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Roadtrip of the Month
"Choose Your Own Adventure"
by Mike Morrow, your friendly neighborhood TJR editor

Every so often I'll receive an e-mail from someone confused about what Tour Journal Revisited is, and I never quite know how to respond. First and foremost, it's what you, the readers and writers make it. That said: It's not really a place for song by song show reviews or a place to boast about smoking up with the band. Like the other collaborations on this site, and indeed the jam music we listen to, Tour Journal Revisited is a work in progress and hopefully an adventure for all of us, reader, writer, and editor.

Certainly, music means different things to each and every one of us. I think those of us who listen to "jam bands" would all agree, however, that music is, or should be, an adventure. We are seldom disappointed; we find this sense of exploration in an extraordinary jam or when we try to predict a setlist, but most profoundly we find it in each other on tour. Meeting new people, visiting new places, and seeking new vibes are all the kinds of adventures that fulfill us between, during, and after the shows themselves.

These are the "adventures" I envision filling this space. Not necessarily adventures in a grand or heroic sense, but in the humanity and community we share. You can tell a lot about a culture by its stories, and the scene we partake in is ripe with funny, tragic, exciting, and inspiring tales all fodder for Tour Journal Revisited.

The adventures we've had in pursuit of great music are each our own, and I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this has a great one to tell. So, choose your own adventure and share it here.

Thanks, and have fun!
Mike Morrow

Email your questions, comments, & adventures to morrowm@concentric.net

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Site editor's note- I convinced a friend of mine to contribute a TJR recollection of her first Phish Halloween show, at Goddard College 1989. Enjoy (and next month please submit a piece of your own to Mike...)

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"I won't pretend that I've been into Phish since, well since the pre-Phish days, you know Space Antelope and all that. Although my friend's sister did go to college with this guy named Jason who claimed he played in the band that Trey was in before Space Antelope, which was the band that Trey was in before he was in Phish. Long and boring? Maybe, but that's how I first heard about Phish. We were juniors at Boston University in 1989, living in the BU burbs in Allston. We had missed Phish's first two gigs at Molly's, but we caught them in January at the Paradise and as they say, we were hooked. It seemed like they were there every few months after that and we'd keep checking them out- I know they were at the Paradise again that spring and then once in the summer and a few times again the next fall. I could go on about one of those gigs but the one I remember most is the Goddard College Halloween show, so I'm here to tell you about that one.

"A lot of us made the trip from Boston. There were a number of little caravans heading up to Goddard, which was pretty impressive because it was the middle of the week. We bugged out of Boston pretty late, like four o'clock or so. You probably could care less about the Grateful Dead but what I remember about the drive is that this was a few weeks after the Dead had played two sick shows down in Hampton, the same place where Phish would later play a sick show of their own. We had just gotten those tapes so we decided to play them back to back during the drive, the complete first show and then the complete second show and we made it to Goddard before we got to the song that I had been waiting all afternoon to hear, Dark Star. Then we couldn't find a place to park. There were cars up and down the roads but eventually we found a spot. We were pretty far away and we could just make out the sound of a band playing so we spazzed out and started running. But then, just about at the same moment, the four of us realized that this wasn't Phish so we eased up. We followed this music to this old barn and paid our way in. I remember that the show was some sort of benefit to refurbish the barn or give it better heating or something like that, which I thought was pretty cool. What wasn't cool was the noise. Ninja Custodian was playing and I just couldn't get into it. They were kind of loud and blustery and off-key. But maybe they just had a bad show or we had been in the car for too long and I was primed for Phish and not these punky, loud semi-goofballs.

"Now, about the crowd. This is going to be hard to explain so please bear with me. Oh yeah, first of all practically everyone except us was in costume. These weren't the Phish-related costumes that people wear to Halloween nowadays, just run of the mill college costume party stuff. The costumes made the whole experience seem real intense and even a little but sinister. In Boston when people came out to see Phish, you'd see some familiar faces, drink a few beers and just groove on the music. This crowd wasn't that much bigger than what I was used to, but the people here were really manic, really hyper about the show, you could tell. I'm not really sure how many people there were hardcore Phishheads and how many were there just to party, but you could tell that they'd been looking forward to this night for a while.

"Anyhow, eventually, thankfully, Phish came on stage and started with Suzie. Trey and Mike were definitely in costumes. Trey wore devil horns and this fake bare chest, with big pecs which made him look like a Norse god or something like that. Mike had some sort of animal mask on, maybe a donkey or a horse, although one of my friends thought it was a hockey goalie mask and another thought it was one of those masks from A Clockwork Orange (I don't remember if Page wore a costume but I think he may have had an animal mask as well). As for Jon, I couldn't really see him very well from my vantage point but I could tell that he was wearing clothing, which was sort of a letdown. On the ride up to Goddard I'd heard a few stories about previous Goddard College Halloweens and I was really hoping to see Jon naked with an elephant painted onto his wiener (sigh, a girl can dream can't she?).

"As for musical memories- here's what I wrote in my journal on the way home about a few of the songs: AC/DC Bag- 'bubbled along and kept me smiling', Reba- 'gorgeous jam full of textures, with a beautiful countermelody from Page,' Walk Away- 'jumped along with Trey and Mike throughout the song,' (maybe there were on trampoline, I can't remember) YEM- 'came up behind me and whispered in my ear, then as I leaned over to listen, punched at the back of my knees and tried to knock me over,' Highway to Hell - 'totally fun goof especially because of Trey's costume,' Divided Sky- 'sonic beauty that alternately screamed and cried, great facial expressions from Trey as he mouthed the notes.' The highlight of the night for me had to be David Bowie. Before they started the song, they reached into a giant box and began throwing boxes of macaroni and cheese into the audience. Then Jon started into a drum beat while the audience responded by shaking their boxes. This continued for a while until Mike joined in as well, then Page and Trey. And just then when everyone seemed to be in synch and the band started off into a Bowie that cooked (which is what we did with our macaroni and cheese when we finally made it back to Boston at 5:00 AM)."