Part 4: SUNDAY

Hang in there- we’re almost done.

I woke up first and took a little walk to see about cleaning the mud off my legs. I decided it’d be too much effort to just get dirty again, so I headed back to the car. My friend who invited me was up and determined that we move the truck to some other spot—before the rest of the crowd woke up. So Rob and I got out of the car to help stop pedestrian traffic and guide the truck out of its parking spot. Once the truck was pointed forward, Rob went to get a coffee and I walked alongside the truck to help with the parking. As the truck wove through the clogged parking lanes I was able to keep up, but soon he turned a corner and the road opened up—so he took off. I tried to follow, but eventually lost them. So now it’s about 730 Sunday morning, I’m completely separated from everyone and all my stuff was in their car. I started looking for them, but after about a half an hour I gave up and headed back to the stand where Rob was getting coffee. We both agreed that it sucked to be separated at this hour. We walked around together for a little while then decided to wait by the old spot. Soon enough one of the guys came looking for us. 900 Sunday morning and I’m back in the game.

As I walked up to the new spot I noticed some dude passed out on the pavement in front of the truck. No tent, no sleeping bag, no blanket—just laying there asleep with his head on his backpack as a pillow. Nobody seemed to mind him there, so I didn’t think to mention it. He actually woke up later and asked us if he could change his clothes in our car—they let him get changed in the trailer in exchange for his sob story…something about a broken car and losing his friends but not caring because this was all worth it.

The new spot was pretty good, it was right by a row of concession stands and right next to a spot where a band had played the previous night. As we were setting up our area tons of people came up to tell us how good we sounded last night. At first we just accepted the accolades, but then we confessed that we weren’t the band and didn’t know if they were playing again that night. Once everything was set up, the gang started with their hygiene rituals- complete change of clothes, baby powder, hand sanitizer, cologne. Then it was time for the ultimate ‘issue’ of the weekend—number two. The porto-johns were a complete mess at this point, but everyone had to go.

The system they had developed (from previous festivals) was to take a 5 gallon spackle bucket, put a home-depot bag inside it, place a toilet seat on top and bring the whole contraption into the little trailer and do their business. When you’re done, you just tie the bag off and go throw it in the trash. Not a bad idea, but not around strangers. I decided to go for a walk to find a ‘usuable’ john and buy some T-shirts. I also bought some pot laced Rice Krispie treats for breakfast. This is the last time I’m going to one of these, right?

I came back a couple of hours later and found the guys hanging out at the little table they set up. I changed into my new shirt and got all kinds of compliments on it—however Rob needed to know how much I paid. When I said it was $20 he quickly came over and inspected the tag. “At least it’s 100% cotton.” A few minutes later another guy noticed my shirt and before he even asked any questions he came up behind me and checked out the tag. “We always check the tags.”

Two of the guys had brought a few cartons of cigarettes with them to sell, so one guy sold from the table and the other walked around and sold out of his back pack. Since the concession stands were selling for $7 a pack, our $5 was a great deal. It was kind of fun actually, except I was very careful to make sure that anytime I handled the money I had a witness and they saw me put it in the till. I just didn’t want there to be any questions later.

At around 2P (after some prodding by the wife when I called her) I decided that I should call the boss and tell him that I wasn’t going to be in tomorrow. Never in my life have I blown off work for something as trivial as this, yet I never had a job where I was so confident that I wouldn’t be fired. I decided to tell the boss the truth about where I was. Luckily I got his voicemail, so I told him “the kid in me came out to play this weekend. Sorry, I’ll see you Tuesday.” I’m pretty much ready to leave this job anyway—and no he didn’t even mention firing me when I got back.

As the day wore on and we got to a few hours before show time we decided to sell the rest of our drinks (sodas and waters). I offered to sell the canned beers I bought the day before (since no one was really drinking). There was a bit of confusion on how to keep the cigarette money separate from the beer money but I said I didn’t care because they had gotten me up to the concert and in the show for free. Besides, we were going to take all the proceeds and buy some nice ‘heady nugs’ for the ride home. At one point, a guy and a girl came by needing to buy 7 packs of cigarettes and wondered if there was any deal to be made. Absolutely not, if ‘they’ didn’t want to pay full price, someone else would. I felt bad and gave them two free beers for their walk back. At that point I was promptly scolded.

?: Chris, that’s it, you’re fired from the store.*
Me: Huh?
??: We don’t give things away, everything has a price.
???: If they don’t want to pay it, someone else will.

I laughed…for many reasons.

Before I knew it, it was pushing 5P and people were starting to head into the show. I was really tired and too worn out for the crowds, so I decided to skip the first set and go in for the second—one of the other guys had the same idea so we stayed and manned the shop. Once the crowd died down one of the concession stand guys came over to talk to us.

Concession guy: So how much are you selling sodas for?
?: A dollar
Concession guy: Really. They make me sell them for $2 a can.
?: Oh?
Concession Guy: Yeah, basically I had to pay $1800 for a booth here, then I had to buy all my stuff from SYSCO, and I have to give them 35% of whatever I make here. If I had known they were going to be so lax and let people just set up and sell things I probably wouldn’t have bothered to follow the rules.
?: Yeah, that’s pretty much how these festivals go. Sucks for you
Concession Guy: So how much do you want to close up and stop selling drinks
?: Actually we’re almost out of stuff. We should be closed up by the second set.

I started to realize what a bleeding heart I am. I guess I just follow the ‘do unto others’ rule a little too closely. If I was buying 7 packs of cigarettes on a black market, I’d like a deal, or at least some kind of little bonus. If I had actually paid for a concession stand, I’d like the illegal stand to do the right thing and stop undercutting me. I guess as a businessman you can’t think like that—perhaps that’s why I’m not loaded.

Well the first set ends and everybody meets up back at the trailer. After a brief discussion we decided that we should leave immediately because once the concert was over it could take another 20 hours to get out of the place. Although I had only seen two of the six farewell sets I had enough and didn’t feel bad about leaving early. If I wasn’t back in work on Tuesday it was going to make for a real uncomfortable discussion.

We got off the grounds in about a half an hour and jumped on the highway. It was really something to see all the abandoned cars just parked in the right lane and on the shoulder. We counted abandoned cars for about 15 miles away from the main gate. The furthest car we saw abandoned was 20 miles—though we’re not sure if that was for the concert. We pulled into a rest area and listened to the rest of the concert on the radio. Not their best performance (a lot of crying and missed cues), but you could tell it was special anyway. I’m actually kind of glad that they were off. If they pulled out a Gamehenge set I’d probably regret leaving when we did.

We slept at the rest area for a few hours and started heading back when the sun came up. There were a couple more little situations with the Republicans (especially when they bought the Monday newspapers and started discussing politics)—but you’re probably getting tired of them too. We never bought any pot with the beer money and frankly I’m not sure who ended up keeping the beer profits. Even with the money I spent on beer I don’t think the whole weekend cost me more than $125.

I guess it might seem like a waste to go through all this and only see a third of the concert, but Phish concerts were always about more than just the music. I’m still fascinated that tens of thousands of people can get together for a weekend and not hurt each other. I hate to stereotype, but there are few genres of popular music that wouldn’t attract enough ‘trouble-makers’ to ruin it for everyone else. I probably would have had more fun if I went with a bunch of my friends, but the logistics would have killed us. However I can say I was at the last Phish concert…until they run out of money and reunite.

* ? marks represent individual members of the Gipper Hippy Crew.  I should have explained this before, but you're probably smart enough to have figured it out on your own, right? Carry on. - Ed.

Part 3: SATURDAY

Although we brought tents, without being at a campsite we had to sleep in the car. The layout of this giant SUV had 3 rows of seating, but the last row can fit only two people and it has no legroom. As the stowaway, I opted to sit back there with the chief pill popper of the group. I later learned that this guy actually ran his uncle’s telemarketing office in Tampa Florida, but that’s another story. So on Friday night, once we got back in line and went to sleep, he and I took the back seat. Although I tried to take up as little space as possible, he opted to jump into the back cargo area to sleep- which wouldn’t have been a problem if he moved the bags of food before lying down.

So at 630 in the morning my friend stirred, noticed the guy sleeping on the food and basically had a fit. The car behind us was woken to the sounds of these guys arguing about whether or not it was ‘cool’ to sleep on the food. I felt somewhat at the center of this controversy (since I allegedly muscled him out of the seat) so I tried to hang out in the front of the car. At one point a loaf of bread was thrown and they came close to actually fighting, but quickly backed down. Once the smoke cleared I realized it was going to be a crazy day—so I started eating mushrooms.

I went for a walk up to the nearest diner counter, had breakfast with my new buddy Rob (New-York-Ci-ty!), and then walked back to the car to hear the announcement. Phish and the police had decided that as a result of unseasonable rains, the fields were too muddy to accept any more cars. Everyone was going to have to start turning around. Well my group had another fit.

?: We’re suing Phish!
??: Your ticket is a contract and they’re not honoring it.
???: I know a lawyer, should I call him?
?: Yeah, let me just rollerblade up ahead and see what I can find out.

Well as luck would have it, anyone who was still on the main highway was screwed (which is how the whole car abandonment situation began) but anyone who was on a local road was in. There was a lot of cheering by everyone in traffic with us and soon we were on our way. Of course we still had a full day of stop and go driving ahead of us, but we were in. I took this opportunity to hit a convenience store to make some calls, stock up on supplies (beer and sunglasses) and get ready for the weekend. It was a pretty neat feeling to be there and see the locals go into festival mode. The gas stations were selling overpriced beer. The locals with ATVs and off-road pickup trucks were starting to shuttle hikers into the event via logging trails and back roads. The people with houses along the concert road were starting to sell sandwiches and parking spots to weary travelers. We thought briefly about parking the car and getting into the event via hike or local shuttles, but decided it would be best to fight our way up to the front gate.

For the next 5 hours we crawled along the ten mile stretch. Thousands and thousands of hippies (the ones who had abandoned their cars on the interstate) were hiking alongside the traffic line- selling mushroom chocolate bars and other drugs. Two guys in our group decided to strap on the rollerblades and scout ahead. When they came back one had taken a spill and was nursing his skinned knees like he was treating a shrapnel wound. Anti-septic, clean bandages, cold water, a mad search for peroxide- he really took this wound seriously. At one point I reminded him that kids in Iraq were dealing with a lot worse right now. He agreed, then went right back to tending his wounds. Later in the day as I was hanging onto the side of the moving truck, I fell off and scraped my elbow. It was bleeding but I refused to even care about it. They kept asking me if I wanted to clean it or bandage it, but I insisted I would be fine. (A week and a half later, the scrape is almost healed). Stupid machismo I guess, but hell if I was going to be a little sissy about a flesh wound.

While we were driving, I noticed a guy three cars back driving by himself. A few hours into the trip I decided to bring a beer and go say hi. He invited me into his car and I drove with him for a while. Basically he and his wife had met at a Phish concert and now she was pregnant and couldn’t go, but insisted that he go anyway. A pretty nice guy and I rode with him all the way up to the gate. While traveling, the show started but luckily Phish has their own radio station up there that was broadcasting the concert. It was kind of neat to share the experience with a total stranger (mind you my mushrooms were in full swing by now) both of us bobbing our heads to the music, getting quiet during the jam parts, clapping when were heard how they played certain parts of the songs. We stopped short of singing to each other (we had just met) but it was a cool way to experience the first set (since we hadn’t gotten into the actual show yet). Once we got to the ticket checkpoint my gang started screaming emphatically that I get back over to their car because they had gotten me in.

You know how when you buy tickets online sometimes they send you your receipt printed on the same ticket stock as your ticket? Well basically the Phish tickets were these fancy custom tickets and one guy in our group had his receipt. He also knew how to do card tricks, so he was basically able to show the ticket checker a stack of tickets and fan them out a certain way so that it looked like he had six tickets instead of five and a receipt. They bought it and I was in. My first, last and only “miracle.”

Once inside the gates the gang tried their ‘handicap permit’ trick again, but it pretty much just got them into a line of parked RVs. Phish was about to start their second set, so they just parked alongside a row of cars and we went in. I was completely astonished by the sheer amount of people and effort that was really going into this thing. Cars and people were everywhere, some had started setting up as early as Tuesday, and it was a legitimate ‘town’ set up here in the Vermont Mountains. They had main roads, side streets, shopping districts and rich and poor residential areas. It still amazes me to think about it.

We finally made our way into the stage area. The band sounded great. The set was basically all songs from the era that I remembered with some new jam twists that I hadn’t really heard before. They had also set up other little activities like a giant bonfire, an antelope statue made of garbage, and some other attractions that we skipped. For me thought, I was just completely floored by the thousands and thousands of people who were all there for the same reason. I finally got a taste of that sense of community that I was hoping for with this whole little adventure. Of course we couldn’t get anywhere near the stage, but it didn’t matter, they had speakers everywhere so we could hear it.

We hung out at the bonfire for the third set. I won’t bore any of you non-phans with the set lists, but to those who know the group, check out Phish.com it was a pretty sweet line-up. Every time they finished a song, you just kind of got the feeling that you were saying goodbye to it. Despite all the headache and risk involved in getting up there, it was all worth it. We headed back to the car before the encore and checked out the after party scene that was starting to brew. People had legitimate cocktail lounges set up by their cars, complete with bars, stools, lounges, music, and drunks hanging out at the bar. Other people had DJs and club lighting set up in their areas. It was kind of funny because in one area there were 3 DJs set up, two of which had huge dancing crowds and the third had no one. I watched the panicked DJ for a little while as he kept cutting songs short trying to get the right one that would draw the droves of young chicks. All he had to do was light a joint and start passing it to whomever walked by—drugs ruled that night.

By the time we got back to the car I was bushed. My shrooms were wearing off and I was crashing. We were still sleeping in the car that night, so after some rearranging and turning the cargo area into a bunk we were ready to crash. My problem was my muddy feet - I ended up getting two plastic bags and wearing them like boots. It was about 1AM at this point, and as I drifted off to sleep I watched hundreds of kids pass by the car- heading to and from the party area. I’m sure they raged all night, because the next morning there seemed to be just as many people wandering. Once again, my group popped their Xanax and I was treated to some of the most guttural snoring I’ve ever heard in my life.

 Part 2: FRIDAY

I don’t know about you, but when I’m on a road trip I think stops should be as short as possible and kept to a minimum. All convenience store/bathroom visits should be accomplished in the time it takes to fuel up the vehicle—once the pump ‘clicks’ everyone should be ready to go. Not so with the Republican Phishies- a pit stop is more of a layover for them. The first couple of stops, I was diligent about making sure I was back in the car and ready to go before the tank was full—the rest of the guys would hang out for a minute, go into the store, come out of the store, go back in, buy some food, come back out, decide that they have to go to the bathroom, etc… Not only is this sort of lollygagging bad enough for the road trip itself, but we now managed to inconvenience other motorists, by sitting parked at the pump with a full tank, waiting for the rest of the entourage. Sometimes the driver would do the right thing and get out of the pumping area—by bringing the truck and trailer lengthwise across 5 or 6 spots so no one else could park their cars there. By the third stop I started to get embarrassed and I would wait patiently in the truck and try not to notice the other pit-stoppers who were giving us dirty looks.

If you have never been to a Phish festival one thing that you may not be aware of is the traffic. My comrades would recount stories of past festivals where they waited between 8 and 16 hours to actually get their vehicle into their festival parking spot. As we approached our destination we noticed about 10 miles of parked cars in the right lane and on the shoulder. These people were obviously all waiting for entry into the festival (with only one entrance and tens of thousands of cars this was going to take a while). Fortunately most Phishheads are kind and courteous, meaning they follow the rules and wait their turns. The Republicans however, can’t imagine waiting on any long lines, so they hung in the left lane and laughed as we passed all the people on line. They were actually shocked that all these people were sitting in the traffic.

?: Look that these idiots, can you believe they’re actually all just sitting there?
??: No shit, we’re saving HOURS by passing these people.
???: The left lane is totally open and they’re not even making any attempt to get ahead!
????: I would never… I mean, who says that we have to wait on this line? Right?

Well actually the theory of first come, first served dictates that you have to wait on this line. These people all got here before we did, which generally means that they get to go before us. However that concept was well out of their grasp, so a leap-frogging we would go. We actually drove past the exit we needed to go and went up to the next exit to turn around so we could approach from the other direction (where there was less traffic). In retrospect it was a pretty smart way to do it, I was just disturbed by the group’s rationale for it.

So now we’re waiting in a 2-3 mile traffic back-up which was more acceptable to this group. Since I still didn’t have a ticket, I volunteered to start hiking up to the main gate to see what the situation was on tickets. The concert was sold out, but they were supposedly going to release a few thousand more tickets for all the morons like me who came without one. I left on my hike and they stayed in traffic. I was a little nervous that they might change their minds and start leapfrogging again, but I figured they would only get closer to where I was heading to.

I walked about 6 miles along a clogged road that moved one car length every half hour. There were heavy rains the night before, so they were having a lot of trouble parking cars at the event. Allegedly there were tractors pulling cars into the field and just dropping them off in a foot of mud—we’ll worry about it on Monday. I was starting to worry about the exodus when all of this is over. After talking to several people along the way and piecing together the scraps of information and rumors I was hearing, I decided that I shouldn’t worry about not having a ticket. Supposedly they were expecting 60,000 people to show up without tickets so they were just going to sell them at the gate. I decided not to bother going the next 10 miles to get the real story from the event staff. I turned around and headed back to the SUV to give them the update.

Luckily they were still in line and about a half a mile from the exit ramp. Of course they still had over 10 miles to go once they got to the local road, but we were getting closer. Once back in the car, traffic started moving a bit, giving us ample opportunity to start leap-frogging again (even though we were almost at the exit). Then when we were just about to cut off our last car before getting on the exit ramp, all the cars to our right teamed up, parked bumper to bumper, and effectively blocked our cut. As we sat cursing the other drivers a Vermont State Trooper knocked on the window and ordered us to bypass the exit. Fortunately our gang FEARS cops (especially since they had a LOT of illegal prescriptions on their person) so we got back on the road and kept going.

Now everybody is flipping out. We spent all day trying to get to this exit and now we’d have to start all over again. There was talking of abandoning ship and heading home because there was no way we were going to wait on that line again—especially since it now had an additional 8 hours worth of cars on it. Secretly I was relieved, mainly because karma had caught up with us, but also because I was starting to wonder how I was going to handle 3 more days with these guys.

We made it to the next exit, and after using a free map that someone grabbed at a visitor’s center, we figured out that we could still approach the concert from a local road. Sure enough after a couple of turns we found ourselves in a line of standstill traffic-it was 7P on Friday and we were back in the game. The guys all took off in search of food (did I mention that these guys needed to consume their body weight every 4 hours to survive) which left me and the driver. Having had about 3 hours of sleep the night before, I fell asleep and slept pretty much through the night- waking only to tell the driver to pull up because traffic was moving.

Having taken about 6 Xanax each, the rest of the guys slept soundly as well.

Part 1

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a little too old to be embarking on spontaneous weekend road trips to Phish concerts. Having not seen the band in 8 years, I pretty much figured it was over, but a couple of weeks ago an electrician at work mentioned that he was going up to Coventry AND that he had an extra ticket to the Camden, NJ concert (the last concert before the big festival). I jumped at the chance to buy his extra ticket and go with him (and his friends) and spent the next two weeks thinking about the Coventry concert that I was probably going to miss.

On Thursday (the day of the Camden concert) I left work early to be at this guy’s house by 4:00 (he wanted to get on the road right away since traffic was going to be a disaster). There were 7 of us going, but when I got to his house we were missing 3. They had run out to get some last minute supplies for the big weekend. At this point I was still going home after the concert. While we were waiting for them to get home, our good Governor decided to make his ‘announcement.’ As timing would have it, the three guys walked through the door just as the press conference was over, so I’m meeting these 3 guys for the first time and absorbing the enormity of the McGreevy situation. We quickly started smoking to prepare for the concert…by this time it was almost 5:00.

For the next half hour my 5 new friends went to the bathroom, cut up a watermelon, repacked their backpacks, chatted, watched some more TV and slowly made their way outside to the car. I went out first, hoping that I’d jump start the momentum, but only one guy Rob followed. We started making small talk and the conversation went like this:

Rob: So where do you live?
Me: In Long Branch, it’s over by the beach. How about you.
Rob: (looking away and towards the sky) New –York –Ci-ty!
Me: Cool, what part?
Rob: (laughing) Uhh….Manhattan.
Me: (trying not to laugh) Yeah, what part? Upper East? Chelsea?
Rob: Oh. Financial district. You know J&R music world? Right by there.
Me: Yeah, I used to live in Brooklyn Heights. Your right across the bridge from where I was. How long have you been there?
Rob: Two years…

Shortly thereafter the rest of the gang arrived, and once we figured out seating, we were on our way. It didn’t take long for the McGreevey jokes to start, but I attributed the homophobia to the testosterone levels in the car (the electrician’s wife was there, but even her testosterone was a little high). After weaving through traffic and cutting several people off we made our way up to the arena. You see, we had a handicap parking permit, so it was unheard of to think that we might park anywhere but right next to the arena (even though the show was starting in ten minutes). Our driver finally made it up to a cop and demanded to know “Where am I parking?!” The cop sent us into a deck right next to the arena and there we were.

The arena was set up like your basic suburban amphitheater (seats and lawn) except unlike most lawn sections, you couldn’t just sit down and hang out on a blanket. It was standing room only elbow to elbow and everyone was screaming and cheering. As the concert went on, I found myself right back in college. I decided at that moment that I had to go to Coventry. I still needed permission from the wife, and I’d have to call out on Monday, but I knew if I didn’t take a chance it would be once more thing for me to regret.

I asked my friend if it’d be okay if I tagged along and he thought it was a great idea. The concert ended at about 11:30 which put me back home at around 2. As I came through the door I was greeted by my barking dog, followed by my half-asleep wife.

Wife: How was the concert?
Me: It was great. I forgot how much fun those shows are.
Wife: I’m glad you had fun.
Me: Yeah, it was really great. You went to Woodstock, right?
Wife: Oh boy. You want to go to Coventry.
Me: I do. I really want to get this out of my system.
Wife: Well, when would we have to leave? I can’t take tomorrow off, but I might be able to get home early.
Me: (Shit) Well…actually the guys are leaving in a couple hours, so I kind of have a ride.
Wife: Oh, so you mean go by yourself and leave me home with the dog?
Me: Honey, I’m sorry to spring this on you. It’s just, I’ve been thinking about it all week.

(I kind of forget this part, but I know I called the guys to say I was coming, gathered my camping gear, and prepared to say goodbye.)

Wife: (shocked, not sure if she’s still sleeping) Uh. Fine, I’m going back to bed, I hope you have a good time. I’m sure I’ll have a great weekend. (Heads upstairs.)

At this point, the guilt hit me. I called the guy to say I was almost there, but now I can’t go. I headed upstairs, got undressed, and got into bed. She asked what I was doing, I told her I felt too guilty to go. She said I should just go. I said I knew I shouldn’t. Back and forth a few times, finally I was kicked and pushed out of bed.

So I went.

I headed over to the meeting place, piled into the gigantic SUV, and fell asleep. I woke up somewhere in Connecticut and Springsteen was on the radio. I was just waking up, so I’m paraphrasing.

?: Springsteen is such an asshole.
??: Yeah, I mean what the fuck, keep your stupid politics to yourself, nobody wants to hear that.
???: I can’t believe how many shitheads are actually thinking of voting for that asshole Kerry

So now that I was past the point of no return, I realize that not only am I with 5 strangers, but I am with 5 REPUBLICAN strangers, who seem to have some pretty strong convictions about their politics. And it’s not like one guy is gung ho and the rest are passive, they’re ALL strongly opinionated about the importance of 4 more years for Bush. It was at this point that I began to fear that I may have some regrets when this is all over.