February 21st, 2024 was the first night of Phish’s annual Mexico run, this time a four-nighter at the Moon Palace in Cancun. This was Phish’s seventh time playing on the beach in Mexico, and my third time being there for it (m’lady’s fourth). I had gone the first two years when the band played at a different resort, so this was my inaugural visit to Moon Palace.

We arrived at the resort the day before and settled in to the dense luxury of the high-end resort quite nicely, after keeping to a relatively spartan budget during our previous week scuba diving off the island of Cozumel. When we had checked in we were semi-tricked into signing up for a timeshare-esque meeting. We later decided against it so when they called at 8:30am to remind us about the tour we politely told them to get stuffed and tried to get back to sleep. Half of us succeeded.

I (on the other hand) took advantage of the early wakeup to find the morning meditation session. Phish & Co. had scheduled tons of activities at the resort every day and I had mentally circled the morning meditation session as a must-do-provided-I-was-already-awake event, and whattya know, I was already awake. I pulled on my shorts and a t-shirt and meandered towards the beach.

I found a dozen people meditating underneath a canopy so I sat in a spot of shade on the fringes and joined in. After five minutes some staff members arrived at the restaurant right next to us and began setting up for lunch, which meant dragging heavy steel chairs around on the concrete floor like grotesquely large fingernails scratching on the world’s biggest chalkboard.

Screeeee….screeeee….screeeeeee….screeeeeee!!!

Dear lord, it was so un-meditative it was all I could do to keep from laughing. And it went on for about twenty minutes. Hilarious.

(Imagine my surprise when I learned later in the day that this wasn’t even “the” meditation workshop. I guess I had attended some sort of rogue workshop for the people who couldn’t find the real one. The actual meditation gathering had been in a geodesic dome further down the beach.)

Next up was the surprisingly busy gym for a bit of exercise and then finally: coffee. And with all that maintenance behind me I was free to relax beside the pool all day with an ever-morphing parade of friends both old and new (but mostly old) before ducking into the poolside steakhouse for an early pre-show supper.

Back when the Barcelo was hosting Phish’s Mexican residencies we fans would gather down by the beach on the evening before the first show so we could hear (but not see) the band run through several songs for their soundcheck. When they moved to Moon Palace the band decided to add a fourth night to the run by opening up the soundcheck to the fans, and that’s what we were in for on this night.

Only, it’s not a soundcheck. It’s simply a shortened, one-set show, with all the authenticity of an encore, only in reverse. Phish had done their actual soundcheck the day before, and once again I joined a crowd gathered by the front gate to listen (but not see). Maybe next time they’ll add a fifth night: A soundcheck for the soundcheck set.

Regardless, a rose by any other colour is still an extra set of Phish, and it was a good one. And long too, containing a fairly whopping fifteen songs in total from the weekend-opening Back on the Train to the gritty show-closing Carini. Special mention goes to the If I Could they stuck in the middle, one of the few Phish ballads that I really, really like and one they hardly ever play (at least when I’m around; I caught it at my first Phish show and then just twice more over the next three decades of following the band around. This was just the fourth time in 124 Phish concerts that I saw them play If I Could). Plus I always love Stash and they stuck that in the middle of the set too (unlike If I Could, they play Stash all the time. I’ve seen them play it…let’s see now…twenty-four times*, including at my first show).

Really, it was a good, fun set top-to-bottom. And how could it not be? It was a gorgeous night spent under palm trees with good friends and a bottomless pit of good food and unlimited drinks readily at hand. It certainly felt like it was the right place to be.

The show ended just before midnight and moments later m’lady and I were back in our room, which was immediately adjacent to the concert area. While we were both too tired to go over to the Nizac pool (wherever the heck that was) for the post-show pool party, I figured I had enough wind in me for a good jam so I grabbed my guitar and a couple of beers and set off on a prowl. After a couple of rounds through the barren hotel grounds it occurred to me that the entire resort was either at the Nizac pool or in bed.

I joined the latter, in a matter of speaking.

*In case you’re wondering how I manage to pull out numbers like this, there is a website called zzyzx where you input the dates of all the Phish shows you’ve attended and it gives you stats on, well, everything. I’ve said it before and I say it here again: Phish is very much a “hobby” band.

https://toddmanout.com/