My favorite concert ever- 20 years later: My reflection of Phish 6/17/94

Excitement swelled up in me to a level where I could not eat my Taco Bell Mexican Pizza. I stared at it, picked the cheese off the top, and even stabbed the tortilla crust repeatedly with my spork to create a somewhat rhythmic crunching sound.

photo from kdrt.org

“So, what if they open with 'Llama,' or 'Burried Alive,' what will follow next? Or what about something odd like 'David Bowie,' could they open with that?  Man, with the new Hoist album, they could drop Julius or Down with Disease to start the show too… man, I don’t know?!?!” I stammered at my friend Matt as he was enjoying his soft shell Taco Supreme, seemingly oblivious to my onslaught of nervous energy. 

“Relax, Pipes,” Matt responded, “whatever they play will be fantastic.”  As I would soon discover, Matt was spot on right. 

This is the opening of a memory that has been burned in my mind for the past twenty years since attending my first Phish concert on June 17, 1994 at the Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I have seen hundreds of concerts since this time.  However, given the time and place in my life, this show was similar to the character Ralphie receiving the Red Rider B-B Gun in A Christmas Story.  It was the best concert I had seen, and will forever remain my favorite concert experience, even twenty years later.

 I was sixteen years old, and I would argue that at the time there was no other band in the world that was more important to me.  I was a high-school student enamored with four men from Vermont who happened to create some pretty interesting music… they were alternative-ish, jazzy-ish, bluesy-ish, and above all, they were their own unique brand of sonic energy.   They were Phish. 

I had been collecting Phish bootleg tapes at that point for about a year.  I had accumulated over a hundred different shows, in an era before the Internet was in full-swing, where every tape you collected was a result of a face-to-face encounter or snail mailing blanks and postage to folks who listed their taping services in the back of Relix magazine.  Yup, that was the Phish scene for a high schooler in the mid 1990’s.  One of my friends had an older brother who went to school out East, which resulted in a good chunk of my collection at that point.
  

When I got the Doniac Schivice newsletter in the mail in early May (the black and white version) and saw that Phish was coming to Milwaukee, I practically leaped for joy.  My summer was made!  There was only one problem… convincing my parents to let me go to the show.  Phish was playing in downtown Milwaukee at a venue called the Eagles Ballroom.  It was an old athletic club that was converted to a concert venue in an area close to the Marquette University campus.  As a new driver, my father was horrified with the prospect of me driving the family car downtown from our home in the north-eastern Milwaukee suburbs to where the Eagles Ballroom was for the concert.   As non-music fans, the fact that I was so enamored with Phish was something that was beyond comprehension for my parental units.  However, through whatever good-will I could muster, promises of extra lawn mowing, and busting out every  “butter up the ‘rents” trick in my book, my folks eventually gave in and allowed me to attend the show provided that my dad drive my friend Matt and I to and from the concert.  While I loved the independence of driving, like any other sixteen-year-old, I felt this was an adequate consolation to be able to see the band that was the apex of the food chain for me at that time.

After finishing our meal at Taco Bell, my dad drove us to the Eagles Ballroom.  The doors opened at seven o’clock with the concert starting at eight, and we arrived at seven on the dot to try to get the best spot we could. Upon entering the Eagles Ballroom, people began clamoring for their sports while the house music played a reggae record that created a chill, upbeat vibe in the venue.  Matt secured a nice spot in the third row about half-way between where Page McConnell had his keyboard and organ rig and Trey Anastasio’s guitar position.

While Matt secured seats, I had a first Phish show priority of my own to take care of… securing a live recording of the concert. I meandered back by the taper’s section and began chatting it up with a friendly, portly man who looked about twice my age at the time, a taper by the name of Dave, or, as I would call him, “Taper Dave.”  Dave was from northern Illinois and had taped several shows, and had hours of Phish, Dead, Allman Brothers, etc.  I had lots of tapes, but most were second or third generation.   Dave showed me his rig and was all set to record two sets of blissful music.  He gave me his address, and I told him that I would be sending blanks and postage the next day (which I did).  Little did he or I know at the time that we would continue to exchange tapes and music conversation over the next several years.

With the tapes secured, I grabbed Matt and I a couple of Sprites and settled into the steamy confines of the Eagles Ballroom.  It was the hottest day of the summer by far, with temperatures outside in the mid-nineties with palpable humidity and the venue felt like and smelled like a steam room in a gym.  My plain grey Gap t-shirt was already half-way black with sweat before the show started…  in part due to the immense heat in the venue, and in part due to my own nervous energy.  

The uncomfortable feeling of being hot, sweaty, and stinky, all went away the moment that the lights went out and the crowd erupted with joy.  There they were… Jon Fishman on drums, in his swirly donut dress, Mike Gordon, rocking a pair of Nike high top basketball shoes, jeans and a pink tank top, Trey Anastasio, in jeans and a multi-colored striped button down, and Page McConnell in a white button down and jeans. They were here, and best of all, I was here with them!

Matt and I shouted back and forth our final predictions for the opener, “Runaway,” I cried!  “Peaches En Regalia,” retorted Matt. Trey grabbed his Paul Languedoc custom guitar looked at his bandmates and started in on the opening cords of “Runaway Jim.”  I jumped up and down hysterically, “calling” the opener, and with 3,000 or so other fans in unison joined Trey for the opening line, “I had a dog, his name was Jim. Runaway, runaway, runaway…”.  The band then flowed “Runaway Jim” into the funky bass thumping “Foam” which was fairly standard-practice during that era.  Next up was “Glide,” which featured the donut-dressed wonder knocking the wood blocks as part of is drum set to start off the tune.  “Split Open and Melt” followed with some serious shredding on Trey’s part.  The band finally paused for a second after this tune and slowed things down with “If I Could,” a slower more succinct track off of their latest release at the time, Hoist.  This was followed by my first Phish “bust out,” “Punch You in the Eye,” which was scarcely played during the time leading up to the ’94 summer run.  This was pretty amazing in my opinion, as I yelled, “Hey!” during the start of the tune along with the other folks in the crowd who knew this number.  This rocking track was followed by a loosely-grooved “Bathtub Gin,” where The Chairman of the Boards, Page McConnell, got into some jazzy piano jamming.  “Scent of a Mule,” followed, which sent the crowd into a bouncing frenzy during this county tinged number.  The set came to a roaring close with “Cavern.”  By the time Trey told us they’d be back in fifteen minutes, I wiped my soaking, sweaty head and looked at Matt, and both of us, almost on cue, just said, “Wow!”  The best part of it was that we get a whole other set coming up. 

Intermission was a time to rehash with our concert neighbors about highlights- mine were definitely
“Punch You in the Eye” and “Runaway Jim.”  We also got a couple more cold Sprites which were drank very quickly.  As a testament to Phish fans, folks saw that I was really sweaty, and I had a complete stranger come and hand me a bottle of water, stating that, “I need more aqua to keep on dancing.”

While I was drinking water and Spite at intermission, something big was going on in the outside world, unbeknownst to us in the venue.  June 17, 1994 was the day of the epic police chase between athlete/actor O.J. Simpson and the Los Angeles Police Department.  O.J. in his white Ford Bronco was being chased all over L.A. and we were sticky and oblivious to this in the Eagles Ballroom.  However, with their backstage TV, Phish was watching this car chase go down, and decided to build O.J.’s epic flight into their second set. 

The lights went down for the second time, and the goosebumps on my arms appeared again.  The show was far from over.  The band started off muttering, some stuff about O.J. which would only make sense after the show concluded.  The opening track, “Also Sprach Zarathustra” contained a “go for it O.J.” line, and featured, up to that point, the best lighting from Chris Kuroda that I had seen.  “Sample in a Jar,” followed, showcasing another track off of Hoist, which arguably is one of the more poppy tunes the quartet ever penned.  A break-neck “Poor Heart” was next, which had the crowd bopping in delight, with a loud, “run OJ run!” from Fishman and a great bass solo from Mike “Cactus” Gordon.  Some of the best jamming of the night followed with a hard-rocking version of “Mike’s Song,” which sandwiched “I am Hyrodgen” and a new number at the time, “Simple” into the mix before launching into the ever-funky “Weekapaug Groove.” 

What was to follow next, however, exceeded my wildest expectations as a Phish fan for my first show.  The sweltering confines of the Eagles Ballroom must have gotten Trey’s creative juices flowing, as the four musicians went into the, “Ooh, pa pa, ooh, pa, pa, ooh pa, pa” opening which singled one of the rarest of rare Phish tracks-  “Harpua!”  Not only had I gotten the “Punch You in the Eye” bust out, but now, I get to hear the tale of the “fat sweaty bulldog” and his rampage across the outskirts of the suburban sector of Gamehendge, which featured a reprise of “Simple,” as well as a “Purple Haze” tease.  Coming out of this nearly twenty-minute epic was an uptempo version of “Sparkle,” which could have very well ended the set, but the band went on with a “Big Ball Jam,” where I got to touch one of the giant beach balls that came out into the crowd.  The set ended with the opening track off of Hoist, ”Julius,” flowing into a cover of Edgar Winter Band’s “Frankenstein.”  The encore found the band going to the pairing of “Sleeping Monkey” and “Rocky Top Tennessee.”

When the house lights went on signaling the conclusion of the show, Matt and I filed out of the Eagles Ballroom.  I stopped by the merchandise table and grabbed a Phish logo t-shirt which I quickly swapped out for my soaked through grey Gap shirt.  We filed out with the crowd, speechless, and found my dad’s car right outside of the venue next to the Scrub a Dub Car Wash.  “How did he score the prime spot?” I wondered, as Matt and I climbed into the Pontiac Grand Prix.

“So, how was it,” Dad asked.   Matt and I just looked at each other- we had not even spoken since the show’s conclusion, “AMAZING would be a total understatement, Dad,” I replied.  Matt and I then exchanged high fives and began rehashing the show.

My dad interjected, “You’ll never guess what happened tonight?  O.J. Simpson got chased by the police in Los Angeles.”  All of a sudden I was able to connect the dots between the band’s O.J. references throughout the second set, and realized that we had witnessed something on stage that night that was truly extraordinary and would never be replicated again. 

My dad shared days later that he got the spot in front of the Scrub-a-Dub Car Wash right next to the Eagles Ballroom because he arrived an hour and a half before the show was over and sat there waiting listening to the whole O.J. chase unfold on the radio, just as Matt, me, and the audience were experiencing this same thing through the music of Phish and their references to O.J. in the second set.

Twenty years later, this show plays out in my mind just as if it were yesterday.   I have seen hundreds of concerts since the June 17, 1994 Phish show.  I’ve seen Phish about twenty times since then alone.  However, being sixteen and seeing the band that meant the world to you at the time was something that you can never replicate.  This show was extraordinary for many reasons , the least of which is that it showed me the power of what an amazing live performance can be like. 

Twenty years later, I am a husband and father living in the suburbs with three children of my own.  And, despite of this, I still go to a lot of shows.  The magic of live music is as palpable as it was that steamy night in the Eagles Ballroom, although I don’t think anything can, or ever will, replicate the pure joy of living in the then and now of that concert experience.