(Published in the second edition of The Phish Companion...)

Ugh. You heard me. Ugh.

Whenever anyone starts a thread in a discussion forum about what the worst Phish show was, I bring up this one. It seems kind of odd that this is the case. They were coming off of a rather good three show Interstate 64 mini tour and I was excited to hear what they would do playing for a brand new crowd in a huge ampitheatre. This was the first show where they were an opening band for a major act (Santana). What would they do?

My hopes rose even higher as I walked to the venue. Phish was clearly sound checking with "Shaggy Dog". Maybe they'd take this chance to play all sorts of interesting stuff without having to worry about their usual fanbase.

Maybe that was the plan, but that sure isn't what we got. We got forty four minutes of the most obvious songs, played poorly. Was this what opening for a band meant? Play the pop songs and don't jam at all. We had nothing else to judge what these sets were like and my inner fanboy was offended, so much so that when I saw Fishman standing by a fence looking at the crowd, I started to question him.

These were the results of my interrogation: No, this wasn't a trend. Yes, they might play different songs later in the tour. The jams weren't good because they couldn't hear each other in the monitors. "No, we didn't sell out," he finally said and walked away.

Looking back at my reaction eleven years later, I'm embarrassed at my younger self. Why did all of my band interactions have to come during my jaded stage? But this does say a lot about the quality of the show. This was the show that was so bad that I felt compelled to find a band member and register my complaint. Worst. Show. Ever. Just be thankful that there aren't any tapes.