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Mid-Atlantic Report
Edited by Anthony Coloneri - ester8@mindspring.com

• There's a Dog At The Station
• Widespread Panic Turns DC Into a "City of Dreams"
• Dave Matthews Does It Again
• Warm Waters Packs Them In
• Three Quarter Squeegee Sam I am
• Thanks Doug by Bill Marconi

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There's a Dog At The Station
By Warren Congdon

Set I:
Hey all, just wanted to give a little review on the Albany show. This is my first review so bear with me. PYITE was a good opener, great to get down to. The sound was a little weak though. It doesn't help that I was in the back of the arena. My Soul, nice to hear but it didn't keep the energy up from PYITE. Roggae, I really like this tune. One of my favs from the new album. And yes, Fishman belongs in a circus with bears and clowns and noise. Especially with that viking helmet on. AC/DC Bag, Oh yeah now we're talking. I love this song and it really got me groovin'. Lifeboy, any song that Page sings is great and this is no exception. DAVID BOWIE, the intro was awesome. It kinda scared me. Spooky and spacey. I thought it was going into maze but it did rip. I'd have to say the highlight of the first set for me. Sleep and Driver, this is only the second time I have heard these songs but they were nice. I like seeing Trey break out the acoustic. GxBx, always a good closer I think. A little sloppy but Page again just was on. He's the man!

Set II:
2001, I called it but I think most people did also. Great 2nd set opener, it seemed a little short but it was a nice version. The lights on this are always sweet, and this was no exception. Golgi, nice placement and there seemed to be a lot of energy at this point. Drowned, this was great. Mike is such a bad ass and this showed it. The place was going nuts, well I know I was. Caspian, well I'm not a big fan of it. It was pretty standard and short. I guess it was a nice time to puff, puff, give. Piper, I almost thought they were going into Harpua, but I think it was just me. That idea was short lived and out popped piper. I like this song, great energy. One thing, after hearing "Piper, piper the great big worm" 30 times, one after another it kinda gets under my skin. It is a great song and this one did rock. YEM, YES. So excited to here this. Not just because it's my fav song, but my buddy was at his first show. I didn't think he was having a great time but I knew the second this came out that he'd be mesmerized. I was right. What can you say about a YEM. Just incredible. And out comes the vocal jam. Waiting for those revolving lights ala Vernon Downs. Yup, out they came. Imagine this, sitting in the middle of a racetrack and hearing the cars race by. VROOOOOooooom,VROOOOOooooom. (I hope you catch my point) Well that's what the lights and the vocals were doing. Splitting the arena down the middle. Sick! Been Caught stealin', Not expected, I thought YEM was going to end the set. They really nail this tune, and it carries a lot of energy so it was sweet. Llama, I actually thought they were going into Mike's but that also came to an end fast. This too seemed short but you gotta love it. Highlights were YEM and Drowned. They made the show for me.

Encore:
I wasn't expecting too much, hoping for an antelope to set my gearshift but I guess I have to wait for MSG. Something sounded great, again Page just doing his thing. I really couldn't get into it 'cause all I knew of this song was the chorus but it was nice. Guyute, played a lot yes but I still love it. Pretty standard but I'll take a standard Guyute anyday. That had to be it right? Then I see Trey start running around like a little schoolboy, then to the acapella mikes. Freebird I thought to myself, yeah right I said. Then they broke it out...YES! These guys never seem to amaze me. The only problem was towards the end of the song when they rip that song to shreds the audience was cheering so loud you really couldn't hear it well. Over all a really good show. I'd have to give it a 8.5. Highlights are the YEM and Freebird. Everything was great overall except I guess there was some window smashing in one of the lots. That's f*cking ridiculous. Not needed at a Phish show. Sorry to the person w/o a window in their car. Oh yeah, can't them damn cops put diapers on those horses? Peace and see ya @ MSG Kingofprussia@hotmail.com

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Widespread Panic Turns DC Into a "City of Dreams" By Chuck Schneider

11/09/98 9:30 Club, Washington, DC
Last Show (days): 2 # Songs: 21 Avg LTP: 6.3 Avg L3TP: 11.6
1: Heroes > Space Wrangler > Weak Brain, Narrow Mind, Holden Oversoul >
Dirty Business, One Arm Steve, Happy > Rebirtha, Conrad the Caterpillar
2: Red Hot Mama > Aunt Avis > Diner > Junior, You'll Be Fine, Stop-Go >
Impossible > Drums > Pleas > Radio Child
E: City of Dreams, Red Beans Cookin'

Widespread Panic playing two nights at the 9:30 club? The last time I saw Widespread Panic was at Merriweather Post Pavilion, an amphitheater that holds around 15,000 people. The last time I saw them in a room smaller than 1,000 was in 1994 at Dickinson College where the tickets were printed on construction paper. Add to this that I live five minutes from the venue, you can figure that I hadn’t been this excited about a couple shows in a long time.

Pregame:
9:30 Club is in a pretty awful neighborhood. It’s a few blocks east of the “U Street Corridor” bars and clubs that are gaining popularity among the hip despite its location east of 16th Street (the rather arbitrary “safe” boundary for many Washingtonians). The U Street Corridor is a few blocks east of the popular (and overcrowded) neighborhood of Adams Morgan, where I live. Deciding to drive rather than walk or taxi, we struck out for the club at about 6:45 (having had just enough time to change out of my suit and wolf down a pulled pork sandwich from Rocklands and a Wild Goose Amber Ale). Three minutes later, we parked right across from the club and got a good spot in the line that had formed outside the doors. The crowd was very relaxed waiting to get in. Finally, the doors opened at around 8:00, and I was about the 20th person in the door. I made a quick sweep by the bar for a bottle of Wild Goose Amber Ale (didn’t have to switch beers – is that a harbinger for a good night or what?!), and walked right up to the stage. A group had sat down backs to the stage to hold their front row view, so we sat facing them, about 2 feet to the right of John Bell’s mic. The club’s setup is as close to perfect as it can get. There is a decent sized stage, and a big open floor with bars (the kinds that serve alcohol) on either side. The upstairs is a square balcony with limited seating on the sides, and bar type seating facing the stage. I think there’s a bar up there, but to tell you the truth, I’ve never gone up there. So there we sat, in front of the stage, waiting for the band to come on. We waited till about 9:00.

1st Quarter
The PA music went off, and the band walked on to the stage. It was pretty crowded up there. The mics were set up at the front of the stage, and the monitors were almost teetering on the edge. JB looked down at us as he aimlessly strummed his guitar (he’s growing the beard back, by the way), and the rest of the band made various noises with their instruments. The all stopped, nodded at each other, and broke into “Heroes.” They were clearly psyched to be playing such an intimate show. JB had a grin on his face as he played. This was the closest I had ever been to him as he was playing, and in fact I was a little self -conscious after catching his eyes about two minutes into the song. I decided that rather than gawk at him, I’d spend most of the show watching David Schools hold court to my right. Being so close, and basically listening to the show out of JB’s monitor, and Schools’ amp, I noticed that those two contribute a lot more musically than I had realized. I’ve listened to a lot of Panic, but have almost always focused on Michael Houser, and the percussion duo. With them, and [keyboardist] pretty much mixed out, JB’s improvisation (he’s not just standing there playing rhythm) and Schools’ sickeningly charismatic bass lines shone. In fact, I was so consumed with taking in this, that I really made few mental notes on the first set as a whole. Everything was played very well and with a lot of energy, but nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary comes to mind. At one point, Schools hit a deep, heavy note that made our innards shake. With a menacing grin, he played it a few more times until I thought my head would bounce off my shoulders. One more note on the scene, though, is that the crowd around me was remarkably courteous. No one pushed or crowded at all. Kudos to the guys in front of me that let the little kid get right up front.

2nd Quarter
After long break (with the PA playing good classic rock and a little Galactic mixed in), the guys came back out. “It’s the second quarter,” was the most JB would utter all night, and with that they launched into “Red Hot Mama.” Although I hadn’t budged, I decided during the setbreak to try to listen to the “whole” band, which I could pretty much do if I watched Michael Houser’s fingers (I still could barely hear him). His guitar soared as they moved through “Mama” into “Aunt Avis.” These guys were definitely ‘on.’ I couldn’t help but to concentrate on JB’s noodlings. While Houser was off playing his solos, JB was harmonizing them, and sometimes just seemed to be having fun playing his own thing. The entire band, while incredibly tight, was equally independent. Only when JB walked over to Houser did he give him the full spotlight. And all the while, Schools was busting out great melodic riffs. He was really into the crowd, letting them egg him into solos and even getting him to bounce up and down a little with them. At one point, he engaged in a little game of kickball with a balloon. He was definitely the most dynamic and entertaining member of a band whose stage presence, in my opinion, leaves a bit to be desired. Just when I thought they were going to end the second set, everyone left the stage for a great “Drums.” Domingo Ortiz ate up the crowd’s enthusiasm as John Hermann played a little marimba behind the drum kits. Hermann walked off, and Ortiz broke the solo down to the Congos as he grooved with the crowd. He was spelled as they played a great “Please.” They turned up Houser’s guitar for this one, and even he had a grin on his face as the band settled in and let him rip through his solo. With the crowd whipped into a frenzy, they made a quick transition into “Radio Child,” and capped it off with the usual crescendos. JB thanked us, and walked off the stage.

2 Minute Warning
I think I speak for much of the crowd when I say that I was exhausted at this point. After a long day of work, and then bouncing up and down in a loud, hot, sweaty, smoky club with nothing in me but two beers and BBQ pork, I didn’t have enough energy to clap and scream for an encore. God knows I wanted it, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to encourage it. Fortunately, they came out quickly. They eased into it with a beautiful “City of Dreams.” JB’s voice is so soulful, and seeing how he felt the song made this one memorable. They finished it to a great applause, and then ripped into “Red Beans Cooking.” If this song, with its rock n’ roll beat and its call and response lyrics, doesn’t make you move, you’ve got issues. Gathering every bit of strength I could muster (and inspiration from the guy with the big curly hair to my right who was moving all night like he had his hand on the third rail of the Metro tracks), I danced myself dead as they finished up the first half of their run. “I could do that again,” I said to someone. “Yeah, let’s this tomorrow night,” I heard someone else say. The kicker, of course, was that we would. Although tomorrow, I vowed, I’m watching from the balcony.

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Warm Waters Packs Them In
By Micah Mellander

Warm Waters, the young jam band from the Binghamton NY area, recently played two very successful gigs along with fellow local band "Pictures of Sex", who hosted their own Halloween party, "The Harvest Ball". It was held at the Sons of Italy in Endicott, NY and brought in around 700 people!! They also recently played the Kahlura Hall in Endicott NY with Eventide. It was a fun show with a debut of Josh Mellander’s vocal talents on "Whole Lotta Love" and the boys even pulled off a very funny cover of the "Fresh Price Theme Song". The show brought in around 100 people and the proceeds went to benefit CHOW, a local hunger outreach program. For upcoming gigs, check their website at http://listen.to/warmwaters

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Three Quarter Squeegee Sam I am
By Charlie

As expected, the night before Thanksgiving (and all through the house...) at Whitlow's on Wilson, Arlington, VA, proved to be a bumper-crop night for Three Quarter Squeegee. There was a line of patient fans halfway down Filmore before TQS even took the stage. A special thanks goes out to the Arlington County Fire Marshall for working overtime to keep the majority of us music lovers in a line around the block half of the night.

TQS opened the night with a few originals, "Dr. Seuss" & "Long Gone", that stole a page out of the funky New Orleans handbook. And on a night like this, it was the perfect catalyst to set people dancing. And, that's the way it stayed all night. The room was moving as the band slipped into their own renditions of songs like "Fat Man In The Bathtub" by Little Feat and The Allman Brothers' "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed." But, time and time again, it was Three Quarter Squeegee's originals that got the crowd working. The body of their work is a guitar-heavy mix of jazz-influenced changes over funky blues-based rhythms. I gather these guys spent some time with Steely Dan and Santana.

Throughout the night, TQS found time to stretch out, following each other in and out of phrases and rhythms like a heated conversation. These moments are a tribute to the "big ears" in the band. And, for those of us who really enjoy watching and listening to a band play together, it was a special treat to hear an entire band soloing at once; one complete thought delivered by six players. If you think that sort of thing ain't possible, just check it out for yourself.

Their next gig is December 4th at Uncle Jed's Roadhouse in Bethesda, MD. Let's hope Maryland is as grateful to the boys as Virginia.

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Dave Matthews Does It Again
By Andrew Slutzky

Allow me if you will to describe a hellish nightmare, which I recently experienced. Unfortunately, this nightmare was actually reality. It took place at Madison Square Garden where I saw (but, could barely hear, due to the intense shrieking of thousands of little girls) the Dave Matthews Band. First, let me take you back to the summer of 1995 when the DMB was performing at the Garden State Arts Center. My friends and I were excited as hell to see these guys we had heard so much about from our cool college pals. We knew that they were already extremely popular with the college scene, so we felt privileged to be able to take part. The crowd was filled mostly with college aged, groove loving music phans. The jams were flowing, and everyone was grooving. It was one of the best shows I’d been to at that point in my life.

Back to 1998. Having a 2 night run at MSG is no small peanuts; then again this is the DMB we’re talking about. They have become one the most popular music acts around. I was excited to score tix for both shows. I was a bit cautious however, because some shows were great, while others sucked. I wonder what the reason is for their inconsistency? I knew what we were getting into as we entered MSG. Trying to battle our way through hyper teenage Abercrombie poster girls was a pain, but we eventually made it to our seats. By the way, I hope security is as lax for Phish’s MSG run it was that night.

I don’t care for Bela very much, so my girlfriend and I skipped his opening act. Our time waiting for DMB to hit the stage was spent trying to figure out if we’d ever acted as immature as most of the show goers. For some reason, every single moment of their lives has to be handled in the most dramatic way possible. I don’t understand. Finally, Dave hit the stage and was met with screaming that was loud enough to blow my eardrums. I should’ ve brought earplugs, as Dean B. had suggested somewhere on some web page. To my surprise (joking) they began with Seek Up.

Oh great, I thought. Glad I paid to get into this show!

I think they had opened with that 4 other times I’d seen them. See, the problem I have with DMB is that they are just so damn predictable. You know what they are going to play, when they are going to jam, and what chords they will jam. Predictability sucks!!

To be totally honest, I don’t remember, nor did I bother looking for the setlist that night. I would have left early had I not had business to take care of right after the show. Trust me, it was bad. The next night I went back to the Garden and scalped my ticket to some sucker who was excited to see them. “Have a good time,” I said. “You’re gonna love it. Ha ha ha.

I had walked away from that show with a sense of sadness in a way. DMB was my first favorite jamband, to whom I’d devoted so much love and time. It was then that I’d realized that Dave Matthews Band has become that dreaded 7-letter word in the world of Jambands….a SELLOUT. Oh well, maybe they’ll come around again.

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Thanks Doug by Bill Marconi

"How bittersweet was the instant when I saw the setlist from Hampton two. Not only was Tubthumping there, bold and keynote as an encore can be, but so were the Sabotage that earmarked a very intimate moment for us at Merriweather this summer, and most astonishingly, the evasive Divided Sky which is anticipated at the start of every song we've ever been lucky enough to hear them play. Such a torturously wonderful setlist for all my friends to hear. How silly I felt for not pursuing Hampton more aggressively, how slightly redeeming the knowledge that, yes, Hampton was the venue for us to be at. I've got the same feeling about 12/29/98 and 12/30/98 that I had about Hampton. If anything else positive is to come out of missing Hampton, it's that I'm not going to let mail order or Ticketmaster discourage me from obtaining the two holiday shows I want to see."

November has been pretty quiet because of some personal demons which have been haunting me over the past several weeks. Since the absolute zenith of personal happiness and emotion at a friend's wedding a few weeks back, I've allowed myself to wallow in all sorts of self deprecating illusions about my current medical health, financial burdens, thoughts about my girls making it on their own, and a legal matter which has dogged me for damn near thirty years. Generally, I try not to bring personal problems to other people until after they're no longer problems. I never want to bring anyone down with the negative silliness that floats through my window, because if anything at all, I've learned that with patience and calm thoughtfulness, most mental crises will dissipate as oddly as they materialized. Out goes the bad air, in comes the good.

Instead I'd like to tell you about what a great weekend this was, and why. Like I vowed to myself above, I did drive into the city last Thursday to stand on line for New Year's Eve Phish tickets. But I almost didn't. The week before last, I emailed to my friend Doug Loeb, and we talked about what tickets we had for the holiday run. He had gotten shut out of 12/31, and all I wanted was seats for 12/30 since I couldn't do New Year's Eve. He offered to help me get my tickets, as I told him I might dive into the Ticketmaster madness for upgrades of the mail order tickets. I talked to my wife Marie about driving into the city for tickets and she wasn't too keen on the idea. It would mean losing time at work, and spending money on just a chance of getting better seats.

However, when I told Marie that I wanted to do it because Doug needed 12/31, she instantaneously agreed with me that I should give it a try. Marie and I had a really wonderful experience this past August at Merriweather, due in part to a pair of second row seats that Doug traded us as upgrades to the lawn seats we had. I couldn't tell you of all of the tremendous personal experiences that we shared that night in Maryland, but suffice it to say that the memory was compelling enough for both of us to agree to help the person who was an integral part of it.

I emailed a few people to see which of the twenty Manhattan locations might be the optimum to take my hit at. My good ole, sweet ole friend Heather McLaughlin itemized and called every location to get the lowdown on their procedures, and I called her for her opinion. She wasn't entirely sure, but figured uptown locations on the fringes were probably the best bets. She had decided, because of work restrictions, not to go for bracelets on Thursday. She wished me luck and I headed out to my zero point, an HMV Music store on Broadway and 72nd St.

New York City is a totally unique and special place. All of the best and the worst of the world is rolled up into a concentrated location of such intensity that it is surely overwhelming. I love to go into the city, but I also love leaving the city. I found the record store with no problem and parked my truck in a garage to be safe. I must have spent at least fifty bucks in two days on parking alone just to get these tickets. I walked up to the Ticketmaster counter and asked the fellow when bracelets would be given out, even though I knew it was at five o'clock. I then asked where the line for bracelets was, and he said wherever I wanted to stand. I was it, a line of one at two fifteen in the afternoon. I called Heather on my wife's cell phone, and told her about this very short line. Within minutes she was giving her supervisor an excuse to go to the doctors, and by 3:45, Heather became number two. We could not believe our luck, and started to speculate that maybe there was a heinous reason why no one was on line.

As we were talking, standing now off to the left of the aisle, actually forming a line, we noticed out of the corner of our eyes an elderly couple standing next to us. Not wanting to block the sales racks of CDs, we slowly moved forward, out of their way, to allow them to see the merchandise. Instead, they moved forward with us until we realized that, holy shit, we WERE the line. Number three was a couple in their seventies who were getting tickets for their fifteen year old grandson in New Hampshire, who was shut out cold from mail order. They lived around the corner on 73rd and were attempting to score all four nights. They were truly an amazingly wonderful couple who took turns sitting down in a folding chair the store had provided them on the other side of the register. Heather and I and number four, a young guy who was also excited to be so close to the front of the line, talked with each of them in turn about Phish, about the bracelet/ticket process and about life in general. He said they had traveled to well over a hundred different countries in their life together and since I asked, he said their favorite place was Costa Rica. We piqued their interest in Phish so much that they bought a copy of Story Of The Ghost, and attempted to score two bracelets so that they could buy an extra pair of tickets to attend one of the shows themselves. I don't know what show they scored, but if you find yourself sitting next to an elderly couple in their seventies, be cool to them. They are very special human beings.

The line grew to about twenty by the five o'clock whistle, and the guy giving out wristbands wasn't requiring that we put them on right away. I got #302 which was the, hmmmm, first bracelet in his sequence. He told us that on Saturday they would call the numbers in the same order, so we were all pretty psyched over the chances of getting decent seats for all four nights. I was pretty charged even though I had just spent the past three hours standing in one spot for a dopey paper bracelet. I blasted the Virginia Beach show from this summer on the way home in the truck, and I had a really positive feeling about the Phish tickets.

The following day I wound up having to drive three hours up to Kingston, NY to deal with lawyers, but even that didn't dampen my spirits. As a matter of fact, my meeting turned out pretty positive there too, and by the time I got home Friday night, I was zipping around the house, ready for a fruitful Saturday. Marie and our friend Roni came with me Saturday morning. They wanted to check out the holiday scene along 5th Avenue and see the tree at Rockefeller Center. So we were up by 4:30 a.m. in time to shower, dress, pick up Roni and make it to the store by about 8:30 a.m.

It was a drizzly kind of day, and I began to get a little apprehensive when we drove beyond the store to the parking lot and saw a quite sizable line in front. We left 3 quick p's and grabbed 3 cups of joe at the local Mickey D's, and headed up the block for the line. I met up with friends Heather, Karen and Bob, and wondered whether these new Ticketmaster guys this morning were going to hold true to the ordering arrangement. On Friday night we heard they started giving out some bracelets below #302, so we were getting a little anxious. They asked us to get into numerical order, and Heather and I met number three and four at the head of the line. There was a couple of people who seemed to have gotten lower numbers, but there was some discussion about who should go in first. As that was happening, they called the line into the store.

As the clock hit just after nine sharp, the counter person was generating two seats for each night for me, as I couldn't believe that I was getting the first clicks out of this machine. He handed my tickets to the cashier and I passed her the money that I was nervously squeezing in my hand. I reached across the counter for the envelope, and just as quickly turned away, after giving her the exact amount. I left nothing to chance at this point. I saw by the screen printout that 12/31 was there, and that's really all I was concerned about. Doug was going to see Phish on New Years Eve.

I met Marie and Roni outside and dared to look at the tickets I had just purchased. I took them out to make sure I had all the nights and seats that I purchased. I saw a lot of Section 3, but little else. I thought, ok, Section 3. Must be on the floor, three sections back. Not bad, section one up front, then two, then three. As I was fiddling with them and Marie was asking me where the seats were, a ticket "broker" who was waiting outside the store, came over to help us. He glanced at the tickets and nearly shit a brick.

He said, "You have three nights in the first row, and 12/31 eighth row center."

He began offering to buy them from me and shoved his business card into my hand. Still not grasping the extent of my luck, I backed away and assured him that I was using all of them. I still didn't believe what he said. I thought maybe he was kidding or trying to encourage me to cut a deal. It wasn't until I got home later that night, when I saw the seating chart, that I realized the value of what I had in my hands. Shit. Three nights in the front row, two nights in the exact same seats.

I remain stunned to the core by the experience, and all it is, in reality, is the promise of good music. It's nothing concrete yet, just the potential for an experience. Strange stuff to be obsessing on, to say the least. I talked to Doug last night after telling him the news on IRC. He had to call me by phone, and thank me. I assured him it was his karma to get NYE. I was just happy to be part of the of the process. I mailed those gems to him this afternoon with as much Post Office protection I could buy. Thinking about the karmic influence at play here, I'm not all that empowered to say whose actions caused what event. Neither one of us is at the concert yet, but the euphoria level is already high. If neither of us hears one note of Phish this holiday will it really diminish what happened this weekend for us? There's a good chance I might only see one of those shows from the first row. I'm going to try like hell to have a good concert experience and share what I can with Marie and with the friends that want to come along. This is really my potential "experience".

Later I got an email from my friend Sean Orzol who opened my eyes a little to the importance of sharing the concert experience with good friends and family when possible. He's entirely right. Getting in is key, but being with the ones you love really adds more to the show than "primo seats". I've really been allowed to enjoy the rush of obtaining wonderful tickets, and I'm pretty embarrassed to admit liking it. It's been akin to getting your number one item under the tree at Christmas... it's totally great. But I really hope that I keep everything in the best perspective when concert time comes, so that I enjoy the total sequence of experiences that started with Doug last August. Sometimes, I think I must be doing the right thing. Sometimes is getting to be more often.