November 1st, 2009 was the final day of Phish’s three-night Hallowe’en camping extravaganza in Indio, California, an amazing coming together of music, fun, and like-minded souls that encouraged very late nights in a desert oasis where the blazing morning sun dictated an early start to every day.

And so it was: the band had treated us all to a knockout set covering The Stones’ Exile On Main Street in its entirety the night before and the excited energy that they extracted from the crowd had kept us all up very, very late. And then an enormous ball of fiery heat leaned into our tent city at some stupid hour like six or seven in the morn and there we all were, sweating, unzipping tents, and smiling wordlessly at one another, lost in the bliss of waning intoxicants and mass sleep-deprivation.

Leading up to the festival someone at Phish Co. had hatched the unhinged idea of having the band play an acoustic set starting at 12pm on this final day. That’s high noon, in a desert, on a treeless polo field. You’d almost swear they were trying to kill us. Part of the concept involved handing out free coffee and donuts to the crowd but for all the clamouring I couldn’t get anywhere near either of them.

It was blistering hot when we all hunkered down for the first-ever full set of acoustic Phish. Perched on stools, the band lined up backwards across the stage (from audience left to right: Fishman, Mike, Trey, and then Page) and led us through a mile of songs played pretty much straight up, only on acoustic instruments. Mercifully the set leaned towards the mellow. Had they gotten us on our feet and raging in the hot sun I think the entire crowd would have passed out.

As it was we all swung between sitting and standing on Trey’s suggestions, though sometimes I’d sit when everyone was standing so I could take advantage of their shade. And though it was a stamina workout doubtlessly on par with Navy Seal training I was still plenty glad to have been there, as it was a darn good pile of music.

After a looooong first setbreak the band returned for a pair of evening sets that were a face melting string of rock and roll delivered by one of the best bands in the world. The collective joy coupled with our shared exhaustion created a blissed-out euphoria that was 30,000 strong. By the time the final encore came around a weekend concert had become a mass celebration of joy.

The post-show became a challenge of somehow burning through all remaining alcohol and snackables while somehow keeping things together enough to gradually pack up in time for the 4am shuttle to the Palm Springs airport. Of course there would be no sleeping*, and in fact I did such an admirable job getting prepped that I made a 3:30am friend and helped him out too. It’s not like I helped him pack his gear or anything, but when we parted company at least he had less to pack. We Phish fans do like to lend a helping hand when we can.

As much of an ordeal as the weekend was, as I settled into the first of several sleepy flights crossing the continent all I could think was how unbelievable the festival was, and how soon could we all do it again?

Buying Phish tickets is an incredible investment. Especially the festivals.

*I would have leaned on the “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” mantra but I was worried that if I uttered the words out loud the Reaper might have shown up and called my bluff.

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