On July 29th, 2023 I woke up in my Manhattan hotel room at 7:30am with the previous night’s Phish show still ringing softly in my ears.  Though I had no reason to wake up early there would be no sleeping in for me.  My inevitable early rise was due to a) the ninety minute time difference between NYC and NL that was still freshly tugging at my inner cuckoo clock, and b) feline conditioning (which is to say, on those rare occasions when my cat isn’t meowing me awake by 7:30 I wake up anyway and lie there wondering if he died in the night).  

I managed to sneak myself out of the room without rousing m’lady and went downstairs to check out the free breakfast.  It was nothing to write home about but it sure beat the hell out of their free Happy Hour, which I had experienced the night before.  After making my way back upstairs laden with an armload of absconded coffees and muffins m’lady and I ended up spending the bulk of the day lounging lazily in our tiny hotel room.  It wasn’t until the late afternoon that we finally ventured out into the New York City bustle, when we hit the sidewalk and aimed ourselves towards some bar that was hosting a Phan Art expo.

Along the way we stopped in at a dramatically flamboyant bar called Oscar Wilde’s.  The place was an absolute feast for the senses, with animatronic flowers winking from the ceiling, huge white rabbits scattered around, and general craziness at every turn of the head.  We met some friends there and had a few drinks and even more laughs, although we soon ducked out on the growing crowd of acquaintances so we could check out that Phan Art thing, which turned out being pretty lame.

Then it was off to another bar - this one called American Whiskey - where even more friends and laughs awaited.  NYC Phish shows are great for this sort of thing.  During the hang m’lady and I slowly grazed through a pound of wings and finally it was off to the Chase Lounge, which is inside Madison Square Garden itself.

We arrived to find the Chase Lounge was closed to the public until 7pm because of a Waterwheel thank-you party.  That was only ten minutes away so we lounged outside the Lounge until then.  When we got in we learned that the Chase Lounge wasn’t offering free anything on this evening so m’lady and I bailed and grabbed a pair of delicious spicy chicken sandwiches at a rather famous kiosk inside MSG called Fuku.  After poking around for a comfortable place to sit we decided to go back to the couches in front of the Chase Lounge and we ate them there.

And thus concludes our pregame activities.

For each of the five nights we’d be seeing Phish during this MSG run we were sitting in completely different areas of the arena, which offered five wholly different concert experiences.  And none so different as where we sat for this show: The Skybridge.  

Ten years earlier Madison Square Garden had undergone a renovation that resulted in the Skybridge, two thin strips of bleachers (total capacity: 900) that are suspended from the ceiling of the cavernous venue, dangling ninety-four feet above ice level.  Our tickets were near the middle of the Skybridge in the front row of, was it maybe four rows total?  We got to our seats just a few minutes before the show began and I was really impressed with how unique a vista the Skybridge offered of The World’s Most Famous Arena.  We were essentially up in the rafters, and the only thing between our seats and the open air was a chest-high pane of ultra-clear glass, making it seem like we were almost floating up there.

Unfortunately, just before the lights dimmed to start the show I happened to cast a glance over that pane of glass and straight down onto the crowded floor directly below me.  Craziness.   

Now, if I am in an enclosed area then I am not afraid of heights in the least.  But get me on an open balcony or a Ferris wheel or anywhere else where I could conceivably succumb to a momentary impulse to jump and, well, I just get the willies.*  

So when the band kicked into Back on the Train to start the show I was gripping the top of that pane of glass pretty tightly and keeping my dancing footprint small.  I soon succumbed to my nerves and spent most of the first set sitting firmly in my seat.  Fortunately with that glass reaching all the way to the floor I still had a good view of the band (and more importantly, Chris Kuroda’s light show).  It sort of felt like being on couch tour, only live.  However, it was from this view that I realized that each pane of glass was completely independent from the others (or anything else); none of them were connected to anything except the thin brace that attached each pane of glass to the floor.  Well now, that didn’t look very sturdy.

Midway through the set I cast a glance to my left and saw a young usher casually leaning backwards into one of these freestanding squares of glass.  Whenever someone came to the section he jumped up the steps and checked their tickets before returning to his spot and flopping back against the glass without a care in the world.  And to my absolute horror, whenever he did this that pane of glass would flex a good inch or two backwards.  It totally unnerved me, and to this day it turns my stomach to picture it.

The dude sitting behind us was super-nervous.  He told me he was going to bail for the second set and try to find somewhere else - anywhere else to sit.  

Personally, I was much better during the second set.  Dude did indeed bail, which afforded us a little extra room.  I’m not sure if not drinking during the show helped or hindered, but I didn’t, and I managed to remain standing up for most of the set.  I still kept my dancing to a minimum, but it was another pretty jammy show, so I didn’t really have to rein in my booty very much.

It was pretty unique to see the light show from the Skybridge, though obviously not as good as seeing it straight-on like we had on the first night.  I was excited when Phish played their cover-of-a-cover 2001, as the song always gives light-guru Chris a chance to shine but as cool as it was, I’m sure it would’ve been better with a straight-on view.

I did notice that CK5 was controlling the venue’s house lights that ring the 200 level entryways.  I was pretty sure that he hadn’t been doing that the night before, or perhaps he had and it was just my bird’s eye view that allowed me to notice them on this night.  Either way, over the ensuing days I noted that he incorporated the house lights into his repertoire for all of the remaining shows.

The band encored with Farmhouse and then First Tube which, together with the previous night’s Good Times, Bad Times encore fuelled a rumour that the theme of this MSG run was going to be in the encores.  After ending the first night with one “G” song and the second with two “F” songs, clearly they were going to encore the third show with three “E” and next with four “D” songs etcetera, until they would finally close out the seven-night run with a marathon encore of seven songs that begin with the letter A.  

Spoiler alert: they didn’t.

Just like the night before, by the time the show was over so were m’lady and I.  With a repeat of my first paragraph (see above) surely in the cards, we once again bee-lined it back to our nearby hotel room and dove straight into bed.

*I remember the first time it happened too.  My buddy John had a La-Z-Boy balanced atop a stack of milk crates out on the balcony of his 12th floor apartment so he could enjoy unimpeded views over the railing.  When I climbed up into that chair for the first time I experienced a gut-twisting urge to jump that persisted until I retreated back inside his apartment.  Ever since then I get the same feeling (to varying degrees) every time I am high up and unrestrained.

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