Hey there folks,

This was my 141st show, and while that's nothing compared to many, I have been lucky enough to catch some good ones. The Gamehendge in WA. The Game Hoist in WVa (that entire summer BTW, and man were they on fire!) Lemonwheel. It. Oswego. Big Cypress. Dayton 97. Camden 99, every show at UIC and the Horizon (I REFUSE to call my hometown venue the "Allstate Arena"). Des Moines 1994, on my birthday, when they let us out during setbreak to party in the park across the street! Four straight nights at Red Rocks. Ames IA during the ice storm even! So hopefully I've established some cred here.

Since I've become an old guy and a dad, my Phishtivities have had to take a back seat. I still see them when they come to Chicago or to within a few hundred miles though.

One day last winter, I was taking the train into work and I saw that presale was happening. I ordered Saturday night right away, or shall I say what I THOUGHT was Saturday night. It turns out that I messed up the dates and I had Sunday tickets.

Now this presented a problem. My bestest friends in the world (a shout out to Tommy and Kath!) were going to come in, and Tom had to work on Monday. Sunday shows were not doable for them. I tried to sell them. I tried to give them away. Nope--Tom and Kath came in for FTW and not Phish and I refused to go to those shows (mostly because Shapiro is a money-grubbing POS, but I digress). Rather, I refused to PAY to go to those shows--and I'm glad that I did. I made my choice for the Boys over FTW on my limited funds. Maaan...I would have quite possibly shot myself had I not done that. ; ')

I'm not going to go song by song, I'm just gonna say this: we brought my son Hunter. He's almost three and this was his first show (not in the womb). HE LOVED IT! Guess what though? Daddy loved it far more.

This was the best Phish show that I have seen in 20 years easily. It was all there: the tunes, the energy, the sound, CK5--ALL of it synched up. I was stone sober too (a rarity for shows before Coventry, hehe) and am SO glad that I was. Yes, the lawn sucked, but not badly. The monitors sucked too (it's been about 15 years since AV has put bulbs in those). But that was it. In my opinion, it was as close to the perfect Phish show that they could play (for me at least) without, say, hearing an "oom pa pa" at the beginning!

Thank you so much, guys, for putting your absolute BEST feet forward for Hunter's first show of many, many more. I cannot possibly have asked for better than this. I mean--HOW?