The music fan is one to be admired for without him or her you wouldn’t have the big concert, the live venue. Hundreds of centuries ago the local orator recited his tales of gods and brave Ulysses while small crowds of people gathered around intently dangling by every word as he swelled at the high points and pulled back for the mysterious lows. The fan gave him reason to be dynamic; it forced him to improve with each performance. Of course the oral tradition was that of stories being passed generation to generation because the masses couldn’t read or write so they spoke and in order to make it memorable they had to put some ass into it; it had to be lyrical, musical. After some years someone thought that it might be more interesting if they were to accompany their long tales with some musical instrument. Of course that was the true birth of rock in roll. You see without the fan demanding better entertainment, the artist would have been quite content with his tight group of cronies and his artistic prejudices. Rock n Roll was also born due to the fact that storytelling was getting competitive and small pub owners were requiring that the performers draw a certain number of people or else they were going to be looking for someone that could. Oh how history does repeat itself.

So what happens when the local band has too many people wanting to see their performance and the small pub is no longer adequate? Well they have to find a bigger place to play to accommodate the many fans. Then like a domino train more fans fall into line. It’s that human behavior mechanism that causes people to say, "hey, why are so many people going to see these guys? I gotta check it out." Fans get more fans and sooner or later there will be so many of them that the word crosses the fruitful plains and now the band gets to hit the road. Here is also where the corporate machine gets involved to of course ‘assist’ the artistic integrity but that’s another subject altogether. You have to assume that for a band to move from the mid-size theater to the amphitheater they must have some incredible thing going on. Why else would people spend $10 on ticket service charges? Not for anything else but let’s take the phenomenal Phish.

The year was 1992 and I was just entering college when a friend asked if I wanted to see Santana perform at the fairgrounds outside of Tucson. I said absolutely and it was that very concert that the up and coming Phish opened the show. They were pretty intriguing and I made sure to see them again when they came through town. At the time I had been attending as many Dead shows as I could and it seemed fitting that a similar crowd would be into the young Phish. However I was quickly put in my place for associating the two bands and fans were taking offense to the mention of the ‘other’ band in their presence. "They’re not at all like the dead. They’re better," the younger Phish phan would say. "They’re too contrived and perfect," the older Deadhead would say. This confused me and as years went by I found myself more and more cynical about the whole parking lot of them. To me the opportunity to enjoy my reckless college years attending concerts and driving hours and days to just make one or two shows was priceless. I had many, many incredible and enjoyable experiences, yes me a huge music fan. I just didn’t understand the animosity.

I’m proud of the fact that I got to see Phish play at the Palace in Los Angeles, or the Ventura Theater. These places were 500 person max venues and I felt like I could fully enjoy the talent and the intimacy. I remember the truly acapella performances of ‘Sweet Adeline’. I can only imagine what it was like to see them perform in the small college town bars they started in and where they cultivated their art. Suddenly as if it were over night the band hit the West Coast (as they rarely do it seems), and they’re too big to play the small venues. Now they’re playing the Cow Palace and Arco Arena. I wasn’t upset as much as I was glad I got to experience the up and coming before they were the here and now. I continued to frequent their concerts and eventually I graduated college and had to pull back the reigns a bit on spontaneity. I found myself missing shows within a 50-mile radius, unheard of for a loyal music fan, but I just couldn’t find the time.

The year is 2000 and Phish are still going strong, (they still hardly play the West Coast) and now their success has helped to propel the careers of many other similar ‘art rock’ bands nationwide. Now music fans can get a fix on every level. Unfortunately there are still those people who think ‘their’ band is the only thing going and all else pales in comparison. Finally, Phish finds themselves on the West Coast to entertain our thirst and they play Vorizon Wireless Amphitheater, (formally Irvine Meadows) which if you recall is the very place that the Grateful Dead were banned from in the late ‘80’s. Irvine is in the heartland of the prestigious Orange County, CA; home of one of the largest Republican populations per capita; a place where strip malls dominate and roads are re-paved every year; where the only diversity is the shades of sun-tan and where I just happened to go to high school. They were banned because the few days they played there the town basically thought that they were being invaded by the Sand-people. "It smells like hell down there," my grandfather said. "Those people are all on drugs," my friend’s mom told us. Well it kind of did and I guess most were, on drugs that is. Oh how youth does get oppressed. I haven’t lived in OC for some time now but much of my youth was spent sneaking into as many concerts as I could at the local Irvine Meadows. From Erasure to Iron Maiden we attempted all, our newest summer shoes our 'season tickets'.

I pay to get in now days and to see Phish in my home turf was a not to miss event. I got to the parking lot and to my amazement there was everything you would expect, which from this town you would never expect because the Man’s presence is usually rampant. What I mean is that every drug imaginable was being whispered into my ears as I explored the vending tents, this isn’t San Francisco, this is still Irvine, CA. I mentioned to some random conversation that "I was from here," proud as I was.

This guy says to me, "yeah? Me too."

I said, "Really? What high school did you go to?"

"Oh," he said, "not that close."

So me being the wise ass asked, "So you mean you’re from this side of the Mississippi?"

"No, LA," he said confused.

I mean who honestly visits Orange County. I figured if he said he was from around here that he meant in the immediate vicinity. I was just excited to be around the scene again and I really couldn’t believe it was taking place in my hometown. I’m used to seeing a concert here, not so unlike that of Shoreline, where if you want to stand and dance you can expect to hear "Sit down" from some uppity couple behind you who are trying to enjoy the concert while lying down with their home brought sandwiches. God forbid if you should want to smoke. This usually happens at concerts that involve groups that have been around for 20 to 30 years but that still put on a great show; like Steely Dan, CSN, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan and Paul Simon to name just a few. So the ‘older’ music fan still wants to experience the rock concert but they’d rather do it sitting down and they can’t fully enjoy the music if they can’t see the people playing it. I never could understand this logic because I enjoy being on my feet and moving around to the music. I get tired from time to time and need to sit for a bit but I can still hear the concert just fine, I mean besides the light show all your looking at is a few guys playing their instruments. "Hey, did you see that? He just stepped on some pedal. That was cool."

So back to the Phish concert.

My wife and I went with a friend who is a big fan and his girlfriend who has never been to a Phish concert. So we were a little late getting there and had to pick up our tickets at will call. A young man informed me that this concert wasn’t going to be that good because the band was going to blow out all other concerts the following night up in the Bay area. This was because they were going to be taking an extended hiatus from touring after the Shoreline shows. I turned to my friend and said, "He’s right man, let’s just go home." I then turned to our tour play by play analyst and said, "Big deal. Every 20 months is about how often they make it to California anyway."

So we got our tickets and made it to our seats a few songs into the first set. I was so happy as I turned around to suck in my surroundings. There was a big grin on my face as I looked over to see a pulsing crowd all jumping and gyrating to the music. THIS is a concert I said to myself. Right away my friend’s girlfriend wasn’t happy with the venue. She kept saying, "I hate this place. There are too many people here." That was my cue to exit stage left and explore the crowd. Within minutes I saw most of my friends in the beer line or close by. It’s always been that way for us and no matter what the event or venue we have this way of meeting like homing pigeons. So we enjoyed the first set and caught up with each other all at the same time. Then the band started playing Horn and I got lost in the blue lights and sweet guitar melody. All in all an enjoyable first set with a few cover gems.

After the break I made it back to the seats where the couple we came with were sitting. To my dismay, his girlfriend was still unhappy and freaking out. Now she was screaming over the chorus of NICU, "This place is not me. I want to get out of here!" It was unnerving and she was obviously overcome with anxiety over the whole situation. I’ve seen similar drug induced frenzies before but this was one that would only be fixed by leaving the concert. I told my friend to go down to the grassy food court and wait while I went and got my wife who was sitting with our other friends.

They were all sitting in the back row of the terrace section and the intro of David Bowie could be heard through the wall of people as I walked to them. I told my wife of our predicament and we said or good-byes and started to leave when I eyed another friend that I hadn’t seen yet and I started shouting his name. I was probably only 6 feet away from him but the music was so loud right there that he couldn’t hear me, so I shouted his name a few more times when this ‘fashionable’ girl in a long skirt grabbed my arm and said with a pretentious smile, "Can you please be quiet, We’re trying to listen to some music here." Who did this girl think she was? The ‘Concert-goer’s Rules and Regulations’ police. Now my possible responses to her were:

A.Well maybe if you pulled your head out of that tight ass of yours you could hear better.

B.WHAT DID YOU SAY? Sorry I can’t hear you the music’s too loud.

C.It’s all-good.

Or D) Why don’t you and your boyfriend with the Peter Frampton hairdo go Fuck yourselves.

Instead I said, "yeah? Me too. In fact that’s why we’re all here. Thanks for sharing that with me." Was I supposed to be completely silent, motionless and meditating on every note? Granted it was the very quiet and groovy beginning of the David Bowie jam, the part that is more or less the quiet before the storm. I love that song and was not at all happy about leaving the show right then. I didn’t mean to interrupt somebody’s moment there I just wanted to say hello and good bye to a good friend. It was as if she wanted me to know that one; this was ‘real’ music going on here and two; that she was a ‘true’ listener of it. Her attitude toward me was as if I was not there for the music or that I was on drugs or something, which was not the case.

As I walked away from my friends and this ‘Listener of Fine Music’ I began to recall a dead show experience my friends and I had. This happy memory made me laugh uncontrollably and I began to put everything into perspective. The memory was of an Oakland Coliseum show where we were all on some sort of mind altering drug and the band was playing a very intense Bird Song. The jam had gotten to where it was so quiet you could only hear the faint hiss of the PA speakers; the silence was uncanny. Suddenly my friend screams at the top of his lungs in ecstasy, "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!" He was just caught up in the moment. He was surely heard by the band members themselves and I’m sure some taper out there captured his primal scream. No one was upset by this interruption; in fact we all started to laugh and people around us were all caught up in the excitement. You see this was not a violation of sacred space, this was the music inspiring someone to join the band so to say even if only for a few seconds. The only comment my friend got from someone around us was that they hoped he knew a good throat doctor.

I realized as I was driving out of Irvine that as much as I wanted to believe that this band or that this concert was different from all the others, it really was just a different side of the same coin. Whether I’m at a classic rock concert where someone’s grandparents are telling me to sit down or whether I’m at a contemporary hippie event where someone is telling me to shut up and ‘savor every note’ it’s all the same oppression. I remember going to see an old Jazz pianist play at this small club in SF and a few people sitting at a table in the front row were having a quiet conversation when the artist stopped playing in the middle of a song and told the people to stop talking while he was playing or go outside. The people got up and left and I did too. I was actually offended that he would scold paying fans that way, the very people who came to hear some music. So what if they were having some conversation, they were still there for the music. What’s happened to music? First, parents tell their kids that they can’t listen to certain types of music. Now we have rules of how were supposed to listen to music?

The Phish fan has not changed much either except that they aged a little bit. The tour consists of more toddlers then I remember last. The fashion and drugs are all the same. I hate to sound like a broken record here but Phish fans were always the ones that had an attitude about their sacred band like the braggart proud parents of an honor roll student; The kind of attitude that turned many deadheads off of the band in the early years. I mean I think Phish are some of the most talented and creative dudes on the music scene and I was always the first to defend their significance in the world, but I never could understand why people thought you had to be a super music connoisseur to enjoy them.

The music fan will always have their demands and let’s face it; the musician will always try to appease their audience. First they play the little places always looking to increase their audience. Then the crowds get bigger and the band finds bigger places to play to once again accommodate their beloved fans. Then right when they think they’ve done it and they’ve pleased everyone someone has to start screaming, "This place is too big and there are too many people!"