Wow, this one is a classic; of my favorite shows, and I think I listened to that cassette a thousand times. As I listen to it again, let me tell you a story:

This show was billed as the "Last Show 'Till Fall!", and was coming after Phish was really starting to travel outside New England on a regular basis. Luckily for me, they were still managing to throw the standard three-night run in at the Front, almost every six weeks or so. Usually, one of those three would be all-ages (I was all of 20, and VT was just still getting serious about the drinking age and having an 'official' ID). By this time, I was starting to get hooked on this crazy musical band that wasn't the Dead. This was one of my first road-trips to see the boys outside Chittenden County, and it started in Burlington in an old, early 80's Chevy Nova. A couple VT natives and I (flatlander UVM sophmore) meandered throughout Vermont, picking up friends of friends in random locals like Johnson, then Randoph, then possibly Springfield or Weathersfield... it was getting hot and crowded in the back of the Nova by that time, and the freak show was only beginning. My brain, my brain. In trouble or in pain... Are we there yet?

Anywho... We showed up in Townsend to find Phish already deep in the second set. FUCK! We're late, because anyone who has ever tried to cross VT from east to west, or reverse, can tell you that "you can't get they'ah from he'ah", at least not in a hurry. But this was Townsend Family Park, where we could take our quarter-keg out of the trunk and haul it in, in front of the soundboard where our friends were taping the show, and get in the groove! Huzzah! I could sit, and drink some more! I could dance and be merry, life could be a dinglederry...

Happy to be out of the Nova, I realized that something special was going on here. It was a BYOB show in a small amusement park!!! Wow. I wished we had shown up on time as planned, but Phish was rocking my socks off regardless. La Grange made me almost crap my shorts, and think about maybe putting Trey up on my imaginary pedistal with 'the masters'. I had just missed Stevie Ray Vaughn at the Essex Fairgrounds, and his passing a month later (plus Brent that same summer), made me soon think that I need to see all the live music I can, EVERY TIME! Twenty-some years later, I still feel that way. You never know when it could all be over. Just GO! "One more time for Karl Yastremski!" as Page reminded us that night.

Cue the Weekapaug dance party! I think I wrote on my cassette it was weekend frog or something... It was still kinda new, and Lawn Boy was still three months away from release! As the darkness started to fall, it started to occur to us that even though Chris was there (the boys gave out cake and gifts to the crew in the 3rd set, which was "dedicated to announcing", according to Fish) it was getting dark and there were not enough lights to sustain a night set. We were late, it took seven hours to get here, and we better enjoy the 90 minutes we got. Sure enough, before we knew it, it was all over. But what a finale! Maybe the best BFFCFM I've ever heard. Take it to Mars... I hope the t-shirt lost at the Max Creek show, and the wallets and breastwitches, all got found or eaten. Not necessarily in that order. Best 13-hour round-trip road trip from Burlington, for a set and a half, I could ever imagine. Still looking for that black German Shepherd named Joco.