[This post was written by ChatGPT - "written in the style of The Prairie Home Companion - because I wasn't actually at Magnaball but wanted to make sure that we honored the diennial anniversary and no one has stepped up yet. It does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of any of the many volunteers who help with site content or help manage Phish.net, but it's far from terrible - and I invite you to comment with your own memories and reminiscences, and to contact me if you'd like to write about any upcoming anniversaries.]

Ten years ago today, out in the quiet fields of Watkins Glen, there was a gathering, and like most gatherings worth remembering, it began with long drives, coolers of sandwiches, and the low murmur of anticipation in the August heat. Folks set up their tents in sprawling neighborhoods of nylon and shade tarps, as though an entire town had risen up overnight. And in a way, it had—complete with makeshift cafés, impromptu parades of glowsticks, and an unspoken promise that, for three days, time would slow down and life would feel different, a little lighter, and a lot more musical.

The band, of course, played their part with patience and generosity. Sets unfurled like late-summer afternoons: deliberate, sometimes languid, sometimes quickening with a sudden joy, the way a breeze will lift the curtains just so. There were jams that wandered far beyond the expected borders and came back home again with a kind of triumphant humility, as if to say, “See, we knew where we were going all along.” For those who were there, it was music not just heard but absorbed, sewn into the very fabric of the weekend.

And then there were the in-between hours—the afternoons of swimming and lounging, the evenings of communal cooking, the late nights when art installations hummed quietly in the dark. You could walk through the campgrounds and hear the echo of laughter travel like fireflies between tents, or stumble into conversations with strangers who seemed, for the moment, like lifelong friends. The festival wasn’t just a sequence of shows; it was a portrait of what it feels like when thousands of people agree to leave ordinary life behind, just for a little while.

Now, a decade later, Magnaball feels both distant and immediate, like a dream you wake from but can recall in perfect detail. We tell the stories again and again—of the drive-in set that felt like a secret gift, of the jams that stretched impossibly wide, of the feeling of belonging in that great wide pasture. And as with all good stories, they grow softer and sweeter with age, not because the facts change, but because our hearts do. Magnaball was a weekend when the music was good, the people were kind, and the world, at least for a time, seemed a little more generous than usual.

[Supplemental links provided by Lemuria, not ChatGPT. Relying entirely on AI would be uberlame, amirite?]

Setlists: Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Jesse Jarnow's review in Rolling Stone

Forum thread about Jarnow's review

Forum thread about the best set at Magnaball

JohhnyD's reflections one year out

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