Valchy’s Stream
Memories – I recall reading the Phish name in the classified section in Relix. “Heads” from all over the country would set up cassette tape trades or make pleas for specific shows and Phish would occasionally make it into a post by a northeastern prep school hippie. Magazine memories rewarded me in May of 92 while sleeping out/waiting in line for Dead Knickerbocker tickets. Here, a charged-up head in front of me spread the rumor that Phish was going be playing Union College in a couple days. I recalled the Phish name, had a friend attending school there, and was intrigued by this guy’s excitement over this unannounced tourdate and the five dollar price of admission! My attendance there was the first day in my Phishistory. I witnessed mysterious signals from the band that had people falling down around me, humming random notes, and shouting “Awe Fuck!” The lead guitarist told a very unusual story as the rest of the band supplied background noise that created a visual. The band grabbed their chin waddles and gargled at the end of a song. WTF? The experience I had that night had impressed me so that I was forever changed. Never had I moved and grooved to starts and stops and tempos like that. I remember the last notes of the encore’s Good Times Bad Times left me wanting more…..kind of in the same sort of way I’ve heard people describe the end of a LSD experience- you wanna do it again but you need to rest and figure out what just happened. Post show I wandered through the small parking lot and made a lifelong friendship with a taper. Nectar had just come out and I still couldn’t find that in the store, so he became my Phish supplier. These were the days that if you couldn’t be at a show, blanks and postage was the only way to find out what you missed. The process was all too tedious and difficult so I became a taper, also known as a patcher, with a professional Walkman (the infamous WM-D6C) plugged into the real gear. My Dead attendance dwindled and at 20 years old I started chasing a band that rewarded me on so many levels. I was seeing the same people at shows, listening to captivating music, watching amusing stage antics, and then there was the joy popping that cassette into the car deck after a show on the ride home. I had found my niche and there I was consulting the Phish itinerary to make all my travel plans. Any road trip or a home visit from college had me circumnavigating roadways to see Phish. What I experienced before August 9, 1995 when the parking lots had very few VWs, the only beard I saw at a show was the red one and all preshow activity was super stealth were experimental journeys for me. Phish was so new to me. Phish was constant. Phish gave me something to look forward to. I hope some of my specific memories may help take people back. Do you recall: the crazy It’s Ice slippers that Trey and Mike would wear as they would skate on stage? the beautiful fingerpainted Minkin backdrop? when it was normal to see someone on Summer tour throw their shoes towards the stage at the end of Cavern? when Fish would bust out a different dress? when Mike would don some costume apparel? how annoying it was when the guy in front of you would catch the big ball and hold it for a minute while jumping up and down? the arduous process of first logging onto the Phish net (my first internet experience in college)? when fog would completely fill the venue you were in during an insane jam? when Page started playing that single note on the harmonica before an acapella? being headed to a show and you have the only car on the thruway with a Phish sticker on the bumper? I hold onto these memories as they allow me to visit my youth. Perhaps that is the reason I still follow the band…that and they still rock!!
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