All Night Concert > New Millennium! (Phish)

Phish's all-nighter into the new millineum (heavy on Phish lingo---I apologize in advance)

(The following is a first-hand account of the culmination of a three-day concert festival by the band Phish to usher in the year 2000. The band leased a tract of land on the Seminole Indian reservation in the everglades in South Florida. Over 80,000 people attended, some of whom waited in traffic upwards of fifteen hours. The highlight of the festival was the final "set" which clocked in at just under eight straight hours, stretching from just prior to midnight until well after daybreak.)

May I first point out for you youngsters that before there was ever a “420” in pop culture, there was “714”. This was a pill that was popular back in the 70’s that got you off, also known as a “lemon”. The sunrise for the Phish New Years Eve epic came at exactly 7:14!

NYE 2000 Overview: Yes, the traffic sucked, but when it sucks that bad you can just get out of the car, wander about, drink, smoke, and shoot the shit with your phriends. In case you didn’t notice, that’s what you did anyway when you weren’t in your car! With the exception of the few who actually missed show time---get over it, it’s a party! My biggest beef with a crowd this size is something nobody can really control, though, and that’s losers that can’t time their buzz properly and sleep in the venue. It’s very difficult to get any kind of “Hampton-like” vibe going when you’re separated from other people rocking out by a group of sloths laying around taking up prime boogie space. This isn’t brain surgery folks: pace yourself so you can be in it for the long haul or get the hell out of the way.

Special mention, btw, to the idiot woman with the infant laying in front of her on her blanket to the left of the soundboard around “Piper” time Saturday morning. This child was basically right next to the walkway amidst the sea of slugs that people were tripping over and I nearly stepped on her. After the fact, I noticed that Mom had thoughtfully set down several glow rings outlining this beleaguered baby’s head. This is perhaps to help the stumbling-drunk sixteen year-old to make sure not to fall there when he goes down? But I shall cease being negative now.

Overall, it was a great time and we were blessed with perfect weather, although the tents did heat up quickly in the morning due to the intense sun, (ed note: the author was in an air conditioned RV). Every night, pretty much all night long, there was the cacophony of music from all directions, fireworks everywhere and the best of all: the spontaneous roars! They would build from the probably world-record size drum circles in the forest and just travel around. (By the way, how in the hell did everybody avoid getting impaled by a stump in the red forest anyway?) The coolest thing about this kind of thing, though, is that it’s just a shitload of cool people everywhere. The kind of people you can talk to as if you’re in the middle of a conversation already. Cruising around shooting the shit and catching a buzz with friends new and old for three straight days is a pretty fucking cool way to spend any time, let alone New Years 2000! And oh, by the way, did I mention there was a band? On with the review…

Set I:
Started with the benefit of clouds obscuring the intense afternoon sun that would’ve been in our faces otherwise, and that was nice. The sunset wasn’t as good as for Ghost last night, but whatever. “Runaway Jim” opened a pretty mellow set, compared to II and III last night. It was cranking as usual and “Funky Bitch” and “Tube” had me wondering if the boys were planning on saving any energy for later---smokin’!

“I Didn’t Know” was a damned good observation, given the onslaught of intoxicants many of us had welcomed and the fact that we had only barely passed the halfway point of songs for the festival---even after last night’s epic! PYITE was another rocker that pulled me along despite my desire to pace myself but my respite was right behind it, with Bouncin’>Poor Heart>Roggea “nap time”. I still can’t believe they like “Roggae” so much---I just don’t get it, but I digress. SOAM was great old school to get me back into things and the I was soon “Catapult”ed “Back On The Train” where I heard I very oddly-placed “Horn” that somehow led into “Guyute”. BOTT is a very cool new song, but, then again, which new one isn’t cool? I was thrilled to hear “Guyute”, ‘cuz I’ve been missing it lately and it’s good to hear concise, to the point compositions get played perfectly! I was assuming this would be the set closer for some reason, but right about then comes “After Midnight”, which may be the most appropriately-placed song in the history of concerts! And JAMMING! I mean, this is right there with GTBT from last night as the song of the whole thing, (as if I could really choose!) Anyway, to sum it up, this was the fourth best set of the weekend, but it pounded the crap out of, say, 12/17 in Hampton. The boys were on and my God, what a closer!

Set II:
Full disclosure: the author was on at least two hits of blotter (self-supplied) and one hit of liquid, courtesy of a random group of passerby.

If there was a more festive crowd in the world for the flip to three zeros, I wish I was at the Yanni show. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that more fireworks were in the parking lot than a lot of actual displays. The spontaneous roars were going off about every thirty seconds and the full-scale party was on! The concert field was noticeably more full tonight that last night, and I’d heard of wristband numbers exceeding 90,000 at this point. En route to my friends, I had the misfortune of hitting the barricade that had the path cleared for the giant “Airboat” that the boys rode through the crowd, but I managed to make it back to them before Auld Lang Syne was finished, so I guess it was OK. The worst part was that I was blazing through the crowd and thus pretty much missed the mind-boggling fireworks display that must’ve taken a nice chuck of our $150+ entrance fee. I have no memory of “Meatstick” here at all, so I doubt it was anything special. The first real song was “Down with Disease”, which was no-holds-barred and a poignant message for humanity in general as we crank into the 2000’s---but now I’m on my way, indeed! “Llama” was played at a blistering pace which I was guessing the boys might regret come about five. (ed note: the band never did show fatigue) We were all in this together for a killer “Bathtub Gin” that led to what I thought was the funniest moment of the show: getting it together for the worldwide broadcast of “Heavy Things”.

The massive floodlights started coming on to illuminate the crowd as Trey explains that we’re about to go live and we should play a joke. He decides to have us not cheer after the song, but to instead simply say: “cheesecake!” As if we’re somewhat upset. Just “cheesecake!” Then, as the moment approaches he changes the plan and says we should instead chant “cheesecake” over and over. We then go on TV, with countless millions around the world watching, and Trey takes the opportunity to chastise left-lane bandits. I think he tried to stick to the “peace” theme of the broadcast for a minute, but then he said something like: “the right lane is for slow cars, the left lane is for fast cars. If you’re not going fast, please stay in the right lane!” That may have been the coolest thing I’ve ever seen! (But then again, there was the “Roses Are Free” at 5:30, but I can’t get ahead of myself). The very cool “Heavy Things” was then played to a fully-lighted, totally blissing crowd with shots of us on the gigantic video screens with the perfect pictures. The end of the song comes and several thousand people somehow forgot the instructions, cheering anyway. “Twist” and “Prince Caspian” were good, but my position made it hard to concentrate as we seemed to be trespassing on the Phish VIP area, (Jon from Strangefolk was there), and we were catching bad vibes. (ed note: the “VIP’s” weren’t partying worth a shit!) The Velvet Underground cover “Rock and Roll” was the last song I caught in that area, and it was very disappointing for me because Page’s paper-thin vocals basically ruined the song for me. I’ve been dying to hear this song, and lo and behold, I thought it sucked! Oh, well, maybe the next twenty-six will make up for it! Moved away from bad-karma-VIP section for YEM, which featured a vocal jam with tons of “cheescake” in it, and was mighty strong. “Crosseyed” was a phatty placement and an epic version as well. Trey then took to the acoustic for an intimate “Minestrone” for the 90,000 denizens, which must’ve been cool from him, because it seemed like most people shut-up for the occasion. This was followed by “Sand”, which at some point melded into something called “Quadrophonic Topplin”.

It was at this point of the show when the men were separated from the boys, so to speak. This jam was reminiscent of the “ambient jam” at the Lemonwheel---the seemingly endless noodling that left many people begging for a song. Yes, it did take seemingly forever and yes, it could rightly be labeled self-indulgent on the part of the band. That being said, let’s take a look at what we’re complaining about: This is a band that does improv jams better than anyone on earth and they now have all the time imaginable to jam out songs, and people are irritated? These guys have the best party on earth going, and they can do whatever they want, as far as I’m concerned. As if they would let you down in the end!?! People would’ve been well-served to look at the big picture of this show and enjoy the fact that almost every song had a ten-minute or more jam on it, ‘cuz it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. If you didn’t gear up to be tripping your balls off when this inevitability came around---bummer for you, better luck next time, and don’t get pissed when I step on you while you’re laying there taking up valuable boogie space! But I digress---back to the music.

“Slave” delivered us back to a discernable song, although it’s jam is a little too much like what just went on for an hour, and they might’ve stuck something more rocking there. I’ve seen better “Slaves”, to be honest, but the Neil Young cover of “Albuquerque”, made up for that as it was done perfect justice to the songwriting master that penned it. A very happy “Reba” got the party going again and the “Axilla” put to rest any questions that the boys might be running out of gas because it rocked balls. My first “Uncle Pen” in 40 shows followed and reminded me of how fucking versatile this band is ‘cuz it was more or less a country hoe-down now. A downright sick, (as if there’s any other kind) “Bowie” raged and then the recently rare “My Soul” kept things up, to say the least, and this was my favorite version ever. Anyone who actually complained about the slow part of the show 90 minutes or so ago had to feel like and idiot as the boys steamed into The Who’s “Drowned”, with Mike on vocals. Although Mike’s voice leaves a lot to be desired here, the band made this point irrelevant because this may have been the highlight out of 35 songs. I’m not sure how long this travel through about ten changes in one song lasted, (if you think keeping track of time while tripping is hard enough, try it in the midst of a 7.5 hour show!), but it was a remarkable journey and I can’t wait to hear this shit on tape! As if we needed our minds blown further, a reprise of “After Midnight” was delivered roughly ten hours after the first-ever version and boy, were those lyrics even more poignant now! Indeed, now around five a.m., we are finding out “what it’s all about” and I’m getting chills and tears right now just thinking about it! What a truly great band and how much poorer would I be if I’d never seen them!

Anyway, letting it all hang out were these guys ripping this song up with the same intensity of 22 songs ago and I found out that what it’s really all about is buzz-timing because there were legions of people sleeping through this! I’ve digressed, though, back to the review! At this point the band may have stood around for a minute bullshitting, eating or drinking something, or whatever, because there were some gaps between songs when it took a few minutes for the next one to start. I don’t remember if it happened exactly here or not, but I do recall some idiots yelling “play a song!” during these breaks. I mean, there’s ungrateful and spoiled, and then there’s these douchebags! I seem to recall them wearing eagles jerseys, but I could be wrong. Anyway, now we go into a heart-warming, unbelievable beautiful “Horse>Silent In The Morning” here at roughly 5:30 am and I remember thinking that a bonus here is that every dickhead that would be talking through this normally is sleeping, so we had that going for us too! “Bittersweet Motel” kept the mood and was a perfect place for another beautiful song. (ed note: if you don’t like this song, it’s probably about you!)

“Piper” was cranked into here and was a complete joy to hear after the weak version in Hampton this year. It was a bit hard to concentrate on this for a while because I was moving up and was in a bad sound area, (of which there were many, due to the delay off the satellite-speaker towers and the roof on the soundboard). I was also busy barely avoiding stepping on babies. “Piper” totally raged and, although I’m no tape expert, I can’t imagine there was a better one played anywhere else, if so, let me know! My first “Free” in quite some time was about as perfect as a song placement can get if it wasn’t for the “After Midnight”. Every song at this point is being jammed out to the hilt, and this was no exception. We are now in a zone that may never be reached again as far as that’s concerned and you’ll get no complaint about that here. I might add that now I’m basically looking right over at CK5, (the lighting guy), so I had a pretty plum spot in which to really feel it; I know that it’s really hard to find a good vibe way out in the masses. In any event, Page then took his turn as lounge singer for “Lawn Boy”, which is always cool.

Not to be outdone, Fishman gets his chance to really fuck with the people that aren’t getting the joke and the jam-outs by tearing up a vacuum solo in “Love You”. I mean, this most annoying of sounds lasted seemingly forever and it was just the kind of absurdity that makes you stop and contemplate what the hell you’re doing. You’re at the bottom of Florida in the middle of nowhere with 90,000 at six in the morning watching a dude play a vacuum cleaner---not an everyday thing! Next up was a truly stunning “Roses Are Free”. This was my first in 40 shows, and I was now on cloud nine. The jam was so long that one could easily forget what the song was before it came around again, and indeed I did! It occurred to me at this point that CK5 is the only lighting director in rock history to have dawn as a backdrop, for whatever that’s worth! “Bug” followed, and I’ll be damned if I remember anything about it because I don’t really know it. I suspect it’s just one long jam with no real verses ‘cuz that’s all I remember before… “2001”, which, if I can complain one time, would have been better off as a “Divided Sky” because it’s starting to get light out now and it’s mostly cloudy, but there are gorgeous red/pink clouds to the left-rear of us. The “2001” was good, but it was kind of aimless and I swear it used to better in the past, but it could be just me. The power of the lighting was reduced at this point as well, because it’s no longer anywhere near dark. I’m still assuming the “Divided” is on the way, but I was having such a great time that I didn’t even care when they broke into “Wading”. Now I love this song, and I loved it at the time, although Trey could’ve really ripped the solo harder, (you weren’t tired, were you, you pussy!). In retrospect, however, why in God’s name is there a “Wading” here instead of “Divided”? A point to ponder, indeed. Again, I wasn’t complaining at the time, probably because at this rate I assumed they might play until nine or something! “Meatstick”, a song I’d completely forgotten about, finished the most epic show ever off, and they didn’t bother to ask us to do the dance, probably because it just didn’t feel right. I thought this was a great song to end with because it’s such a happy sound and a great melody to have in your head taking out of a show. I would like to point out again that I was dancing my ass off at this point, and I’m proud to say that I never sat down the whole show.

In summation, I’ve read some people that couldn’t make it saying shit like: “they’ll say it was the best show ever, no matter what happens.” Well, all I can say is, if that makes you feel better ‘cuz you weren’t there, good for you! You need all the help you can get because those of us that were there need only think back to the only show of its kind ever to feel good. Amazing. Epic. Outrageous. Ridiculous. Thank you Phish, Seminole Indians, and all the people that didn’t lay around taking up space. This was the best New Year’s I’ve ever had!