This event was a life changer!
And it had NOTHING to do with the music from the show!! Not a note!

At set break the fans who attend shows clean and sober, some folks who do this are called The Phellowship (there's a table usually near the Waterwheel table with that name, The Phellowship, printed on a table cloth), meet up at the table for a basic AA type meeting. If you've never been you're lucky, but you've prob seen one depicted in TV/movies, so yeah there's a meeting and you can share about whatever you want for a minute or two. There was a crowd of about 50 people, which was a lot to me since it was my first Phellowship meeting and didn't know anyone went to a show/church/hockey games/life completely clean/sober.
But what was astounding to me was at the end of the meeting. We all circled up and held hands to say the 3 lined sign off that typically ends an AA meeting.
"i'm good enough, i'm sma- "
jk they say the Serenity Prayer:
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference."
But what the fuck happened?? You must be askin', hopin' reading this was the least bit worth your time. Here's somethin you can take from reading this if my own tale doesn't suffice- the Serenity Prayer was not started by AA. It was first written by the theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr in 1932- three years before AA started. OK back to the show!

The Phellowships Serenity Prayer started like this:
"Dude, grant me the serenity...
"DUDE..."??
This one word difference, after having gone to hundreds of meetings and hearing about God, changed and strengthened my personal ability to have, cultivate, and engage with a higher power. I had an epiphany, a moment of clarity (even though I'd been clean & sober for 11 months at this time), and even what I'd deem the closest feeling I've had to experiencing a miracle. All because of the word "dude" lol. It was weird to me, too.
The very best weird ever.
I didn't enjoy much of the show- I probably should have gone with someone who had more clean/sober time- but I did enjoy bumming a cig to the actress Alexis Knapp and her just as astounding friend, Krystal M. Harris. We talked for awhile. This was before she was in Pitch Perfect or Project X- but at the time I had just been cast playing William Shakespeare in an interesting play about him having writers block, then falling thru time to a present day bar where Hamlet, MacBeth, King Lear, and eventually Mercutio are sitting around lamenting the fact that they are killed nightly in every production of their respective plays. In fact, they're mad at me, Will. Anyways, that went well even if no one saw it cuz it's hard to get an audience in LA for a play. But, I got to discuss acting with a couple actors at a phish show moments after having my brain straightened further, directing it down the correct straight and narrow plain of sobriety, for me.
I will admit that Alexis Knapp is a good looking woman. But talking with her at my first sober show was altogether buzz'zedding!
I strode the fuck away from that conversation like a collector of VHS leaving a Back To The Future machine. You've not seen those machines.

Haha then Fishman said somethin' about his routine bein' like a talent show and he then played that broken wheel supermarket cart drumbeat (very hard to play/deal with) real well, only messing the lyrics up once, and only slightly.
And that first set Melt was especially jonky- it got me amazed. Then that X-eyed was faster'n hell and full of fun. Piper was too.
I love Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan, so the encore was great.
This song is as weird and wonderful as many of their classic straighforward songs, and the fact it was written in 2004, but included on Joy, the sober soldier album, gives the song an air of 360 degree meaning...

I've since hit up many Phellowship meetings. They're great. I know they have a facebook page if you need any help. Or just hit me up on here.