Matt McGrath is one of the many Phish fans who are currently in Mexico, excitedly awaiting the beginning of the band’s three-day festival in Riviera Maya. A couple weeks ago, however, McGrath’s most recent Phish experience was almost destroyed after several tickets to the group’s New Year’s run at New York’s Madison Square Garden were stolen from him in a Manhattan bar.

As Gothamist reports, McGrath was leaving the bar with several fellow Phish fans when he realized the tickets were missing. The bar’s staff claimed to know nothing about it. McGrath luckily was able to get all the tickets cancelled and reissued and enjoyed the entire four-night run after considerable effort, but the story doesn’t end there.

After a woman approached him at MSG with a ticket stub for his exact seat, McGrath went into detective mode, listening to the woman’s story about a certain bartender at a certain Manhattan bar who gave her the ticket for free. McGrath returned to the bar and confronted the owner, who viewed security footage and found “pretty damning evidence” that the bartender in question was guilty. The employee was immediately fired.

“The worse thing about it is the Phish fans that night were the perfect clientele,” the owner says. “They’re very knowledgeable about beer, and it’s a shame this one guy put a stain on their experience.”

As for McGrath, he laments the fact that anyone could do that, saying, “There’s no reason to steal from your fellow man, it violates the social contract. I feel very strongly about that.”

Speaking from the experience of over 200 Phish shows, McGrath adds his two cents about the band’s NYE concert. “The hourglass jam on New Year’s Eve is up there as a tie with the 2002 comeback from hiatus, when they did 7 Below and made it snow inside MSG.”

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