bluedolphin
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2003
- Messages
- 6,062
This is going to be quite long, but it may well be one of the most personally meaningful things I've ever written. So have a cup of coffee and catch your breath.
How Phish has changed my life...
How I adore Phish. Several years ago I listened to their album Billy Breathes and my musical perspective has been forever changed. The innovation, the freedom, the raw talent! I quickly bought and absorbed all of their albums, and considered each one a masterpiece in its own right.
Later, I discovered that Phish's studio work was but the tip of the iceberg. For heaven's sake, so many of their absolutely genius songs weren't even released on albums! Songs like "Harry Hood", "Mike's Song", "Slave to the Traffic Light", "Wilson", and "Simple" were never released on albums, yet are considered among Phish fans some of their greatest works.
It was then that I began downloading Phish concerts like a true pack rat. I was absolutely amazed that a song like "Down With Disease", a song which clocks in at just over four minutes on the studio album Hoist, could be turned into a twenty minute jam of ever-building intensity.
And the guitar! Trey Anastasio's guitar work revitalized the musician inside of me. I had previously spent many years playing piano/keyboards and clarinet, but I never felt like I was able to use these instruments to express myself. When I first saw Trey Anastasio play guitar I immediately saw the connection that this man had with his instrument. There was absolutely no barrier between his intended expression and the beautiful outcome.
Except for talent. So, freshman year of college, in the midst of an early morning shower, I vowed to teach myself to play guitar. That very day I bought a cheap acoustic guitar and, to the annoyance of my roommate, practiced playing that thing like it was my life calling. In just a couple of weeks I knew all my open chords, could play a few songs, and was training my fingers to gather up the strength to muster barre chords.
Fast forward about a year, and that piece of crap guitar I bought wasn't cutting it anymore. The frets were already getting worn out, buzzing, and I simply couldn't play the songs I wanted to play on something with such terrible action and sound.
So my girlfriend (God bless her), recognizing my dedication and potential, bought me a Fender Stratocaster for my birthday.
Fast forward another couple of years and I can play songs like "Waste", "Down With Disease", "Slave to the Traffic Light" like a pro... hell... I can play ANYTHING (and no, I don't just play Phish, although I did try to master as many Phish songs as I could).
So thank you Phish for inspiring me to play guitar, which has turned out to be one of the absolute greatest choices of my life-to-date. You have given me the freedom of expression that no other median, musically or otherwise, could offer me.
The Phish Concert Experience
Unfortunately Phish was on "hiatus" during much of the time when I had the most opportunities to go see them, but when they returned on tour I was able to attend their 2003 festival "IT" and 2004's Sunday night Saratoga show.
Both were amazing exercises in freedom. "IT" in particular permanently revived my faith in humanity. That 70,000 people could unite for a period of three days, live peacefully together, create their own economy, and look out for each other's well being absolutely blew my mind.
But this is a trip report, after all, so let's get on with it
Phish Calls it Quits
After attending "IT" last year I could absolutely not wait to attend next year's festival. As soon as tickets went on sale for "Coventry" I bought one. So did my girlfriend and my very good friend Joe.
About a month later, Trey Anastasio posted a message on the Phish website. In short, the band was breaking up, and Coventry would be their last show.
ANGER
What the fuck?! How could they let down so many fans? Music is so important to me, and to so many others! And to millions of people, Phish represents the absolute pinnacle of music!
SADNESS
Then, I wept, as if I had lost a loved one.
DEPRESSION
I became withdrawn socially and seriously depressed. I could not act normal around my friends or family. My parents tried to console me: "They'll get together for a reunion tour." I became self-destructive, drinking excessively, smoking pot excessively, and numbing my mind in whatever way I could manage. I didn't give a fuck about laws, obligations, and I neglected my personal relationships. As far as I was concerned, a glorious chapter in my life had just finished.
DESPARATION
No, I couldn't just see Phish one more time! God dammit, why did I have to be so young, missing out on so many years on tour?! Of course all the final tour's shows were long sold out, so I bought tickets for myself and my girlfriend 2004-7-20 Saratoga on Ebay at a significantly elevated price.
And it was an amazing show. Phish was absolutely at the top of their game. Not in the same sense that is reflected in the musical perfection of their early 90's shows, but in the sense that they were still able to innovate and weave beautiful new textures of sound after over twenty years and well over a thousand concerts played.
I couldn't wait for...
COVENTRY
On wednesday afternoon I topped off the oil in my 250,000 mile old Subaru, cleaned all the crap out of the trunk and back seats, and actually vacuumed it too! I packed a bunch of clothes, some food, my camera, six microdots of LSD, etc. You know, the essentials
On wednesday night, around 10pm we all met at Sara's house to toss our collective stuff in the Sube and head off. We had about a four hour drive to Coventry, Vermont, and I insisted on leaving early to avoid the twenty hours of traffic that I'd been stuck in at last year's "IT" festival. The gates of Coventry were set to open at 12:00 noon on Thursday and I planned on being one of the first in line.
The drive up was pleasant. We smoked some White Rhino, pretty much obeyed the speed limit, and played some mix CDs that I'd burned that afternoon.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that, upon exiting I-91, we were stopped in traffic less than two miles from the gate. By contrast, last year we must have been twenty miles away, at least. So, planning on staying the night parked in the middle of the road, we cracked open some 40oz beverages and got ready to settle in.
Soon enough a state trooper pulled up beside us. She asked me, "Are you going in?" ... "Yep!"
Apparently they were letting us in early to avoid the traffic jam! Soon we would find out that they were simply putting us in a giant field to park overnight to make room for others. When we got in the field I realized that we were indeed among the first people to get there. Of course the field soon turned into a muddy lot party, as it had started raining and that is inevitably what happens when you put too many Phish fans in such tight quarters. However, I, knowing that sleep would be a precious commodity in the next few days, decided to smoke excessive amounts of White Rhino, take a couple diphenhydramine allergy pills (these things put me to sleep), and put in a couple earplugs to try to get some sleep. It was hard to sleep but I've been told by Sara that I was indeed alseep for at least part of the night.
Anyway, I woke up at around 10:00am to find that people were still raging, and many people already appeared cracked out like they'd stayed up in the lot all night on various stimulants. Cool. I was still pretty tired when I woke up but a bowl of White Rhino cured that, and soon enough we were directed out of the holding lot and towards the concert entrance.
They did a half assed - no, 1/100th assed - job searching our car, slapped wrist bands on us, and parked us in a swampy field. We grabbed our stuff, set up our tent in the designated area relatively close to our car, smoked another bowl, poured some whiskey sours, and then it started to rain.
And it kept raining. Fortunately our tent had an extension, kind of like a rain proof porch. And we had some lawn chairs. But when the rain is coming down horizontally that doesn't really provide much protection. So we sat there watching other people set up their tents in the torrential rain.
The rain did stop for short periods of time, during which we'd make a run for the porta potties, attempt to explore our immediate surroundings, or grab a bite to eat from the nearest vendor.
At one point someone came over asking if we'd like to buy an ounce of mushrooms for $150. I asked to see the mushrooms, and I thought to myself, "these look like crap". Joe seemed interested, and the kid selling them was trying to tell us how they'd sell like hotcakes and we'd easily double our profit. Some other kids came over to check them out, and, using the protection of our tent's rain flap, weighed some out and bought some. Regardless, I didn't want any of these shank lookin' shrooms, and made plenty of facial expressions to convince Joe not to take him up on the offer either. Before the mushroom guy left though, he gave us a free bag of powdered mushrooms. Having powdered my share of mushrooms in the past, I estimated it to be between 3 and 4 grams.
Since it was raining so much, I really didn't feel like tripping at the time. So Joe decided he'd eat all the mushrooms himself, and it was then that the mushroom Devil Dog was born:
Now, Joe is the kind of person who can eat several hits of good LSD and claim to feel barely anything. So after a couple hours, all he got was a minor case of the giggles, "no visuals", and he "zoned out a couple times".
Sara decided to get in on the fun and ate an LSD microdot. I thought about joining her, but since the majority of people had not arrived yet, and since it was still raining and muddy out, I opted to stick to the Jim Beam and White Rhino.
Soon, night fell upon us and it actually stopped raining. We took a walk though the main strip, explored the "commons" (a large food court area near the venue entrance), and walked along shakedown. There wasn't much going on, and tons of cars were still streaming in. Many of the cars were getting towed in by tractors because the amount of mud in some areas was absurd.
At one point somebody offered me some ecstasy. They were white mitsubishis, single stacked and poorly pressed. I talked him down to $15 and ate one. A couple hours later I barely felt anything.
After walking around for a while, I was exhausted and went to bed. I got an excellent night's sleep.
When I woke up and looked outside the tent, this is what I saw:
Holy shit it was muddy! Trying to walk around in this stuff with shoes was nearly impossible, even with the waterproof shoes I was rocking. So I gave up on those, put on some Tevas, and succumed to the mud.
Soon it began raining again, just like the previous afternoon, so I resumed my ritual of smoking White Rhino and drinking Jim Beam. Now that we had settled in a bit it was time to meet our neighbors. To our left were a few kids selling opium, so Joe and I split $20 worth of the stuff and started smoking bongs with opium laced weed. The opium was pretty good, because all I could do was sit around spaced out for about half an hour after smoking it. It was really sticky and stringy and smelled like flowers, and did not have the same consistancy of black tar heroin so I'm pretty sure it was real opium.
Our neighbors to the rear were somewhat older guys and they were truly nuts. We went over and smoked some bowls with them and chatted it up. It turns out they were trying to sell glowsticks for the show, and one of the guys also had a huge bag of mushrooms, lots of methadone, some "green beans" (morphine), and various other pills in a bag. Many of these pills he didn't know the dosage of, and some he didn't even know what kind of drug they were, but he gobbled them down anyway like they were Good n' Plenties.
Anyway, he gave me a few mushrooms and I ate them on the spot. Then the rain got somewhat torrential again and I forgot I had eaten them. It wasn't until the ground started crawling that I remembered I'd eaten the shrooms. Then I smoked some opium and some more pot, drank some Jim Beam, and proceeded to get pretty sloshed while the rain continued.
While the mushrooms were surging through me I had the clever idea to build a drainage ditch in front of our tent in order to attempt to keep the rain from flowing under our tents. After a couple hours I had developed a rather complex and highly effective drainage system and it was actually fun to watch the drainage system divert the torrential rain away from our tent. Sara and Joe saw that the system was effective (after initially being amused by my efforts) and helped me create a pretty cool moat around the tent. The tent, and our covered patio in front of the tent, stayed pretty dry, and I like to think it's because of my irrigation efforts
Eventually night fell again and once again the rain let up. By now it was rediculously muddy and nasty everywhere except on the main airstrip (which doubled as a massive shakedown street). So we hit that up and walked along as countless people offered us ecstasy, molly, opium, weed, and doses.
Doses? If any of you have read many of my trip reports (and since I've probably written more trip reports than any bluelighter, I suspect a few of you have), you might know that LSD is by far my favorite substance to dabble with.
So every time someone said "doses" I asked to see what they were, asked what they were laid with, and tried to gauge if they knew their shit or not.
At one point a guy in his mid 40's walked by me and said "doses".
"Yeah? What have you got?"
"Triple fluff blotters."
Bullshit, I thought. White fluff is rare enough... "triple fluff" means nothing.
"Yeah? Can I see them?"
So he took me behind a car and showed me a sheet of mostly white blotters with diagonal blue lines crisscrossing.
"$5 a hit, or I'll give you a sheet for $200."
I thought the blotters looked suspicious, and the price was too good to be true.
"Ah, no thanks, I'll pass."
He then proceeded to give me a story about how he's been on tour with The Dead and Phish for so many years, and how its the real deal, etc. Basically I thought I'd heard this story before and been bunked, so I still said I'd pass.
"Here, I'll give you one for free. Find me later if you like it."
So I stuck that blotter on my tongue and resumed walking around with Sara and Joe, telling them what had just happened. We kept walking around looking at drugs and talking to random people, and about forty-five minutes later I saw the guy again. By that point I thought I might be feeling something, but since I can usually feel LSD about 15 minute after it touches my tongue I thought it was probably bunk and didn't bother to stop him.
About 15 minutes after that I was tripping. Walking through all the people in the crowd was becoming difficult, just because I had to dodge so many people to get where I wanted to go. I was getting tracers coming off of everybody's heads as they moved though the crowd and I kept wanting to stop and just take a break from walking. Sara and Joe wanted to return to the tent anyway, and I thought that was a good idea.
When we got back to the tent we lit a tiki torch and I watched fractal patterns radiate from the glowing torch. Every time a gust of wind blew, the tent, the area surrounding me, the entire earth blew with it. The clouds were moving in all directions at once. I felt absolutely fantastic! I was amazed at the clean trip and power that this one blotter held within it. I sat in front of the tent for quite a while, closing my eyes and getting lost in the neon visuals and feeling of peace and wisdom that washed over me. This trip was quite different from the many microdots I had eaten lately. It was, indeed, a very special blotter.
Alas, I was never able to find that man for the rest of the weekend.
After a short while I went out for another walk with Sara and bought a 10-pack of 10mg valium for $20. After some more walking around, looking at blotters (and buying 5-strips of every legitimate looking blotter I could find), I took a valium (my first experience with any benzo, by the way), smoked a bowl, and sat in front of the tent in bliss. Soon the valium kicked in and allowed me to miraculously sleep after taking LSD. Almost always LSD prevents me from sleeping at all. But that blotter was so amazingly clean, and valium proved to be a very effective drug to let me sleep on comedowns.
The next morning, Saturday, our surroundings were still incredibly muddy but at least it was sunny and there was no more rain in sight. People were still driving in, and being towed into their muddy parking spots by tractors. We heard rumors that many people were being turned away because of the mud, and that it was deemed impossible to hold everyone who had a ticket at Coventry. This saddened me greatly, because I knew if I was one of those people I was be absolutely devastated in the worst way.
However, after walking around I heard from many people that they had parked up to 10 or 15 miles away, down I-91, and walked into the venue! The dedication of these people amazed me, and I wondered if I would have done the same thing, or turned around and driven home. I think I would have made the journey, and my sincerest admiration goes out to those who did. Despite the rain and mud, I was so happy to have left as early as I did to avoid having to make such a tough choice.
Saturday was a lot of fun. Of course we smoked pot, ate lots of food, and searched for drugs before the first night of Phish which was to start at 7:00pm. We found a gram of molly, which Sara, Joe, and I split. We had to pay $125 for it, which I thought was a bit high of a price, but oh well. I guess we were lazy and that's what happens when you try to buy stuff a half hour before the show starts.
Anyway, we got into the venue (after walking through some very deep and nasty mud which 70,000 other people had just walked through) and found a dry spot. We weren't very close to the stage but we all agreed it was better to be dry than to be up close in the mud pit.
It was amazing to see Phish that night, but something was off with their performance. Maybe the molly (I parachuted about three points over the course of the night), but I could sense that Phish was under immense pressure. When Trey actually admitted he was nervous on stage for the first time in many years this was confirmed. Unfortunately this took the part of quite a lot of mistakes and the music seemed to lack the energy that I was used to in Phish shows.
Trey was simply off his game. Some people insisted he was fucked up for the show. Absolutely not. Imagine the stress and the flood of emotions each of the band members must have been feeling.
After some post-show molly, another valium allowed me to sleep like a baby.
Sunday was gorgeous; the kind of weather I could only have hoped for all weekend. Finally we took the time to explore the entire festival grounds and realized what a beautiful place we really were in. The afternoon was much the same as the last afternoon, walking around, smoking pot, checking out doses, and meeting interesting people.
Sunday night came about and it was time for, as far as we know, the last Phish show of all time.
Joe had aquired another gram of molly, which he claimed was much better than last night's stash. I had several different kinds of LSD on hand. Some of them I suspected might be bunk, but I knew for a fact that the 5-stip of flying pyramids I had were real because of their excellent reputation that weekend. Understand, if there was no such thing as LSD tolerance, I would have been high on LSD pretty much the entire weekend. But I was saving myself for the last night.
Before the first set I consumed 1 pyramid blotter. Soon I felt it's effects and ate 2 more for a total of (let's see, some tricky math here) 3 blotters. At this point in the weekend I had consumed so many drugs, many of which I forgot and didn't bother to mention here, that I was confident I could have eaten a 10-strip with no problems at all.
The first set was rocking! It started off with a really good Mike's Groove ("Mike's Song" -> "I Am Hydrogen" -> "Weekapaug Groove"), followed by some of my favorites like "Reba", "Carini", and "Chalkdust Torture". Clearly the band was intending to rock their last show, and probably to some degree make up for the last night.
We had brought the crazy neighbors to our rear along to the show with us, and they were attempting to sell glowsticks. I seriously doubt they sold a single glowstick the entire weekend because they were so constantly fucked up, but one of the guys, "Frankie the Fish" was doing some rediculous dances. One of these he called "the sprinkler". Imagine a rotating lawn sprinkler, and then a human assuming that form. It was halarious to say the least. These guys also gave me a few blinking neon glow rings, which under the influence of 3 hits of good LSD I considered to be the ultimate bling. In fact, they were trying to advertise these rings as "dank bling bling heady glow rings". At this point everything was halarious, and I was glad Phish was back on their game.
Joe was having a great time too. He isn't a long-time Phish fan like myself, but clearly he was being converted by the minute. Amazingly he even thought the molly was excellent dispite his rediculous tolerance to pretty much every drug besides pot and alcohol.
Sara, on the other hand, was practically falling asleep. I felt so bad for her. Between the rain, the mud, the drugs, and the late hours, the weekend had really taken a toll on her. She was sitting down in the lawn chairs we had brought and not really getting into the groove, which is really sad because she really does love Phish and this concert meant a whole lot to her.
But, high on three doses of LSD it was difficult to try to console her. I didn't know if it was better, for her, to fall asleep in the lawn chair or to suck it up and actually see Phish play for the last time. I let her make her own decision, and she ended up spending a couple songs asleep, most of the time sitting down, and groovin' to a few of the songs.
The second set opened with "Down With Disease", another one of my absolute favorite songs, and it fuckin rocked. But in the middle of the set it started getting really difficult for the band emotionally. During "Wading in the Velvet Sea", Page (keyboard player) started crying during his vocals. Soon afterwards Trey made an emotional speech that had me nearly in tears, and then announced, "What we need to do right now is blow off some fucking steam!"
After they finished the second set Joe and I needed to take a piss. We wandered around but couldn't find the porta potties for the life of us, even though wandering around was incredible fun on its own. Eventually we found a fence where other people decided was a good place to relieve themselves so we took a leak on the fence.
By the time we got back to our pals it was about halfway through the setbreak, and I was feeling absolutely fantastic. The LSD was having no negative effects on me whatsoever, so I asked Joe, "hook me up with a thumbprint of molly". Since I had given him two hits of the same LSD I took (which he claimed did nothing... I should have long ago learned the lesson not to feed him LSD because it has no effect on him, no matter the dose) he gladly complied. I licked my thumb and got it nice and soaking wet and stuck it in the bag of molly, swished it around, and came up with an absolutely massive thumbprint. At least 150mg of molly. I sucked my thumb, choked down the bitter taste, and hoped for the best.
By the time the third set had started I was literally seeing fireworks coming off of every person's head in the audience. Tracers went on seemingly forever and the clouds in the sky were going nuts. This was really my first serious candyflip and I had no idea the MDMA would increase the visuals of the LSD so intensely. Anyway, I was still feeling great, had no paranoia, and was pumped for the last set!
The last set contained some more of my favorite songs: "Piper", "Slave to the Traffic Light", "Wilson", and "Simple".
Somehow I had the presence of mind to remember that my digital camera takes videos, and thought, towards the end of "Slave to the Traffic Light", that perhaps I should attempt to document this moment.
So now, I invite you to download the video I took of the last two minutes of the "Slave to the Traffic Light" jam.
Video Link Removed, Sorry
After the set, and the band had said their goodbyes, there was an impressive fireworks display:
For an encore, the band chose "The Curtain" as the last song they will ever play. Trey explained how he had written this when he was young, camped out in a secluded cabin for a few months. They lyrics are as follows:
As he saw his life run away from him,
thousands ran along
chanting words from a song
"Please we have no regret,"
Came from the baby's mouth.
We follow the lines going south!
It was at this point that I was in tears, and no doubt would have been even if I'd taken no drugs at all. After the show I looked around and there were blank stares on everyone's faces. What now?
Like a herd of cows we exited the concert field and packed into Shakedown. I took my lawn chair and sat right down in the middle of the crowd, and watched people (and the electric neon sparks they were all emitting).
At one point a sweet couple in their mid thirties came up to me, and explained how they'd been bunked on doses all weekend. I could see through their eyes how the scene had degraded over the last ten years. It saddened me to hear how they'd been bunked so many times... fake blotters, liquid, and geltabs. I offered them a couple of free doses and they accepted it with the greatest gratitude.
"Are these really, truly, real? You promise?"
"I promise. Enjoy them."
After that I remained parked in the middle of shakedown, heckling bunkers and chatting it up with strange folk of all kind. Sara and Joe had long gone to bed but I was clinging on to the moment for as long as I could.
The entire time the phrase, "Please, we have no regrets" was echoing through my head.
Around 5:00am I took a couple valiums, bought a couple dollar shots of vodka, and stumbled back towards my tent.
The next morning I woke up, packed up the tent, and followed the lines going south.
How Phish has changed my life...
How I adore Phish. Several years ago I listened to their album Billy Breathes and my musical perspective has been forever changed. The innovation, the freedom, the raw talent! I quickly bought and absorbed all of their albums, and considered each one a masterpiece in its own right.
Later, I discovered that Phish's studio work was but the tip of the iceberg. For heaven's sake, so many of their absolutely genius songs weren't even released on albums! Songs like "Harry Hood", "Mike's Song", "Slave to the Traffic Light", "Wilson", and "Simple" were never released on albums, yet are considered among Phish fans some of their greatest works.
It was then that I began downloading Phish concerts like a true pack rat. I was absolutely amazed that a song like "Down With Disease", a song which clocks in at just over four minutes on the studio album Hoist, could be turned into a twenty minute jam of ever-building intensity.
And the guitar! Trey Anastasio's guitar work revitalized the musician inside of me. I had previously spent many years playing piano/keyboards and clarinet, but I never felt like I was able to use these instruments to express myself. When I first saw Trey Anastasio play guitar I immediately saw the connection that this man had with his instrument. There was absolutely no barrier between his intended expression and the beautiful outcome.
Except for talent. So, freshman year of college, in the midst of an early morning shower, I vowed to teach myself to play guitar. That very day I bought a cheap acoustic guitar and, to the annoyance of my roommate, practiced playing that thing like it was my life calling. In just a couple of weeks I knew all my open chords, could play a few songs, and was training my fingers to gather up the strength to muster barre chords.
Fast forward about a year, and that piece of crap guitar I bought wasn't cutting it anymore. The frets were already getting worn out, buzzing, and I simply couldn't play the songs I wanted to play on something with such terrible action and sound.
So my girlfriend (God bless her), recognizing my dedication and potential, bought me a Fender Stratocaster for my birthday.
Fast forward another couple of years and I can play songs like "Waste", "Down With Disease", "Slave to the Traffic Light" like a pro... hell... I can play ANYTHING (and no, I don't just play Phish, although I did try to master as many Phish songs as I could).
So thank you Phish for inspiring me to play guitar, which has turned out to be one of the absolute greatest choices of my life-to-date. You have given me the freedom of expression that no other median, musically or otherwise, could offer me.
The Phish Concert Experience
Unfortunately Phish was on "hiatus" during much of the time when I had the most opportunities to go see them, but when they returned on tour I was able to attend their 2003 festival "IT" and 2004's Sunday night Saratoga show.
Both were amazing exercises in freedom. "IT" in particular permanently revived my faith in humanity. That 70,000 people could unite for a period of three days, live peacefully together, create their own economy, and look out for each other's well being absolutely blew my mind.
But this is a trip report, after all, so let's get on with it
Phish Calls it Quits
After attending "IT" last year I could absolutely not wait to attend next year's festival. As soon as tickets went on sale for "Coventry" I bought one. So did my girlfriend and my very good friend Joe.
About a month later, Trey Anastasio posted a message on the Phish website. In short, the band was breaking up, and Coventry would be their last show.
ANGER
What the fuck?! How could they let down so many fans? Music is so important to me, and to so many others! And to millions of people, Phish represents the absolute pinnacle of music!
SADNESS
Then, I wept, as if I had lost a loved one.
DEPRESSION
I became withdrawn socially and seriously depressed. I could not act normal around my friends or family. My parents tried to console me: "They'll get together for a reunion tour." I became self-destructive, drinking excessively, smoking pot excessively, and numbing my mind in whatever way I could manage. I didn't give a fuck about laws, obligations, and I neglected my personal relationships. As far as I was concerned, a glorious chapter in my life had just finished.
DESPARATION
No, I couldn't just see Phish one more time! God dammit, why did I have to be so young, missing out on so many years on tour?! Of course all the final tour's shows were long sold out, so I bought tickets for myself and my girlfriend 2004-7-20 Saratoga on Ebay at a significantly elevated price.
And it was an amazing show. Phish was absolutely at the top of their game. Not in the same sense that is reflected in the musical perfection of their early 90's shows, but in the sense that they were still able to innovate and weave beautiful new textures of sound after over twenty years and well over a thousand concerts played.
I couldn't wait for...
COVENTRY
On wednesday afternoon I topped off the oil in my 250,000 mile old Subaru, cleaned all the crap out of the trunk and back seats, and actually vacuumed it too! I packed a bunch of clothes, some food, my camera, six microdots of LSD, etc. You know, the essentials
On wednesday night, around 10pm we all met at Sara's house to toss our collective stuff in the Sube and head off. We had about a four hour drive to Coventry, Vermont, and I insisted on leaving early to avoid the twenty hours of traffic that I'd been stuck in at last year's "IT" festival. The gates of Coventry were set to open at 12:00 noon on Thursday and I planned on being one of the first in line.
The drive up was pleasant. We smoked some White Rhino, pretty much obeyed the speed limit, and played some mix CDs that I'd burned that afternoon.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that, upon exiting I-91, we were stopped in traffic less than two miles from the gate. By contrast, last year we must have been twenty miles away, at least. So, planning on staying the night parked in the middle of the road, we cracked open some 40oz beverages and got ready to settle in.
Soon enough a state trooper pulled up beside us. She asked me, "Are you going in?" ... "Yep!"
Apparently they were letting us in early to avoid the traffic jam! Soon we would find out that they were simply putting us in a giant field to park overnight to make room for others. When we got in the field I realized that we were indeed among the first people to get there. Of course the field soon turned into a muddy lot party, as it had started raining and that is inevitably what happens when you put too many Phish fans in such tight quarters. However, I, knowing that sleep would be a precious commodity in the next few days, decided to smoke excessive amounts of White Rhino, take a couple diphenhydramine allergy pills (these things put me to sleep), and put in a couple earplugs to try to get some sleep. It was hard to sleep but I've been told by Sara that I was indeed alseep for at least part of the night.
Anyway, I woke up at around 10:00am to find that people were still raging, and many people already appeared cracked out like they'd stayed up in the lot all night on various stimulants. Cool. I was still pretty tired when I woke up but a bowl of White Rhino cured that, and soon enough we were directed out of the holding lot and towards the concert entrance.
They did a half assed - no, 1/100th assed - job searching our car, slapped wrist bands on us, and parked us in a swampy field. We grabbed our stuff, set up our tent in the designated area relatively close to our car, smoked another bowl, poured some whiskey sours, and then it started to rain.
And it kept raining. Fortunately our tent had an extension, kind of like a rain proof porch. And we had some lawn chairs. But when the rain is coming down horizontally that doesn't really provide much protection. So we sat there watching other people set up their tents in the torrential rain.
The rain did stop for short periods of time, during which we'd make a run for the porta potties, attempt to explore our immediate surroundings, or grab a bite to eat from the nearest vendor.
At one point someone came over asking if we'd like to buy an ounce of mushrooms for $150. I asked to see the mushrooms, and I thought to myself, "these look like crap". Joe seemed interested, and the kid selling them was trying to tell us how they'd sell like hotcakes and we'd easily double our profit. Some other kids came over to check them out, and, using the protection of our tent's rain flap, weighed some out and bought some. Regardless, I didn't want any of these shank lookin' shrooms, and made plenty of facial expressions to convince Joe not to take him up on the offer either. Before the mushroom guy left though, he gave us a free bag of powdered mushrooms. Having powdered my share of mushrooms in the past, I estimated it to be between 3 and 4 grams.
Since it was raining so much, I really didn't feel like tripping at the time. So Joe decided he'd eat all the mushrooms himself, and it was then that the mushroom Devil Dog was born:
Now, Joe is the kind of person who can eat several hits of good LSD and claim to feel barely anything. So after a couple hours, all he got was a minor case of the giggles, "no visuals", and he "zoned out a couple times".
Sara decided to get in on the fun and ate an LSD microdot. I thought about joining her, but since the majority of people had not arrived yet, and since it was still raining and muddy out, I opted to stick to the Jim Beam and White Rhino.
Soon, night fell upon us and it actually stopped raining. We took a walk though the main strip, explored the "commons" (a large food court area near the venue entrance), and walked along shakedown. There wasn't much going on, and tons of cars were still streaming in. Many of the cars were getting towed in by tractors because the amount of mud in some areas was absurd.
At one point somebody offered me some ecstasy. They were white mitsubishis, single stacked and poorly pressed. I talked him down to $15 and ate one. A couple hours later I barely felt anything.
After walking around for a while, I was exhausted and went to bed. I got an excellent night's sleep.
When I woke up and looked outside the tent, this is what I saw:
Holy shit it was muddy! Trying to walk around in this stuff with shoes was nearly impossible, even with the waterproof shoes I was rocking. So I gave up on those, put on some Tevas, and succumed to the mud.
Soon it began raining again, just like the previous afternoon, so I resumed my ritual of smoking White Rhino and drinking Jim Beam. Now that we had settled in a bit it was time to meet our neighbors. To our left were a few kids selling opium, so Joe and I split $20 worth of the stuff and started smoking bongs with opium laced weed. The opium was pretty good, because all I could do was sit around spaced out for about half an hour after smoking it. It was really sticky and stringy and smelled like flowers, and did not have the same consistancy of black tar heroin so I'm pretty sure it was real opium.
Our neighbors to the rear were somewhat older guys and they were truly nuts. We went over and smoked some bowls with them and chatted it up. It turns out they were trying to sell glowsticks for the show, and one of the guys also had a huge bag of mushrooms, lots of methadone, some "green beans" (morphine), and various other pills in a bag. Many of these pills he didn't know the dosage of, and some he didn't even know what kind of drug they were, but he gobbled them down anyway like they were Good n' Plenties.
Anyway, he gave me a few mushrooms and I ate them on the spot. Then the rain got somewhat torrential again and I forgot I had eaten them. It wasn't until the ground started crawling that I remembered I'd eaten the shrooms. Then I smoked some opium and some more pot, drank some Jim Beam, and proceeded to get pretty sloshed while the rain continued.
While the mushrooms were surging through me I had the clever idea to build a drainage ditch in front of our tent in order to attempt to keep the rain from flowing under our tents. After a couple hours I had developed a rather complex and highly effective drainage system and it was actually fun to watch the drainage system divert the torrential rain away from our tent. Sara and Joe saw that the system was effective (after initially being amused by my efforts) and helped me create a pretty cool moat around the tent. The tent, and our covered patio in front of the tent, stayed pretty dry, and I like to think it's because of my irrigation efforts
Eventually night fell again and once again the rain let up. By now it was rediculously muddy and nasty everywhere except on the main airstrip (which doubled as a massive shakedown street). So we hit that up and walked along as countless people offered us ecstasy, molly, opium, weed, and doses.
Doses? If any of you have read many of my trip reports (and since I've probably written more trip reports than any bluelighter, I suspect a few of you have), you might know that LSD is by far my favorite substance to dabble with.
So every time someone said "doses" I asked to see what they were, asked what they were laid with, and tried to gauge if they knew their shit or not.
At one point a guy in his mid 40's walked by me and said "doses".
"Yeah? What have you got?"
"Triple fluff blotters."
Bullshit, I thought. White fluff is rare enough... "triple fluff" means nothing.
"Yeah? Can I see them?"
So he took me behind a car and showed me a sheet of mostly white blotters with diagonal blue lines crisscrossing.
"$5 a hit, or I'll give you a sheet for $200."
I thought the blotters looked suspicious, and the price was too good to be true.
"Ah, no thanks, I'll pass."
He then proceeded to give me a story about how he's been on tour with The Dead and Phish for so many years, and how its the real deal, etc. Basically I thought I'd heard this story before and been bunked, so I still said I'd pass.
"Here, I'll give you one for free. Find me later if you like it."
So I stuck that blotter on my tongue and resumed walking around with Sara and Joe, telling them what had just happened. We kept walking around looking at drugs and talking to random people, and about forty-five minutes later I saw the guy again. By that point I thought I might be feeling something, but since I can usually feel LSD about 15 minute after it touches my tongue I thought it was probably bunk and didn't bother to stop him.
About 15 minutes after that I was tripping. Walking through all the people in the crowd was becoming difficult, just because I had to dodge so many people to get where I wanted to go. I was getting tracers coming off of everybody's heads as they moved though the crowd and I kept wanting to stop and just take a break from walking. Sara and Joe wanted to return to the tent anyway, and I thought that was a good idea.
When we got back to the tent we lit a tiki torch and I watched fractal patterns radiate from the glowing torch. Every time a gust of wind blew, the tent, the area surrounding me, the entire earth blew with it. The clouds were moving in all directions at once. I felt absolutely fantastic! I was amazed at the clean trip and power that this one blotter held within it. I sat in front of the tent for quite a while, closing my eyes and getting lost in the neon visuals and feeling of peace and wisdom that washed over me. This trip was quite different from the many microdots I had eaten lately. It was, indeed, a very special blotter.
Alas, I was never able to find that man for the rest of the weekend.
After a short while I went out for another walk with Sara and bought a 10-pack of 10mg valium for $20. After some more walking around, looking at blotters (and buying 5-strips of every legitimate looking blotter I could find), I took a valium (my first experience with any benzo, by the way), smoked a bowl, and sat in front of the tent in bliss. Soon the valium kicked in and allowed me to miraculously sleep after taking LSD. Almost always LSD prevents me from sleeping at all. But that blotter was so amazingly clean, and valium proved to be a very effective drug to let me sleep on comedowns.
The next morning, Saturday, our surroundings were still incredibly muddy but at least it was sunny and there was no more rain in sight. People were still driving in, and being towed into their muddy parking spots by tractors. We heard rumors that many people were being turned away because of the mud, and that it was deemed impossible to hold everyone who had a ticket at Coventry. This saddened me greatly, because I knew if I was one of those people I was be absolutely devastated in the worst way.
However, after walking around I heard from many people that they had parked up to 10 or 15 miles away, down I-91, and walked into the venue! The dedication of these people amazed me, and I wondered if I would have done the same thing, or turned around and driven home. I think I would have made the journey, and my sincerest admiration goes out to those who did. Despite the rain and mud, I was so happy to have left as early as I did to avoid having to make such a tough choice.
Saturday was a lot of fun. Of course we smoked pot, ate lots of food, and searched for drugs before the first night of Phish which was to start at 7:00pm. We found a gram of molly, which Sara, Joe, and I split. We had to pay $125 for it, which I thought was a bit high of a price, but oh well. I guess we were lazy and that's what happens when you try to buy stuff a half hour before the show starts.
Anyway, we got into the venue (after walking through some very deep and nasty mud which 70,000 other people had just walked through) and found a dry spot. We weren't very close to the stage but we all agreed it was better to be dry than to be up close in the mud pit.
It was amazing to see Phish that night, but something was off with their performance. Maybe the molly (I parachuted about three points over the course of the night), but I could sense that Phish was under immense pressure. When Trey actually admitted he was nervous on stage for the first time in many years this was confirmed. Unfortunately this took the part of quite a lot of mistakes and the music seemed to lack the energy that I was used to in Phish shows.
Trey was simply off his game. Some people insisted he was fucked up for the show. Absolutely not. Imagine the stress and the flood of emotions each of the band members must have been feeling.
After some post-show molly, another valium allowed me to sleep like a baby.
Sunday was gorgeous; the kind of weather I could only have hoped for all weekend. Finally we took the time to explore the entire festival grounds and realized what a beautiful place we really were in. The afternoon was much the same as the last afternoon, walking around, smoking pot, checking out doses, and meeting interesting people.
Sunday night came about and it was time for, as far as we know, the last Phish show of all time.
Joe had aquired another gram of molly, which he claimed was much better than last night's stash. I had several different kinds of LSD on hand. Some of them I suspected might be bunk, but I knew for a fact that the 5-stip of flying pyramids I had were real because of their excellent reputation that weekend. Understand, if there was no such thing as LSD tolerance, I would have been high on LSD pretty much the entire weekend. But I was saving myself for the last night.
Before the first set I consumed 1 pyramid blotter. Soon I felt it's effects and ate 2 more for a total of (let's see, some tricky math here) 3 blotters. At this point in the weekend I had consumed so many drugs, many of which I forgot and didn't bother to mention here, that I was confident I could have eaten a 10-strip with no problems at all.
The first set was rocking! It started off with a really good Mike's Groove ("Mike's Song" -> "I Am Hydrogen" -> "Weekapaug Groove"), followed by some of my favorites like "Reba", "Carini", and "Chalkdust Torture". Clearly the band was intending to rock their last show, and probably to some degree make up for the last night.
We had brought the crazy neighbors to our rear along to the show with us, and they were attempting to sell glowsticks. I seriously doubt they sold a single glowstick the entire weekend because they were so constantly fucked up, but one of the guys, "Frankie the Fish" was doing some rediculous dances. One of these he called "the sprinkler". Imagine a rotating lawn sprinkler, and then a human assuming that form. It was halarious to say the least. These guys also gave me a few blinking neon glow rings, which under the influence of 3 hits of good LSD I considered to be the ultimate bling. In fact, they were trying to advertise these rings as "dank bling bling heady glow rings". At this point everything was halarious, and I was glad Phish was back on their game.
Joe was having a great time too. He isn't a long-time Phish fan like myself, but clearly he was being converted by the minute. Amazingly he even thought the molly was excellent dispite his rediculous tolerance to pretty much every drug besides pot and alcohol.
Sara, on the other hand, was practically falling asleep. I felt so bad for her. Between the rain, the mud, the drugs, and the late hours, the weekend had really taken a toll on her. She was sitting down in the lawn chairs we had brought and not really getting into the groove, which is really sad because she really does love Phish and this concert meant a whole lot to her.
But, high on three doses of LSD it was difficult to try to console her. I didn't know if it was better, for her, to fall asleep in the lawn chair or to suck it up and actually see Phish play for the last time. I let her make her own decision, and she ended up spending a couple songs asleep, most of the time sitting down, and groovin' to a few of the songs.
The second set opened with "Down With Disease", another one of my absolute favorite songs, and it fuckin rocked. But in the middle of the set it started getting really difficult for the band emotionally. During "Wading in the Velvet Sea", Page (keyboard player) started crying during his vocals. Soon afterwards Trey made an emotional speech that had me nearly in tears, and then announced, "What we need to do right now is blow off some fucking steam!"
After they finished the second set Joe and I needed to take a piss. We wandered around but couldn't find the porta potties for the life of us, even though wandering around was incredible fun on its own. Eventually we found a fence where other people decided was a good place to relieve themselves so we took a leak on the fence.
By the time we got back to our pals it was about halfway through the setbreak, and I was feeling absolutely fantastic. The LSD was having no negative effects on me whatsoever, so I asked Joe, "hook me up with a thumbprint of molly". Since I had given him two hits of the same LSD I took (which he claimed did nothing... I should have long ago learned the lesson not to feed him LSD because it has no effect on him, no matter the dose) he gladly complied. I licked my thumb and got it nice and soaking wet and stuck it in the bag of molly, swished it around, and came up with an absolutely massive thumbprint. At least 150mg of molly. I sucked my thumb, choked down the bitter taste, and hoped for the best.
By the time the third set had started I was literally seeing fireworks coming off of every person's head in the audience. Tracers went on seemingly forever and the clouds in the sky were going nuts. This was really my first serious candyflip and I had no idea the MDMA would increase the visuals of the LSD so intensely. Anyway, I was still feeling great, had no paranoia, and was pumped for the last set!
The last set contained some more of my favorite songs: "Piper", "Slave to the Traffic Light", "Wilson", and "Simple".
Somehow I had the presence of mind to remember that my digital camera takes videos, and thought, towards the end of "Slave to the Traffic Light", that perhaps I should attempt to document this moment.
So now, I invite you to download the video I took of the last two minutes of the "Slave to the Traffic Light" jam.
Video Link Removed, Sorry
After the set, and the band had said their goodbyes, there was an impressive fireworks display:
For an encore, the band chose "The Curtain" as the last song they will ever play. Trey explained how he had written this when he was young, camped out in a secluded cabin for a few months. They lyrics are as follows:
As he saw his life run away from him,
thousands ran along
chanting words from a song
"Please we have no regret,"
Came from the baby's mouth.
We follow the lines going south!
It was at this point that I was in tears, and no doubt would have been even if I'd taken no drugs at all. After the show I looked around and there were blank stares on everyone's faces. What now?
Like a herd of cows we exited the concert field and packed into Shakedown. I took my lawn chair and sat right down in the middle of the crowd, and watched people (and the electric neon sparks they were all emitting).
At one point a sweet couple in their mid thirties came up to me, and explained how they'd been bunked on doses all weekend. I could see through their eyes how the scene had degraded over the last ten years. It saddened me to hear how they'd been bunked so many times... fake blotters, liquid, and geltabs. I offered them a couple of free doses and they accepted it with the greatest gratitude.
"Are these really, truly, real? You promise?"
"I promise. Enjoy them."
After that I remained parked in the middle of shakedown, heckling bunkers and chatting it up with strange folk of all kind. Sara and Joe had long gone to bed but I was clinging on to the moment for as long as I could.
The entire time the phrase, "Please, we have no regrets" was echoing through my head.
Around 5:00am I took a couple valiums, bought a couple dollar shots of vodka, and stumbled back towards my tent.
The next morning I woke up, packed up the tent, and followed the lines going south.
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I got as far east as Idaho and got stuck mowing lawns for three weeks for a friend's buisness. I'm sure it was nowhere near as fun.