by Jesse Jarnow

First Union Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

We get extremely non-lost... a glimmer of hope followed by a success abuse of title... followed by several unsuccessful abuses of title... the hope flickers... and then there's some fire.

Driving the knotted interstates loops winding from New Jersey into Philadelphia and, eventually, into the northern regions of Delaware, was ultimately an overly symbolic affair. Traumatically symbolic, if I may venture a possible overreaction.

Mint was driving my car. We exited off of 95 to meet up with some friends at a gas station to rendezvous before going to the lot. At the gas station, they gave us directions to the next meeting point, one inside of Philadelphia proper. We had to cross the Walt Whitman Bridge (they named a bridge after him?) before entering the city. We pulled on 295 and headed south... and saw absolutely no signs for said bridge, just indications that we'd soon be entering into Delaware.

So, we turned around. I knew we had to be on 95, so getting back to 95 where we got off of it originally seemed like a safe bet. Passing the Mobil station where we had met before, there was absolutely no entrance to 95 in sight. More terrifying was the fact that there was not a single, solitary trace of the exit we had gotten off at before. The path from whence came had disappeared completely into the night -- like a fake doorway.

That was where the trauma was rooted. Coming from one place, a relatively safe and known place, and discovering that the path from that point was completely wiped off the face of the map, like it never existed. We stopped at WaWa, only to find out that we had been on exactly the right road for the entire time. Grrr. That was the keynote for the rest of the night, the thing that made the first set of the show so completely horrible for me.

Like with driving, all of it could've been possibly avoided if I had simply followed the directions laid out initially and gone to the place where my ticket had told me to. I didn't. The first stop was a seat about four rows off the floor. Then the band started, and we tried to make it down to meet up with our friend. Meanwhile, Tweezer was beginning. By the time the band had reached the Uncle Ebenzer line, we'd been booted from the floor and were settling into a comfortable spot at the rear of the first section.

With the exception of the fact that my friend Erin was still on the floor, and we were not, I was starting to relax and actually enjoy the music. The previous weekend, I'd sold my ticket to the Rochester show because the Cincinnati shows had done very little for me. On the second night, with the exception of the jam out of Melt, I'd felt completely unmoved by the music. I described the sensation to one friend, quite cosmically of course, as "soul shrugging". For the entire ride out to Philly from Ohio, I'd fretted that I'd lost my ability to hear Phish's music in a way that had some kind of emotional effect on me.

Phish's music still makes me happy. The same friend managed to hit the nail on the head when she said that the happiness was a "familiar" kind instead of a "this shit really blows my mind and I feel like I'm about to have a musical orgasm". It's a different kind of reaction -- perhaps a slightly more mature one, on some levels, but not as easily satisfying. Ultimately what happens is that I end up analyzing the shows to death, trying to glean some joy out of the music produced. At this point, though, that's almost an instinctual reaction. Almost. Is there necessarily anything wrong with reacting to music like that? Growing up, one naturally changes.

But... damn, old-school happiness would be nice. Rosebud, I guess. People search for ways to regress in some ways -- to tap into an older energy source. Some people strive to return to childhood innocence, or at least a more innocent perspective on things. Are there ways to induce that? Or should one not even bother to try?

Meanwhile, the Tweezer continued. My problem with the Cincinnati shows is that the band didn't take enough chances with the music -- not enough open-ended jamming. Music that I've never heard before (in other words, stuff made up on the spot) has the best odds of producing a reaction in me. For Phish to open up with a big jam song, to me, was a wonderful sign. I danced. I enjoyed it. The jam flowed into a harder driving groove before dropping into something slightly more ambient. Then they stopped. And then they starting Bouncing.

I'm not a person who has a problem with Bouncing Around The Room. I have another friend who disdains the song so much that her friend made her a mix tape of about 20 different version of the songs as a joke. I almost think it'd be interesting to hear the song in all of the band's incarnations; as Page's piano sound improved, as Trey's tone moved from a fat clean tone to an effects-laden mesh. Nonetheless, it was not something I particularly psyched to hear. I'd truly hoped that the night would be one of those ones with nothing but open-ended material. There are still sets like that -- set II in Auburn. This wasn't one of them.

The spot we had been standing in an empty row without seats in the back of the lower section. Occasionally, security guards came around to clear the space. The first time they'd asked me for my ticket, I flashed out a JamBands.com business cards. "It's okay," I said, using a mix of Raoul Duke and the Jedi mind trick, "I'm a fully affiliated member of the press."

The security guard squinted and shined his flashlight on the card. "Uh, okay."

He then tapped my friend Harriet on the shoulder. "May I see your ticket?"

"It's okay," I told him. "She's with me." He left us alone.

Heavy Things has been in the heaviest of rotation lately, turning up every two or three shows. I'm not getting sick of it. This version began to stretch itself a little bit, moving within the bounds of Trey's ultra-pretty guitar solo into more open territory. It reminded me a little bit of a late spring version '94 version of Down With Disease, when it first began to stretch itself out a little bit. I do look forward into seeing how this song progresses.

Sometime during the next batch of songs, security showed up again. Again, I flashed the business card. It didn't work. "Press, huh? Then go to the press box." The security guard pushed me in the direction of the aisle.

Then, I screamed something that I've always wanted to scream at someone, reality be damned. "I AM A DOCTOR OF JOURNALISM, GODDAMN IT."

"I DON'T CARE WHO YOU ARE!"

"Okay, I'm the Angel of Death."

"Move it."

"I'm Spartacus?"

By then, we were in the aisle, seatless. Miraculously, as we were regrouping ourselves, Erin came bounding up the steps towards us. She hugged both of us. We tried another set of seats, these behind the stage, and got booted. And another. The prettiness of Roggae was providing a stark contrast to the frustration that was going on in trying to find a place to hang out. As I tried to walk into the next section an angry looking dwarfen bulldyke security guard chased me. "LET ME SEE YOUR TICKET!" I walked away. She chased me briefly away from her post before retreating.

At that point, I was on the verge of breakdown. Birds Of A Feather was starting. I like Birds. The last few versions I'd heard, both live and on tape, had been extremely exciting. I pressed forward towards my section -- somewhere in the upper regions of the First Union Spectrum. "They hang on emotions they bottle inside." By the time I got to the stratosphere, the jam was moving towards its conclusion. I was moving towards further bugout. It didn't get very far from the root -- more like a traditional Trey-solo-over-band-vamp; like the older versions. Maybe Birds time as a jam song has already come and gone. They needed to prove the song worthy, and now - like Down With Disease - it can just go back to being itself.

When Birds ended, the bottle was opened. The entire time to Philly, I'd been fretting about lack of emotion. Now, I had 'em in spades -- of course, in the wrong direction. The peak of Guyute had used to make me insanely happy. This time, with each repeated bended note, chills ran through me. Loving Cup and Guyute are the two songs I am most tired of hearing. Together, they were too much. I took off my glasses and watched Chris's lights blur together. He missed the cue in Loving Cup and threw the brights on a full chorus before he was supposed to.

The second set was much better -- both musically and emotionally. We found seats and stayed there. The Gotta Jiboo continued to test its boundaries -- one Mike Gordon bassline away from tearing its ass out of its orbit and not returning. Just before the final chorus, it very nearly did. The Bowie sequence was where it was at, though. It made me fully happy in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. It didn't just remind me of the happiness I used to get when I heard Phish, it was that happiness.

Bowie moved into an upbeat jam, both in mood and technique. Trey walked over to Mike and said something to him. A moment later, the jam took on definite form. It took me a second to realize that it was Have Mercy. The reggae jam out of Mercy turned into a breakdown affair -- an organ solo, a drum break. During one of the organ breaks, Trey nodded to Page as he walked around the band's setup. Page began playing HYHU and Trey switched spots with Fish. What followed was the single event that made the most joyous last night -- immature, but absolutely hilarious considering all parties involved: Phish, Fish, Mike, cymbals, and the First Union Spectrum.

Fish stood at the front of the stage, in the spotlight, soloing on his vacuum. Mike walked out from behind his amp with a pair of cymbals in his hand -- the "B" "AH" percussion used in Cracklin' Rosie. He crept slowly up to Fish's side, Fish being occupied with filling an arena with the sound of a home appliance. Mike looked at Fish somewhat quizzically for a few moments, as he assembled the handles on the cymbals. Fish was still oblivious. Then, he slammed them together. Still no reaction. Mike receded back into the darkness. A moment later he was back, poking Fish in the shoulder. Finally, the band started Cracklin' Rosie.

It made me happy. Was it a nostalgic happiness? Who gives a shit. I smiled. That counts for a lot, in my book.