run and this one did not disappoint. This was my first Axilla (Part II) so that was a major treat and a ripping Antelope that sent us into setbreak.
The new venue is a major upgrade since the last time we were here in 2019 and the floor was easy to move around, plenty of dance space.
Set 2 was just a total mind melt for me. Sigma is one of my favourite new tunes but the way they segued throughout this set had my jaw on the floor. The DwD lives up to the hype with some really thought out themes. It gets really out there around the 17-18 min mark. WTU? was sublime but when it rolled into Fluff, I just about lost my marbles. They nailed this Fluffhead to my ears and I could not stop smiling. To close it out with Twist -> Sigma had me so confused after that journey. I turned to Wen and tried to piece together that piece of music we'd just witnessed.
My first Roses was icing on the cake to this show.
Fack, I love this band!

You did have quite the shit eating grin on your face.....

I think this is the tour of "we're going to play anything, and it's going to be played WELL" tour....I mean lets be real, composed sections have been REALLY hit or miss...especially for the heavy hitters....but, dare I say, these first 3 have restored a little faith in me...

Good times.

[mistercharlie]

Just gonna drop this masterpiece right here...

[Buffalo Budd]

Thank you Mr. C
Our uber mentioned the Pink Talking Fish aftershow on the way home and we all ended up there.
We really didn't want our Phish jaunt to end so danced the rest of the night away there although they closed the bar as soon as we paid the $30 entrance fee. That was some bush league shit.
I was still zoodled so it was still a fun time.

[cactusfan]

This DWD is dynamite. Nice second set overall. Psyched they're playing like 20 warm-up shows before I see them in Colorado.

[Hicks]

Thank you Mr. C
Our uber mentioned the Pink Talking Fish aftershow on the way home and we all ended up there.
We really didn't want our Phish jaunt to end so danced the rest of the night away there although they closed the bar as soon as we paid the $30 entrance fee. That was some bush league shit.
I was still zoodled so it was still a fun time.

Pink Talking Fish came up and I said "fuck no, we'll have way more fun at the Motel 6 than at that." And I have no doubt that's exactly what happened. 

[Buffalo Budd]

Thank you Mr. C
Our uber mentioned the Pink Talking Fish aftershow on the way home and we all ended up there.
We really didn't want our Phish jaunt to end so danced the rest of the night away there although they closed the bar as soon as we paid the $30 entrance fee. That was some bush league shit.
I was still zoodled so it was still a fun time.

Pink Talking Fish came up and I said "fuck no, we'll have way more fun at the Motel 6 than at that." And I have no doubt that's exactly what happened. 

[Hicks]

Well it's been over a week since I've rejoined reality, I suppose the wreckage of my brain has congealed enough to give the events of the GW > Bangor run a proper write up. It takes longer and longer to recover from these things as time goes by, but I definitely set myself back quite away by seeing the Jauntee last week, but since they were playing here in Portland AND they covered Bonnie Raitt = worth it. I tried to keep it mellow by ordering a low alcohol Radler as my last drink, but of course the bartender offered to kick up a notch with a tequila shot in it, and he even gave it to me on the house, so how could I say no. So yeah, I guess I'm feeling normal now?

Anyway, I landed at the Logan airport on Wednesday for a little night zero action. My gracious host pcr3 was there to pick me up, and started off the run with a little crazy taxi driving and I thought to myself, "oh man, I'll be lucky to get out of this one alive", which wasn't a completely inaccurate assessment. We stopped off for some Kelly's roast beef and I even threw in a side order of clam chowder and the demolition of my digestive system commenced in fine fashion. The roast beef was quite good and I was pleased when I was offered the options of regular horseradish or horseradish sauce, which as a mayophobic I appreciated.

After that we embarked to the Holmes-stead where SF, PG and GBL as well as the Holmeses were already pregaming it up. After some classic awkwardness regarding confusion on my part between nurses and doctors, somehow we ended up drinking and reminiscing until 4 in the morning and even though I managed to crash until 11, I was already in the hole in terms of sleep. Oh yeah and Budd and more Canadians showed up at some point too.

We headed back to Rizzi's to shower and get ready for night one and to meet up with his brother and gf and brother in law. I discovered I had a pretty much unsellable extra for the show, so after desperately listing it on Craigs we headed to the venue in the afternoon. GW is notorious for being a traffic clusterfuck, but we miraculously rolled right right into the general parking with basically no traffic and even snagged a spot right next to a shady tree with shakedown directly across the road from us in the main lot. I had kind of flailed on packing the beer cooler, so we went ahead and bought a few lot beers at $10/piece, even though we had a fridge full of beer back at the house. We chilled under the tree for a minute before I set off for Shakedown in a futile attempt to sell my ticket. As expected, that didn't happen, but I did manage to trade it for a Pepe Le Pew lot shirt. A $95 shirt was a bit of a kick in the nuts, but hey, better than nothing and at least the shirt fit.

We all piled into a section toward the back of the pavilion Page side and were just sliding into our seats when the band started into the set/show/run opening Ghost, yet another instance of perfect timing in a weekend when many things seemed to line up and go our way. The first set started out incredibly strong with little jams in Ghost and then Set Your Soul Free with the latter going back into Ghost. Next up we got a Wedge, which was good to see in this spot rather than an ill timed mid second set ripcord. Going for a Rift duo, the band struck up Mound, which is always a treat. Unfortunately, this one was way off on the timing and was pretty painful. Cool to see them attempt it, but uh, yeah, maybe they need to run through this one a couple times before trying to play it again. Mist is one of my favorite Phish ballads, so I was stoked to hear this one. We headed to bathroom and beer during Ruby Waves in hopes to make it back for the jam, but somehow that didn't happen and instead we walked back into the show to the strains of I Been Around, which I've now seen twice, which is pretty impressive considering it's a once year song at best. About to Run closed the set out and I was stoked to catch this one again as I consider it one of the best GOTF songs and possibly the best example of Phish blues rock ever. Trey really packs it with feeling and the lyrics about the "ghost" revisit a classic Phish theme with an older, perhaps more resigned perspective that hits home for me. The first set was in the books and Mound aside, it was very, very solid.

The second set started out with the highlight of the show with a very smooth Chalkdust > Plasma > Weekapaug segment. I always enjoy catching a Plasma I was in attendance for the very first Phish Plasma for the Eugene 14 show. SF called the Allman's jam in Plasma which was awesome and GBL heard a DEG tease. That eluded me, but it was confirmed by the .net overlords, so it's canon. My only time hearing Weekapaug without Mike's was a great dance party and going into Saw It Again solidified the "ghost" theme of the night. Fuckerpants arrived and although PG was elsewhere so we couldn't give him shit, in true Fuckerpants fashion this version won me over by the time it ended and was a great addition to the set. Things were getting a bit hazy at this point, but PYITE in the encore slot ruled and we rocked it out for SANTOS.

After the show I briefly got lost in the lots after saying goodbye to the bus crew headed back to Holmeses, but I'm proud to say it was only for about 15 mintues and I managed to find my way back to the car fairly quickly. We headed back to Rizzi Manor and cracked one last beer in the wee hours. It was one I mailed ahead to share and this one turned out to be a ghastly green-blue color. I managed to slug it down, but by the time I finished it I was seriously teetering on the brink of the spins, so we wisely called it a night. Also, apparently I munched almost an entire family size bag of hipster pop-chips and left most of them on the floor for pcr3 to clean up the next day, always the on point host.

For night two we rolled into the "Infinity Lot", once again with virtually no traffic. We kicked in the lot for a couple of hours and I found myself at a Jewish summer camp reunion pre-party. They were playing an LP playlist and I nerded out and successfully ID'd a couple tracks, namely the 11-19-97 Makisupa and the Gorge 03 Seven Below, one of my favorite attended jams. At one point someone was sitting on my phone in a chair I had previously been occupying and I had one of my few "oh shit" moments of the weekend while I thought my phone had been lost for about 15 minutes, which would have of course royally fucked me. But all was well, and we rolled into the venue once again right as the show was starting. I had a seat by myself on Mike down fairly low. I arrived at my seat just as 46 Days was wrapping up and settled in for a first set that featured the longest jam of the two night run with Everything's Right that I remember visiting a few different themes, but nothing super crazy before leading to a Rift that was passable by 3.0 standards, but still not the frenetic ball of energy it had once been. Trey lead the band into a melodic soaring jam in Wolfman's before landing smoothly back in the song. As a fairly standard Gin wrapped up I was sure the set was dunzo and I headed for the bathrooms, but of course just as I exited the pavilion they struck up Rock n'Roll. But, having been in attendance for one of the best RnRs of all time at Gorge '11, I was ok with missing this fairly unremarkable version, definitely a better timed bathroom break than missing the Ruby Waves jam the previous night.

At setbreak I tried to join the Paug section once again Page side high, but security were being total knobs and wouldn't let me in the section even though my ticket was way lower down, but on the complete opposite side of the arena. Things had been a little tight in my section, mostly because some dude had bought two seats and insisted upon taking up the space of both of them, but a couple people bounced for the second set and made things a bit looser. The set started off with another typical Mikes that found its way into the always welcome Hydrogen and then you could feel the anticipation in the crowd as everyone knew that Weekapaug had already been played the night before. Where would Hydrogen land the collective consciousness wondered, and the answer came with a resounding Carini which brought the biggest response of the night, with the pavilion going bananas in response. After a brief jam, Carini glided seamlessly into Blaze On which in turn transitioned into my highlight of the night in the form of Golden Age. Which while not as long as the ER, went deeper on the improv and was more interesting to my ears. As it wound down I called 2001, but the band decided to play the "new" version of 2001, Sci-Fi Soldier's The Howling. When Wave of Hope started up, I knew it was time to bid my seat farewell and check out some other parts of the venue. I wandered up to the top of the lawn for a different perspective during a very well played Hood and hanging on the lawn in the Summer while the band played it was a quintessential Phish moment, doesn't really get much better, well it would tomorrow, but we'll get there. I checked out some different parts of the upper pavilion for the encore, but then for Slave found myself right at the very center of the edge of the pav and who should I see next to me but none other than our own Buffalo Budd! Stoked to finally have a bro at my side, we enjoyed a soul cleansing version that ended the proceedings on a very strong note, always a special treat to get Hood and Slave in the same show. I enjoyed this one, but I will say that outside of a couple highlights like Golden Age, Carini and ER, the band didn't seem quite hooked up for a good portion of the show. Maybe it was my own headspace at the time, but I definitely preferred the first night to this one. After the show we downed a couple more beers and I provided pcr3 with a little something something to help ease his transition into slumberland, which would prove more than effective.

We had around a four hour drive ahead of us to get up to Bangor and I wanted to stop in Portland, the "other" Portland that is, for lunch so the plan was to try and get an early start and get on the road around 9:30. I got up after not the best night's sleep and showered, 9:30 came and went and not a peep from my host with the most. I sent a text, I called. . .  and nothing. Of course my mind immediately went to the darkest place possible and I'm thinking, this dude's just up and died on me, and how that would really fuck my day, which btw happened to be my birthday. I mean who would have the audacity to die on MY birthday? So with it nearing 10 o'clock I had to crack the door and say, "Dude? You alive?" and thankfully the answer, while not entirely intelligible, was in the affirmative. No solemn call to family members would be necessary and we could get on the road as quickly as possible, which I think actually did happen before 11.   

On our way out we made one of several Dunkin Donuts stops for coffee, well chai for me since I'm a West Coast fancy lad, which I only mention because we went no less than three times and not a single donut was purchased on any of those occasions. Which is a bit of a shame since DD pulled out of Oregon several years ago. In any event, we were on our way to my 46th birthday show! We stopped in Portland on the way up for brisket tacos and I got to try the seminal NE beer and aptly named "Lunch" by Maine Beer Company. All of which was delicious and hit the spot, even if the tacos did put more strain on my embattled innards. pcr3 loaded up the cooler with a ridiculous amount of beer from a couple Portland breweries, but that proved to be a wise decision as we had a long night with much carousing ahead of us. It was a nice initial taste of Portland, which seemed to be a very nice spot, teeming with folks enjoying perfect weather on various patios.

We rolled into our deluxe accommodations at none other than the Bangor Motel 6, to which Rizzi prophetically remarked upon first sight, "this place has shitshow written all over it". We downed a couple more beers, linked up with a non-pauger crew member named PJ and we headed toward our rendezvous with show number three. We parked a few blocks away, which seemed very straight forward at the time, but would prove a bit of a challenge later that night.

The venue is still a work in progress with scaffolding visible behind the pit area and a somewhat disorganized feel in general to the whole place. Country dude Dierks Bentley had just canceled a show there a couple weeks prior due to the venue not being ready, and it wasn't too hard to see why, as they had undoubtedly been working their asses off since then to get the spot at least passable. I managed to grab a spot front and center around 100 feet from the stage, but alas it was not meant to be as the paug crew had already settled in toward the back of the floor Page-side and there was no way our crew of around 15 to 20 was fitting in the increasing tight and in demand area I had found. I joined them and then right before the band took the stage a bald eagle appeared next to the venue, gliding majestic through the air and eliciting a huge cheer from the crowd. Bald eagles are actually pretty common in Oregon, and probably in Maine too, but I always get a special feeling when I see them, and feel like they are a good omen, which was particularly the case here. How many times do you get to see a bald eagle right before your favorite band on a summer evening with friends, on your freaking birthday?   

The band took the stage and dived into a rocking Free, with Trey pulling out the effects almost immediately, as he has been wont to do for Frees in recent memory. Not an insane Free by any measure, but the little bit of extra sauce on that Gordo breakdown in the middle would prove to be a harbringer of things to come, it was gonna be one of "those" nights. I was also glad to see that we were getting the full CK5 experience with the moving light rig, as that had not been the case for the GW shows. Which brings up an interesting topic, in that there are sort of two different Phish products at the moment with the moving lights and the stationary rig. While the music is of course the most important element of the show, there's no doubt that the configuration of the lights colors the experience, so to speak. Next up was one of my only first timers of the run, the poppy I Never Needed You Like This Before. These shows wouldn't do much for checking anything off of my song chasers list, but that's really a superficial side excursion to seeing the band anyway. I Never Needed You was fine, and hey, at least we were getting it out of the way early. Now at this point of the proceedings I was definitely feeling IT, so much so that when they struck up a Mike song I was sure for at least the first full minute that we were getting a Yarmouth Road. Which of course would make sense since we were only down the proverbial road from the actual Yarmouth. But in classic Phish fashion they had zigged when everyone expected them to zag and it was in fact 555. Which is undoubtedly a better song anyway. Keeping the Mike vocals going, and maybe a sly nod to the unplayed Yarmouth, Possum was up next. I've been thinking a bit how Phish is sort of a makeshift religion for a lot of us. Not in a cult type sense or anything, but how it's a conduit for a spiritual experience, a way for us to connect to something higher through the church of music. Possum's religious themes definitely reinforced that feeling for me on this night, as we all sang the hymn of the mortal possum in praise of the might Icculus. It also occurred to me how Possum is an excellent illustration of how music doesn't really belong to anyone. Here we have a band playing a song written by a guy who left the band 35 years ago, which itself was basically lifted from a Lynyrd Skynyrd song. There ain't no truth in action, less you believe it anyway. The band struck up NMINML next, and I focused more on the lyrics this time around, which boy, it had never really occurred to me until that moment as to how dark they really are, definitely some classic twisty Marshall action which turns a mirror to the audience and asks some tough questions. Then it was time for another musical misfire on my part, when I misidentified Ocelot as Alaska. Yeah, reality and I were having a somewhat rocky relationship at this point. But yet again, Ocelot is definitely preferable to Alaska, which I really can't stand. This would prove to be a better than average version with the band extending things to the precipice of an actual jam. That didn't quite happen, but they did hit a really nice groove there for a minute and I heard a very brief ASITHOS tease from Trey. 

And then there was the Reba. I honestly can't even put into words how profound this moment was, but I'll give it a go. It was a sunset Reba on a beautiful summer evening. On my birthday. At some point during the fugue part what happened was what I can only describe as "opening the portal", I closed my eyes and actually felt like time folded in on itself and I was back at my first show 27 years prior and experiencing that Reba simultaneously with the one I was hearing in the present. It probably sounds like nonsense, but it felt pretty damn real in that moment, it honestly gives me goosebumps to even think about it. Time Turns Elastic may not be a great Phish song, but it's pretty incredible sensation when it fucking happens to you! Needless to say I was pretty much over the moon after this and I had no qualms letting everyone in my immediate vicinity know about it. Even if the rest of the show sucked, that was IT, that was why I had a traveled across the country to see this band on my birthday. Again, it was a sunset Reba with friends on a perfect night. You just don't get many moments like that in life.

After that, Axilla II brought me back to the standout version in Vegas, and although this one wouldn't go deep like that, I definitely was extra stoked to hear it based off that memory. They closed the set with a raucous Antelope, with some weird sounds in the beginning that had me dub it the "Aquatic Antelope", as I also felt an oceanic vibe throughout the night, with the venue being on the water and the band having the tendency to lean into that motif.

Then it was setbreak. My shirt was already soaked with sweat, so I figured I would attempt a sojourn to the merch stand to try and buy an event shirt. I set off with an enormous Canadian named "Dave" as my guide and off we went into the throng of humanity. The not quite worked out nature of the venue certainly wasn't helping, but after some effort I made it to the stand, but there was nary an event shirt in sight. I lost Dave and was making my way back to our spot when I felt something wet on my neck. I didn't think a lot about it, probably just somebody spilling water on me, but someone let me know that I had ketchup on me. How that happened I have no idea, but when I put my hand on my neck, it did come away with a tacky red substance that thankfully was not blood. It just so happened that at this venue they had old school attendant stands in the bathroom, and after using the facilities pre-show I had wisely grabbed a couple wet wipes and shoved them into my pocket. Now as far as opening said wet wipes, that was going to be a little bit of an issue. I enlisted some folks in line for the ladies room to help me open one in hopes that they could also assist me in de-ketchuping my neck. Once the packet was finally open the girl unfolded a wet wipe that was approximately the size of a postage stamp and said to me, "What am I supposed to do with this?" Well, good idea in theory, but it turned out we needed a plan B here. I went ahead and bum rushed the ladies room sinks, apologizing to any and all ladies in proximity and proceeded to clean myself up as best I could.

That ordeal finished, I think I probably obtained a water and went back to join the crew for set two. The set started off with an exploratory Sigma Oasis. It wasn't especially long, but they got to a place of hi tech phuture phunk that I've been hearing over the last year. It's something I also heard during the Wombat in Vegas. Both of these jams, while brief, seem like they could point the way toward a completely new style of effects driven jamming that feels very new and fresh. The light rig was starting to look like a single celled organism and the boys were feeling it, everything was lining up at just the right time as the band dropped into the blackhole of swirling bass that we all know portends DWD. DWD in the number two spot for set II, yeah, it's on. Another one of those "what can I say" situations. This was a multi-faceted jam that Trey and Fish both wouldn't give up on. They kept finding little crevices in the jam to crawl through which then opened up a whole new musical vista to explore. That feeling of pushing through to turn the corner to a different direction was actually one I had felt in the Sigma Oasis too, but here they really capitalized on it and delivered what I would say is probably one of the top 5 jams I've seen in person. The real deal for sure. At one point I thought they were even going to drop into Guelah, once again probably my overactive synapses tilting at musical windmills, but relistening to it, there is a little Guelah-type groove at one point. When it was over I wondered just how long was that? It honestly felt like it could have been 45 minutes, what with time continuing to be a slippery slope for me. Next was WTU, which uh, saw me getting a little emotional. But, I'd like to say that my new method of crying during the second set that I discovered last summer at the Gorge in order to avoid the bathroom once again worked like a charm! That's right, just cry that shit out and you will not need to take a bathroom break during the show! I went before the show and then my only bathroom time after that was the incident in the ladies room where I proceeded no further than the sinks. Anyway, yeah fuck the haters who say WTU is overplayed now, that song is still fucking beautiful in person and the quiet part is another precious Phish moment to savor. Or cry like a bitch. Whatever. So yeah, we've already had the time portal Reba, a forward looking Sigma, a 30 minute DWD and an emotional WTU in this show, how could they possibly top that? How about a super tight Fluffhead? Is that something you'd be interested in? Feck yeah dudes. This was the cherry on the top, the ultimate birthday gift from Phish and the universe. Thank you. After that they played Twist, which was cool but at this point they could've just farted into the mics for 10 minutes, it really didn't matter. And then getting Roses as the encore was a cherry on the cherry. Double cherry guys, this was a double cherry show. And not in a dirty way. Ok, maybe it is in a dirty way. I don't know. It was just an amazing, amazing night. And it was really only just beginning!

Afterwards we got a couple group photos on the floor and then stayed basking in the afterglow until security told us it was time to gtfo. We squeezed through the single exit which was still a cluster even though the show had been over for a while at this point. After milling around in a random lot for a moment and stealing a water from PG, thanks dude, it was time to figure out where PJs car was. We said our goodbyes to Budd and his contingent of Canadians and set off on the quest to find the vehicle. Heading to the downtown area, we rounded the corner just in time for a huge fireworks display right over the fire station. It was one of those moments where you just aren't sure what the fuck is going on, was this a professional display put on by the city or just random wooks doing wook stuff? I mentioned to some law enforcement types in the vicinity that it was pretty nice of them to provide fireworks for my birthday, to which they replied, "yeah and right over the fire station", so wookery it was. We passed some folks doing balloons and generally partying down right in front of a grocery store, which also seemed really hilarious at the time. We walked for what seemed like forever and I have to admit, my faith in PJs ability to get us back to the Motel 6 wavered a couple times, but the dude came through and we made it back to the good old "shitshow" we would call home for the next 12 hours.

I finally got to change my shirt, which I had been dreaming about since setbreak. Nothing like a post show fresh shirt to get ready for the next phase of the night's shenanigans. Then I had a bit of a classic bathroom freakout where I was in there for an undetermined amount of time. Was it a half hour, ten minutes, much like the nights DWD I really had no idea, but it seemed like an eternity and at one point I was pretty certain that I had broken the poor excuse for a toilet that they provided, but thankfully that was not the case.

I joined the rest of the paug posse for a little post show fun, which started off with me presenting my billion dollar idea for an "asshole multi-pack" of button batteries to be sold at Costco. They were, not exactly convinced. I guess I should have come prepared with a PowerPoint to really drive my point home.

And then there was the watermelon. So PJ had this half rotten watermelon and I guess he had been talking about chucking it the whole day. Now that everyone was good and loose after midnight on a Saturday, it was time to do it. Now, security had already been harassing us for being too loud and drinking outside of our rooms. Which was ridiculous, it was a crappy Motel 6 by the freeway on a Saturday night, who actually books a room at a place like that to sleep? And it was like 12:15, not even that late. So when PJ hucked that thing off the balcony and it landed next to some tweakers jeep, shit kinda hit the fan and the owner of said jeep went bezerk, complaining to the manager who already knew we were a bunch of degenerate dirtbags. And not just degenerate dirtbags, but fucking loud ones. The lady was going off, so inevitably the cops showed up. Yep, that's right to really complete the night we got the cops called on us. For a watermelon. The cop got out of the car and asked for PJs ID, who ducked back into the room after giving it to them, thinking everything must be good now. Someone said to PJ, hey, you're probably going to have to talk to the cop since they've got your ID. He went out and the cop broached the subject, "so let's talk about the watermelon". PJ tried to play dumb, but apparently the tweaker lady had taken a video of him throwing it so the jig was up. The good news was we didn't have an arsenal of rotten watermelons to unleash on the parking lot, so as far as hucking fruit, we were done for the night. The cop took our word for it that there would be no further melon shenanigans and unceremoniously left, much to the chagrin of the manager who now had to deal with us on his own once again.

After that, we hung out for a while longer. OK maybe a lot longer as I definitely saw the sunrise as I stumbled back to my room. There were some other antics in the wee hours, but nothing could really top the watermelon incident. And yeah, we drank almost all of the cooler full of fancy Portland, ME beer that pcr3 had loaded up on earlier.

The next day we said our goodbyes and headed back to Portland for part deux of my taste of the city. Getting a Maine lobster roll was the top priority of the day and Rizzi said that High Rollers was the place. We put our names in and then headed to a bar down the street to enjoy a couple of afternoon beers while we waited for a table. The bar had a sweet taplist that focused on Euro beers, but I went with a couple nice Maine selections. We headed back to the restaurant and it was time for my first real Maine lobster roll complete with lobster ghee, but not only that, they also had a local beer that brewed with lobster shells in the kettle. We paired that with the rolls and some oysters and wow, I was in culinary heaven. Truly a worthy epilogue to my epic NE vacation! We sat there enjoying our beers and food, and both agreed that it was pretty much perfection. And since we had already had Maine Beer's Lunch the day before, of course it was now time to sample Dinner, which was a truly exceptional double IPA. It was a pretty spendy lunch, but absolutely worth it. Big thanks to pcr3 for getting us to the right place at the right time.

We headed back to Rizzi's place, where this time I got to meet his lovely family and chilled and managed to find an audience vid of the DWD and watched that and some other Phish vids before crashing.

So yeah, that's my ridiculously long write up. I pretty much had the time of my life and everything went very smoothly. The worst part of the weekend was when I thought I lost my phone, but even that turned out to be no problem. The fact that everything built to my birthday show which was the clear winner of the three helped make it even that much more special. We fucking crushed that shit! Mission accomplished!

A big THANK YOU to PG, SF, birdman, Budd, GBL and of course pcr3 for being a part of it and helping me make it happen, you guys are the best, I wouldn't have been able to pull it off without you.

Until next time, can't wait to do it again!

[PIE-GUY]

YES!!! Thank you for jogging my foggy memory on some things there! Great write-up. 

All I can say is this: a 'pauger is never alone at a Phish run. Fly coast-to-coast and trust that the 'paug will help you rage!

My planning for this trip basically entailed buying plane tickets. Everything else was just there for me provided by the kindness of the 'paug and the Holmes clan. Y'all are the greatest! I can't thank you all enough. I've been doing this a long time with Wen and Kels.. but to see the door fly open for folks like Hicks and a bunch of random Canucks always warms my heart. 


At some point,   will play a multi-night stand in Austin. We've got new venue options that are all perfect for them. You all know I'll return the favor if you make the journey! Austin will be a great host city for a Phish run! 

[anthrax]

wow, hicks!  i enjoyed reading that very much!!