by Benjy Eisen

California was named after a fictional island from a Spanish romance novel. That's not to say that the Golden State is fictional, only that its foundation is based on fairy tale. This is a good thing. California has one of the highest peaks in North America (Mt. Whitney) adjacent to the lowest (Death Valley). California's first town was San Jose, founded in 1777. Seventy-one years after that James Marshall discovered gold in Sutter's Mill and a year later the greatest gold rush of all time was underway.

I, too, went to California in search of gold and I was expecting to find it at Shoreline Amphitheater. You want to talk about history, kid, Shoreline is it. In the 1800's fortune hunters from across the great divide followed the path of the sun to the Sierra's in search of riches but in the 1960's a different migration was happening on Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. It was a cultural revolution and a musical upheaval and sure enough the Grateful Dead were a part of it. Promoter Bill Graham created venues like The Fillmore and Winterland - venues which would become as legendary as the bands that played them. When Bill Graham built Shoreline as his amphitheater, The Grateful Dead played it as their home. Housed under a large circus tent, Shoreline Amphitheater has accumulated a history of countless nights filled with music...and with magic too, no doubt.

In 1906 an earthquake and resulting fires destroyed nearly all of San Francisco. In 1999, Phish was on stage at Shoreline, destroying and rebuilding cities of their own - cities inhabited by music, myth, legacy and ritual.

The first night at Shoreline was a typical Phish show. It was as if to say, "Here we are. We're Phish. This is what we do." It wasn't that it was unattractive or without merit - it just wasn't always immaculate or that fresh, that's all. Warren Haynes came on for a Misty Mountain Hop encore and that raged of course. It was sick even.

In California, the landscape is dramatic and varied. You can go skiing on a snow-covered mountainside and a couple hours later relax with sun and margaritas on a sandy beach. So, too, was the second night at Shoreline a dramatic departure from the first. Phish was en fuego from the start, throwing out a first set that was as energetic and hunger driven as the classic Phish from '94 or '95.

From the start the band knew that every note counted and likewise, every note was meant to be heard. The second set saw a level of maturity in Phish's delivery which was marked by both integrity and intensity. Phish suddenly learned how to use space and yet retain energy. The notes from Roggae seemed buoyant, floating lightly to the top of the circus tent; the outline of dancers at the top of the lawn helping to push the music upwards giving it wings and turning sound into flight. Turning flight into fancy.

Then Phish started playing You Enjoy Myself. In many ways the quintessential Phish tune, the notes were *there* again - each note like a kiss that never gets old because both partners are so in the moment, so present and accounted for and not thinking about what they'll make for dinner that night or what they'll tell the babysitter to feed their kid or what homework they have yet to do for school tomorrow. If you're going to kiss someone, kiss them damn it! But don't do it absently. Bringing Phil Lesh onstage at a Phish show in You Enjoy Myself was an obvious choice. It was also the best. You can't get more "Phish" than YEM. The image of Phil Lesh jumping on a trampoline, well, there's no mistaking it - he's onstage at a Phish show. Not Phil and Phriends, nor any other ones. Phil Lesh was onstage for a Phish show, and Phish had him in their territory - jumping up and down on a trampoline to indecipherable lyrics while Page raged the organ like a madman with his ass on fire.

The crowd had been expecting the Phil appearance since rumors flew like pesos in the Shoreline lots. Phil was here and he was going to play. Still, to see him actually appear on-stage with Phish created an undeniable buzz in the audience and I too had a buzz going of sorts. And I was floored that this was really happening, and I was positive that it9d be off the hook, and I love what Phil Lesh has done, what he has been a part of, what he has created, what he represents...but I'm not much for credentials. I mean it's like fuck history - show me what you've got! I said fuck history - show me what you've got. People are going to call the second night of Shoreline monumental. And in a way, I suppose, maybe it was. Maybe in a way it represented a passing of the torch or a nod from the ancient one or an approval from the daughter's father. It's all bullshit though. It's words and phrases. It's concepts and ideas. Musical merit is what I'm after and there was indeed music during that set. My god, are you kidding me? There was SO much music! Not earth shattering life-altering music but still music. Blessed, sacred, precious music!! It moved me to dance and it moved me to interact with those around me while five musicians interacted on stage and it inspired spirit, not myth; experience not legend. I came to Shoreline Amphitheater looking for gold, and I found it. I found it in the YEM -> Wolfman's -> Cold Rain and Snow with Phish and Phil Lesh and I found it in the Runaway Jim, Roggae and Piper and I found it in the dance of the beast that moved me underneath a giant circus tent in Mountain View, California and I found it in my friend's eyes as I looked deeply into them in the lot afterwards and pulled her close and whispered a secret in her ear. There was gold everywhere. There always is. It's just a matter of digging for it sometimes, that's all.

After the show we decided to drive straight through to Chula Vista, way down the California coast, directly past San Diego and just a shot away from Tijuana, Mexico. As we drove, we flirted with the coastline and at one point we stopped by Santa Maria to put our feet in the Pacific Ocean, as if to prove to ourselves that we were really here. That we had made it.

This is as far west as it goes - I made it all the way to the end of the continent. There was nothing more I could do - I couldn't go any further. I was at the edge. Manifest Destiny baby. A couple days later I realized I was wrong of course. There's always more ground to cover, more things to see and discover. Life is never ending. Every day presents new opportunity. Every opportunity a new adventure. To hell with manifest destiny. There's no such thing! Phish has played You Enjoy Myself hundreds of times across North America and even a couple in other continents as well, revealing the same constellations but in different skies. And every time it's different. And it wasn't until one night in the fall of the last year of the millennium that they got to play it with Phil Lesh. And still how many more YEMs do we have to enjoy? And what will they sound like? We'll have to find out...and that's something worth being happy about. And me? I've got things to jiboo and lessons to learn and religions to invent; nights to conquer and shit to talk.

When I came to California, I thought it was as far as I could go. But like Phish playing their very first YEM when they were still a no-name band in Burlington, they still had over a decade to go before they'd get to rage it with the bassist from the Grateful Dead in front of close to 20,000 people just outside of San Francisco. And I don't have the slightest clue where I'll be a decade from now, but I do know this - that it can only be steps ahead. That it can only be steps forward. And that I have a long way to go. And now its just a couple days later and I'm on my way to New Mexico and Austin, Texas after that and then New Orleans where I plan on staging a revolution on Bourbon Street. From there I'll continue to dance across the roads of America on my way to tomorrow as I have done all my life and as I plan on continuing to do as long as there is music and a beat to do it by.

I came to California expecting to find gold. And I think I found it at Shoreline.