Very well said, sir! Having traveled far and wide to catch these fellas play music, your writing made me nostalgic. I can only imagine the chaotic emotions for those who put their backs into their mighty swing at the Curveball...I feel for you.

The Coventry experience was way out there - an exercise in bizarre determination, to get there and be there and once there, to witness your favorite band crumbling, crying instead of laughing and falling apart - the scene decaying, people leaving used needles behind on my picnic table at my camp, emulating Trey perhaps - vehicles stuck in the mud for miles - a metaphor for who fucking knows...
We are all determined. Seeing Phish isn't easy - my wife recently lamented at the Forum show that we should have bought the VIP deal - entered through the Forum Club and kicked back. Even getting into DICKS can suck - we were almost horribly smashed against the gates at the 2016 show when security was short handed and wouldn't let us in on night 1....

But when I think back on it, the only really easy time of it I remember having was Festival 8 - we planned ahead, so we rented an awesome house, cruised into and out of the venue at will - easy as pie.

Anyone remember the last time the band played Red Rocks? Phans basically dismantled the small town of Morrison, hanging out trying to find a ticket or a place to poop, eventually just taking over the town in the worst way.

Or the process of getting into Big Cypress...? HOURS of sitting behind the wheel watching alligators in the ditch, waiting, crawling, trying not to fall asleep and let somebody bust a move around your vehicle - wondering if you were going to get in by the time they opened the first set...or before the world exploded at Y2K

Even Bonnaroo took crazy patience to just GET IN - but all that energy expenditure was worth it, because we got the magic of the music, the details of what these guys bring to a show, a Festival!

And so - I wasn't at Curveball. But I think the band handled it with class, as did the fans. Another blip on the phish community map. Thanks for the blog post!