On July 6th, 2019 m’lady and I were midway through a run that would have us visit three American cities that were each hosting a pair of Phish shows; a triple double-shot if you will. We woke up in the spare bedroom at our friend’s place in Boston and after leisurely shaking the previous night’s cobwebs loose we set out for what proved to be an overtly pleasant day strolling up the lengthy Charles River until we set upon a pop-up outdoor pub (it may have been a permanent enterprise, but it sure looked rickety to me. Or perhaps vice-versa).

I assume we strolled back down the river afterwards to return to our friends’ place but I’m a little foggy on that. Regardless, we ended up heading to Fenway Park either in or after a pretty heavy rain (but unquestionably under some very dark and ominous skies) for a second consecutive night of Phish.

(Come to think of it, the day we walked up the river was so sunny and beautiful that I’m questioning now if that this might have occurred on the following day, because it certainly rained on this day, and not just a little. Now I remember…we ended up walking away from the river and finding a small bar with a cool name…maybe Bukowski’s…where we had dinner and more drinks…but whether this was day one or day two remains a mystery…Ah well, no matter. One thing’s for sure: it would save us both a lot of time if I figured this stuff out before I started typing.)

It was too wet to bother with much of the lot scene so we went in to the stadium early. We had pretty great floor seats for this show but due to a lightning storm they weren’t letting anyone onto the field. We were instead ushered up to the covered bleachers where we waited out the storm with a few thousand other early-arriving fans. It was quite beautiful; we were all sitting there facing the same vista so whenever a lightning blast would light up the sky we’d all ooh and ahh like we were watching fireworks together.

The amazing light(ning) show was periodically punctuated with an update printed on Fenway Park’s famous giant screen. First we were told that the concert’s start-time would be delayed, then came reassurances that the concert was indeed going to happen. Finally the giant message board told us that due to the late start and the city’s live music curfew there would be no setbreak and the show would be one great big set instead of Phish’s standard of two sets.

Interesting.

Finally things cleared up and we were allowed down onto the floor. The show kicked off considerably late and was fantastic. I’m pretty sure this is the only time I saw the band play a full show in one single set and it made for a fun breaking of the wonderful monotony and somewhat predictability of a regular two-set Phish show. The idea of first set-songs versus second-set songs melted away into a sea of illogic. Did the midset Down With Disease mark the end of an imaginary setbreak? Wondering if this song or that song was an obvious set-closer became nonsensical, though ironically for the last forty minutes of the concert I kept looking at the venue’s oversized and impossible-not-to-notice clock mired in the constantly distracting thought that this has got to be the last song, And it kept not being the last song, as the band ended up playing a half-hour past what I assumed was the 11pm curfew. Turns out the city’s curfew was 11:30.

Anyway, it ended up being a beautiful night out and we were treated to another heckuva show. I even bought a show-specific t-shirt at the official merch table. It has come to be one of my favourite Phish shirts.