Written & posted to phish.net forum on the 10th anniversary of 10.7.00.

I flew to Cali from the Toronto area for these 'final' shows. It was a pretty bittersweet time really. It was cool to see
Bobby Weir come out for the encore the first night at Shoreline.

[Running joke amongst me and my friends is how much I love Bobby's cowboy tunes (I actually DO), so to get a surprise sit in with him on "El Paso" on top of the Chalkdust > West LA Fadeaway, well, I still haven't lived that down. Especially since I was at VA Beach in 98 for the Terrapin Station. They all hate me in the loving kind of way]

Anyways, a little about that 'last' Phish show on 10.7.00.

We had great seats, about 10th row, Page side. It was an excellent show ... nothing groundbreaking per se, but start to finish, they just nailed it. It's important enough in phistory that if anyone hasn't heard it, you should check it out, IMHO. [The previous night 10.6.00 had a little more exploration.] I'm not gonna review the show song by song, they didn't 'waste' any tunes if you know what I mean. When they came out for the encore, we all knew what was coming, and that YEM was special.

You gotta remember, we thought these were at the time,
the 'last Phish shows'. A story I felt was worth sharing today was about what you can't hear on the live phish sbd recording. Download an audience copy and try and picture this:

The band stayed out a bit longer than normal and took an emotional bow. Then Paul played The Beatles' "Let it Be" played over the PA. Most didn't leave. We stuck around in appreciation of what we thought could be/was the end of a remarkable career. We stood and cheered. And maybe shed the odd tear. There were lots of hugs in the crowd I can tell you that. There was this moment where the crew who had started tear down realized that nobody was leaving and alot of them turned around and faced the crowd that they too deserved (for probably a dozen or so I'm guessing on this number) had been with the band for 10 yrs or maybe more. And Kuroda had these little quotes all lit up on the inside/underneath of the distinctive shaped white pavilion of shoreline, "All You Need is Love".

Having been at Big Cypress less than a year earlier, with The Beatles, 'Here Comes the Sun' playing at the conclusion of that life changing experience, well, that was even extra emotional for me when 'Let it Be' came on. On another personal note, the first show I saw after the hiatus was Woosta, where they opened with YEM. So I saw two YEMs in a row, two and a half yrs apart. I was pretty excited

Anyways, hard to believe it has been 10 yrs. If you're looking to spin a show today, try that one today.

A very thankful fan that the boys are back,
Jeremy Brennan
aka trentphisher, Thunder or Guy Forget,
depending on if I met you tapetrading, on tour or online