When you get inside the music, like musicians do, gravity disappears.

Posted by @jdisk in the SBIX Essay Contest.

Paying It Forward

I will always look back at Superball as the moment when phriends became phamily. Really, it wasn't all that difficult. There were a ton of summer camp-like group bonding experiences: setting up tents, falling asleep to trey's "The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday" narration and getting use to each others' distinctive body odors. Moreover, the collective love blossomed when we witnessed one crew member cry during bathtub gin, another turn speechless upon hearing his first colonel forbin’s at his girlfriend's 30th show and, especially, when we all embraced in a re-calibrating group hug in the middle of the ball square jam during one hell of an amazing trip.

Read more...

Posted by @CaptainPookie in the SBIX Essay Contest.

I live in Watkins Glen. I was born and raised here. And other than a collective five years in which I flittered and searched up and down the east coast in my early twenties, this place is all I have ever called home. I spent my childhood diving into these huge, glacial lakes (that never seem to get warmer than the ice-continents that carved them), hearing local Seneca "Indian" elders pass on the oral traditions of the Iroquois Confederacy that once called this place home - and also believed that it was the cradle of civilisation. After-all, we call these "The Finger Lakes" because the Seneca believed that the Creator was so partial to this part of the world, that he showed his approval by sinking his enormous handprint across and deep into the landscape, forming the five, vaguely finger-shaped bodies of water.

Read more...

Many thanks to all who submitted essays for the SBIX "contest." It was indeed a contest in the sense we wanted to generate participation and provide a little extra motivation for folks to share. Bags-o-phish.net schwag will be passed out to those that generated the most votes, and as promised, essays that the site team found best captured the essence of the event will be featured on the blog for the next week.

The point of this endeavor had little to do with a contest, voting, or prizes, however. We simply wanted to capture the raw emotions and stories of fans who enjoyed the event and bottle the immediate reactions of the experience for posterity. There are no winners or (especially) losers with this project. We'll be archiving the essay thread in an upcoming FAQ page on SB icks.

That said, we do have the results of the top vote-getters.

Read more...

If it's Monday, it must be tme for another Mystery Jam. As usual, we will be playing for an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. The rules haven't changed: you need to correctly identify the song and the date to win. Post your guess in the comments. One guess per person per day (with the second “day” starting after I post the hint). The hint will come on Tuesday and the answer will be posted on Wednesday. Good luck...

Tuesday Hint: Phish has played 53 cities since their return to the stage on 3/6/09. This jam occurred in one of them.

Tuesday Hint #2: (For @benhatley). It's not "Theme."

Wednesday Answer: BLOG FTW!!!!!! Wait? Someone got it?!?! Damn it all to hell. This game sucks. In all seriousness, congratulations to @mainegabe for doggedly sniffing out the 9/24/99 "Wolfman's Brother." Nevertheless, the Blog will chalk this one up as a moral victory. See you all on Monday for the big Six-Oh...

MP3 Downloads Courtesy of LivePhish.com

by Mockingbird Contributor Chris Glushko

I was unable to attend Super Ball IX, my first “special” show missed since Halloween 98. By special, I mean anything outside of a standard tour -- festivals, Halloween runs, holiday runs, etc. But thanks to modern technology, I did get to enjoy every minute of Watkins Glen as it happened. Following the festival, I had a conversation with a close friend who attended that went something like this:

Friend: So, what did you think?
Me: Some fun stuff, but I don’t think it will hold up well.
Friend: What do you mean? It was the best weekend ever.
Me: I’m sure it was, but I’m talking about the music.
Friend: But you weren’t there. The weather was perfect. The vibe was amazing.
Me: I’m sure it was. But I can’t load the weather and vibe into iTunes.
Friend: They played for over 4.5 hours on Saturday.
Me: Yes, and Saturday may be the least-interesting three-set Phish show since NYE 96.
Friend: You’re so wrong. You’re just upset you didn’t go.

Well, he was right there. I was upset that I didn’t go. But attendance should have no impact in discussing the music. I’d argue that by not attending you’re likely to be more objective because you eliminate your personal experience from your judgement. There are a million things that can go right or wrong during the live experience. But long after the lights go up, it’s only the music on the recording that remains. If you want to have Phish nerd discussions about the best shows to listen to, then the music is the only universal currency to base these discussions on. It’s about separating the music played from your subjective experience. Otherwise, you might as well argue over who has the best favorite color.

With that said, I spent the last several days re-listening to every note of Super Ball IX to see what’s worthy of regular rotation in Phish listening. Here are some of the highlights and lowlights:

Read more...

Rock & Bus is now reserving on demand party bus service from points in Washington State, Oregon and British Columbia. Reserve now at the Rock & Bus website here.

Read more...

Time for the Mystery Jam, bury the Mystery Jam, take out the Mystery Jam time... As usual, we will be playing for an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. The rules haven't changed: you need to correctly identify the song and the date to win. Post your guess in the comments. One guess per person per day (with the second “day” starting after I post the hint). The hint will come on Tuesday and the answer will be posted on Wednesday. Good luck...

Tuesday Hint: No hint needed this week...

Wednesday Answer: Congrats to RebeldyNugs on his fifth win with the 7/22/03 "Gumbo." See you all next Monday....

MP3 Downloads Courtesy of LivePhish.com

Most Phish fans can be categorized into two groups. One that has 'The Spreadsheet' in their browser bookmark bar and the other that is yet to experience the "Holy Shit!" moment when they discover it for the first time. A labor of love & dedication, the Spreadsheet is one of the definitive sources for Phish MP3's and catalogs every known circulating show since 1983. A mere utterance of the term, "The Spreadsheet", and most fans instantly know that you are talking about Kevin Hoy's Google Doc. But how did this amazing resource come about? And who is Kevin?

I spent some time recently asking Kevin all about the Spreadsheet.

Read more...

Phish and its management, including security manager John Langenstein, tour director Richard Glasgow a/k/a "Dickie Scotland" and management gurus at Red Light Management get prominent mentions in an interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal about concert security here.

Read more...

Before YouTube removed it earlier this week, most of the Phish community had seen a video of a Phish fan at SBIX under the influence of what appears to have been a psychoactive substance. The man was sitting cross-legged on the concert field during "Crosseyed and Painless," by himself, harming no one, and taking in the music. The person responsible for posting the video on the Internet also supplied some editorial commentary - which amounted to little more than speculation - about what was happening between the subject's ears.

Read more...

Mike Greenhaus of Relix has written a new interview with Steve "Dude of Life" Pollak, Trey's high school bandmate and longtime musical collaborator, on the Jambands.com site here.

Read more...

Great article in the NY Times on SBIX.

"In other words, a Phish festival is a distinctly phantasmagoric summer fair for adults who happen to enjoy getting down to improvisational rock grooves."

Yep, that's us.

Read more...

Even [Monday morning], driving through the campgrounds as people are packing up, they're yelling at us, 'Thank you! Thank you for letting us come here and do our thing.'

Everybody's waving, with all their fingers. "

---

Schuyler County Sheriff Bill Yessman, quoted in the (Rochester, NY) Democrat and Chronicle (7/5/11)