Yeah, me too.  Especially blogging.

I suppose the one thing I should touch on is the fact that I turned 32.  Happy birthday to me! … like two weeks ago!  Wooo!  I didn’t go crazy this year for my birthday.  Meghan was nice enough to get me some gifts (beer kits, Tiger Woods golf for the Wii, and some underwear), and I got to go to River Falls and hang out with Reuben and golf and then eat at Luigi’s, which was a pretty damn good birthday.  I enjoyed myself and got Reuben in trouble, so that’s always good.

Oh, also, I went and saw Clutch again at First Ave on August 5th.  It was a good show, although I don’t know if I was really in the right mindset to see Clutch.  I’ve been deep into Phish most of the summer, for obvious reasons, and they had just started the second leg of their tour that week.  Obviously, I still enjoyed Clutch, but it didn’t quite feel like the sort of epic experience the last couple shows did.  Hopefully they’ll come back around this winter or something when my metal/jamband pendulum has swung a back farther the metal way again.

Somewhere in there recently I also finally got my car fixed.  It had been doing some goofy shit the past few months, overheating, not shifting, engine stops at drive-thrus… it feels good to have it back to to normal and know I can trust it not to die.  I’ve owned this car for around 5 (6?) years now, and it only have about 120,000 miles on it.  Given that I don’t have any commute whatsoever anymore and a lot of my work with client’s can be done remotely, I figure it’s possible I could have this car for at least another three years.  And I LOVE not having a car payment.  So, even thought I had to pay $1900 to get it fixed, it’s totally worth it.

I’ve also had a couple of miscues in socialization the past couple weeks.  Meghan & I were supposed to go tubing one Saturday, but it ended up being too cold.  We were going to go to Irish Fest a couple Fridays ago, but the weather put the kibosh on that one, too.  We did end up going bowling with Naomi & Troy that night, though, so that was fun.

Other big news includes the fact that Meghan finally got her tattoo that she’s been talking about for a year or so.  She struggled for months about what to get, just knowing that she wanted something.  She wanted to get something in memory of her grandma, but couldn’t figure out what.  Finally she settled on angel wings.  After looking through a bunch of pictures on the internet, she found a pair of wings she liked and decided she’d like the wings, maybe with a halo, her grandma’s initials and the date she passed away.  After some more thought, she decided to not get the halo, just the wings, and in between the time she had the consultation and the time she got the tattoo, she decided to lose the date too and just go with the initials.  I say all this to point out the amount of thought that went into this tattoo, so you can better appreciate the result, which I think is pretty awesome.

Mary Jane Bonekat

The whole thing was custom-drawn by the tattoo artist (Damion, at Electric Dragonland) after one consultation and it turned out awesome.  It’s on her left shoulder, if you were wondering.

That basically catches you up to this past weekend, which I feel deserves its own post, so I’ll probably bury this one in about an hour.  Hope you didn’t miss it! ;^)

Anyway, when it was announced last October that Phish was reuniting for three shows in March, I was completely thrilled. And I was even more thrilled when they announced the summer tour and I saw Alpine Valley was to be the last two shows of the tour.  I immediately put in an order for two tickets to each of the two shows for Meghan & I through Phish’s online lottery.  I lucked out and got tickets to both shows.  Then when tickets went on sale via LiveNation, I spent a good hour and a half on a Sunday attempting to buy tickets for Meghan’s sister and b33n3r.  I eventually succeeded for both*.  As it turns out, Ben ended up deciding to not go to the Sunday show, since it was Father’s Day.  Luckily, we were able to sell his ticket to Meghan’s sister for her boyfriend.

The day of the Saturday show, Meghan & I got up around 8am and headed down to Melissa’s house to pick her up, and then over to her boyfriend Mark’s house to pick him up.  It’s about a five and a half hour drive to Waukesha where we were staying.  Our goal was to get there in plenty of time to meet up with the Ben & Kerry and Amy & Lundo before heading to the show.  We got into Waukesha around 3:30.  After trekking over to the liquor store and back to the hotel for a bite to eat, we headed out to the show.  We made Lundo drive ahead of us because he has a GPS.  Traffic was almost non-existent until we got about a mile away from the show, and we ended up in the lot around 6:30.  After a couple beers, we headed into the show.

… and it was f-ing CROWDED.  It may have been that we didn’t go in until a little after seven, but it was easiliy the biggest crowd I can ever remember walking into at Alpine.  Meghan & I had decided before the show that we ideally wanted to sit on the left side of the soundboard, close to the building with the big bathrooms, since we had a couple issues at Dave Matthews last year with getting to the bathrooms and back.  It ended up working out that we didn’t have a whole lot of choice, and sat pretty high up past the main paved path to the building.  We got some beers and before we knew it, the show was starting.

06/20/09 Alpine Valley Music Theatre – East Troy, WI

1: Punch You in the Eye, Runaway Jim, Stash, Ya Mar, Bathtub Gin, Kill Devil Falls, Train Song, Farmhouse, Sparkle, Run Like An Antelope

2: Waves > Sample In A Jar, Maze, Makisupa Policeman > Ghost -> The Lizards, You Enjoy Myself* -> NICU > Prince Caspian -> Waste > Fire

E: Character Zero

Notes: * unfinished, at about 12 minutes.

In the days leading up the show, I had specifically tried to keep myself from expecting anything.  I kept thinking about times I’d gone to see Phish and really wanting to hear a specific song and then being disappointed that they didn’t play it, or being ever-so-slightly annoyed that they had opened with Possum or at hearing Fluffhead yet again.  I wanted to go into these shows ready for whatever they may play, and knowing that I was going to be happy just that they were playing, no matter what they were playing.  Of course, I still couldn’t help trying to imagine what they might play.  I remember thinking during the drive to Waukesha that Punch You In The Eye makes such a great opening song.  I was ecstatic to hear them open with it.

Throughout the show, I had an amazing feeling of being-in-the-right-place.  It’s kind of hard to explain, but it just felt very very right to be outside on the lawn, with my best friends in the world, listening to what is, for me, pretty close to the best music in the world.  It was just… awesome.  I had a blast going back and forth between dancing** with my wife, turning around and announcing songs at Melissa, making faces at Mark, and running up the hill a bit to chat with Kerry or rock out with Ben.

Of course, due to pre-show beers in the lot, I ended up listening to quite a bit of the first set (and the beginning of the second set) from the bathroom in the building next to the lawn.  Which was fine.  Highlights of the show for me were the PYITE opener, the Stash jam, Ya Mar, Makisupa Policeman, YEM > NICU…. although the best musical moment for me was the end of Lizards.  The guitar melody was played perfectly, and it punctuated that feeling of being-in-right-place.

Of course, the real highlight was enjoying it all with my wife.  More on that later.

After the show, we headed back to the hotel.  We had an enteraining drive where we followed Lundo into the McDonald’s drive-thru, out through a stoplight to a left turn where he went through the light and we were stuck behind the red light, and then through an illegal U-Turn*** before getting back the right way.

The next day, we all met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant before saying goodbye to the Lundos and Ken****, who were not going to be attending the Sunday show.  That afternoon, we went to a local Waukesha bar for a few beers and then to dinner at the town’s fanciest restaurant, which happened to be down the block.

The drive to the show was a bit more crowded on Sunday, which is kind of ironic, since the show was so oversold.  Within minutes of parking, we saw at least three people walking by trying to sell extra tickets.  We ended up in the lot a little after 6, so we had a little more time to relax and people-watch before heading into the venue.  People-watching at Phish shows is always highly entertaining.  We saw one girl dressed up like some sort of really high spacewoman.  She had silver tights on with turqoise bikini bottoms over the tights, and ridiculous 80′s sunglasses. On the way into the show, somebody handed me a red clown nose and said we’d find out what is for during the second set#.

We got into the show around the same time as the previous night, and it was noticably roomier inside the venue.  I had had a feeling prior to the show that the crowd wouldn’t be as large, since it was a Sunday night.  It ended up being about the same, but I think more people came in later after getting supercheap tickets.

06/21/09 Alpine Valley Music Theatre – East Troy, WI

1: Brother, Wolfman’s Brother, Funky Bitch > The Divided Sky, Joy, Back On The Train, Taste, Poor Heart, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > Avenu Malkenu The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday, Time Turns Elastic

2: Crosseyed and Painless > Down With Disease > Bug > Piper -> Wading In The Velvet Sea, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Slave To The Traffic Light

E: Grind, Frankenstein

When the show opened, I got so excited that they were playing ‘Brother’ that I completely missed the fact the there was a big ol’ bathtub at the front of the stage with children jumping into it.  After the song, they announced the names of all of their children who had been jumping in the tub.  It was a great way to open a tour-ending Father’s Day show.

As with previous Alpine Valley shows, we had brought a blanket with us to sit on and to block out a personal space for us. Before and during the show, we kept chiding people who would walk through our little area and step on the blanket.  One of the many things I love about my wife is her ability to banter with strangers.  It became somewhat of a fun game, especially with the people who were ridiculously high, because most often people, after hearing us yell at them, would stop, stare at us for a couple seconds waiting for their brain to catch up with their ears, and then profusely apologize.  At some point while we were sitting down, a guy walked through with glowsticks sticking out his pocket.  Meghan grabbed one as he walked by and he didn’t notice.  A bit proud of her accomplishment, she decided to see how many she could get.  The second guy she tried totally caught her and then promptly gave her all the glowsticks he had on him (5 or 6).

The previous night, Meghan & I had missed the glowstick wars because we were either in the bathroom or getting water/food.  The second night, we got to fully take part.  My favorite part of the entire show was when a big group of glowsticks landed by us and Meghan exclaimed “it’s like Christmas!”  :^)

I have to say again how much I loved being there with my wife.  I get an overwhelming sense of joy out of listening to Phish, and being with my wife at the shows ballooned that joy powerfully.  And I love her for coming to the shows and enjoying herself, even without knowing most of the music.

The second set of this show is one of the best setlists I’ve seen in a very long time.  If I had tried to put together a dream setlist for the show, the second set of Sunday would have been extremely close (Bug probably would have been replaced by something from the first night’s show).  I feel like it made up for not seeing any shows in 1997. Other highlights of the show were me trying to explain the “pregnant pause” during Divided Sky to Meghan, and the insanity of the musical instruments during Frankenstein, which including a keytar, a flame-shaped bass guitar, and a 5-necked guitar.

And, all too soon, the show was over.  All-in-all, the weekend was awesome.  Several people have asked me this week how the show was, and all I’ve been able to say was that it was awesome, because trying to explain it in less than a couple hours of extremely earnest discussion would be almost impossible for me.  At least now I can point people to this blog post. ;^)

* – As it turns out, much of this ticket hoopla was completely unnecessary, because, while both of the shows were sold out, there were lots and LOTS of extras available for both shows in the parking lot.  On Sunday, we ran into one guy trying to sell an extra ticket for $10 and nobody was buying.  Several people gave their extras away for free.

**  - if you can call my slight swaying “dancing”

*** – I came up with an awesome joke about being fed up with the TomTom-foolery, but I was pretty much the only one who thought it was funny.

**** – Apparently, Ben & Kerry are not fond of being called “Berry”

# – Unfortunately, nothing ever came of it.

Anyway, Kylesa turned out to be pretty awesome. I had heard of them while perusing the Recommended Listening page at Questionable Content last week. I downloaded the album and liked it, and so, having recently been to two pretty cool concerts, decided to check to see if they were playing around here anytime soon. As it happened, they were playing a concert I already had a ticket too, so awesome!
One thing I missed while finding out this information was that one of the guitar players/singers is a chick, who, as it turns out, it a pretty awesome guitar player, although I was less enthused about her singing. I did not miss the fact that they have two drummers who often play in perfect unison (a fact I find a bit amazing and thoroughly awesome). And, as I alluded to earlier, they put a good show!
Unfortunately, towards the end of their set, one of the poseur indie rocker dudes who was at the show thought it would be funny to start loudly singing over the band, replacing the lyrics the with references to how they wanted to eat cupcakes. And when he got bored with that, he just started making loud and obnoxious sarcastic remarks about how the “metal” band was playing in 4/4 time. It was around this time that I started realizing that a lot of the crowd at the show was not what I would consider a normal metal crowd.
Despite any urges I may have felt, I managed to avoid smashing that guy’s face in with my fist and after Kylesa’s set, I ‘accidentally’ bumped into him, which pushed him further away into the crowd. I didn’t see him again. Gee, I hope he didn’t get hit by a bus on the way home or something awful like that.
After Kylesa’s set, I warned T-Rav that it was possible I might disappear during Mastodon’s set because I couldn’t take being compressed amongst the crowd of assholes for much longer. He understood, I think.

So, on to Mastodon.
These guys put out an album recently called Crack The Skye which, not unlike other Mastodon albums, I have been struggling to get into. It seems everytime I listen to Mastodon with the intent of finally “getting into” them, I fail miserably and end up deciding I don’t like them. But inevitably I convince myself I should like them, and so try again.
I’ve decided there are a couple reasons this keeps happening.

1 – They are an impressively talented band. And they play heavy music.
2 – Despite the heaviness of the music they play, they are not a metal band.

That second part I just figured out tonight. I’m not sure why it took me so long to figure out… well, I have an idea. The thing is, Mastodon is a progressive rock band, in much the same way that Yes and Rush are progressive rock bands. They play complicated cerebral music, often, it seems to me, just for the sake of it being complicated and cerebral.
I think the reason it took me so long to realize this is that I’m not really into progressive rock. Also, Mastodon really really sounds like metal. I mean, c’mon, they’re fucking heavy!

So anyway, I kind of figured this out about a minute into their first song. T-Rav, I believe, has the full setlist of what they played, but basically it went like this: They played the new album, in its entirety, note for note. While they were doing this, they had a big screen behind them that showed various visuals that tied into the concept of each song. I’ve been told that Crack The Skye is a concept album about Rasputin and the visuals seemed to support that.
Once they got through the album, they dug into their back catalog and played quite bit off Blood Mountain and Leviathon, and maybe two songs from Remission.
I managed to make it about two and half songs into the set before I retreated to the back of the crowd. The thing that put me over the edge was a guy in front of me in a striped button down shirt playing air guitar and bumping his elbow into my gut in the process.
When I went to the back of the crowd, I ended up by the door. One guy walked in and asked if this was the second band playing, and I informed him that no, it was Mastodon. In my head I giggled at him for not knowing that the band he came to see was on stage.
Then another guy made a comment about how he really wanted to go smoke (his only two options were to plow his way through the crowd up front to the “patio”, or go out the front door, and be out of the show for good; he didn’t seem to like the idea of either). He kept looking towards the front door and I happened to be in that line of sight. I think he noticed that he was making me nervous so he started talking about Mastodon and how awesome they were and the last time he saw them and the best metal concert ever was when Slayer played with Hatebreed and Arch Enemy in Milwaukee and did I know that Eagle’s Ballroom has EIGHT stages?!?
Yeah, he might have been on meth, I don’t know. After a couple minutes of placating nodding, I walked over to the bar away from him and ordered a beer.
I ended up staying there, watching the show and eventually T-Rav found me.

Anyway, all in all, I had a fun time. Musically, I’d say I enjoyed Kylesa a bit more than Mastodon, but I’m glad to have figured out the mystery of why I don’t “get” Mastodon. Maybe I’ll make it a project to listen to and learn about prog rock and then go back and listen to Mastodon. Heh.

Anyway, the Valient Thorr show was a whole bunch of awesome. They are an undeniably weird band. They pretend to be from Venus (we’re on to you guys), and preach a lot of conspiracy theories. They also sound very much like Accept.
Hey! maybe Valient Himself’s goal was to put his balls to the wall and that’s why he was so comfortable walking around with that giant hole in the crotch of his jeans!

Yeah, that’s probably enough about that.
Anyway, back when I found out about the Early Man Valient Thorr show, I happened to notice that Murder By Death was playing the very next night. I had seen Murder By Death back when they opened for Clutch and theyimpressed me enough to download a couple albums and I liked the idea of seeing them in a smaller venue so I got a couple tickets and the aforementioned area bassist and I went to see them tonight.
That was a run-on sentence. This is your grammar lesson for today.

It was really really strange to go back to the Triple Rock after having been there the night before. I imagine it’s kind of like if you got a hooker and then got her phone number and took her out on a real date the next day. I say this not because I have any experience with hookers (I assure you I don’t), but because it’s an accurate analogy:
The Valient Thorr show was kind of nasty, but also a fun time. Murder By Death was much nicer, with a much more feminine aura. But they occurred within the same skin.

Okay, maybe it’s kind of a stretch.

Anyway, we had a good time. For some reason, the Murder By Death show was 18+. which meant that it started at 5pm instead of 8pm (and by “started”, I mean “started to think about when the show should start”), so T-Rav and I got there around 5:30 or so and, because I demanded food, hung out in the side bar area and chatted about tech work stuff for a while. While there, I noticed this:

Those guys are so sweet.

Anyway, we ended up catching about half of the last song of the opening band, who actually sounded pretty good and now I feel a little bit bad about missing their set. D’oh!
Murder By Death put on a good show. Ummm… they played songs.
I made a game out of keeping track of their setlist. I only know about 5 of their song titles and can name maybe three on hearing them being performed. So I decided it would be a fun test for the power of the iPhone to keep track of the setlist by Googling lyrics. It worked out pretty awesome and now it’s been fun to listen to the songs they played in order.

Here is what they played:
Ball & Chain, ‘52 Ford, Masters In Reverse Psychology, Sometimes The Line Walks You, Fuego!, Steal Away, The Big Sleep, Brother, Organ Grinder, Three Men Hanging, Comin’ Home, One More Notch, Dead Men and Sinners, Dynamite Mine, Until Morale Improves The Beatings Will Continue, Spring Break 1899

Encore: Shiola, RumBrave

OKAY DORKY POST OVER NOW.

I’ve been struggling all week with trying to write a blog post about it. I wanted to go over the history, because I was trying to explain to a couple people at the party how we came to be playing a bunch of Irish music, but I don’t think I did a very good job. Luckily, a Behind The Music series about A Flock Of Kobolds has recently begun internet-broadcasting (thanks to me), so you can just watch these short videos:

(the series continues here)

Anyway, as I said, the show was fantastic. It was really laid back, and I think, we, the band, got to let loose and have a lot of fun with it. Also, it was kind of like having two parties in one, because my sister’s whole family came, and Ben’s wife & child, and Lukas’s wife and child, and all of them stayed through the first set. So the party up through the first set was like a family get together, and then, after the children left, it turned into an old-fashioned all-out kegger. The band got ridiculous and played some awesomely bawdy songs, and everyone had a whole bunch of fun.
The party itself even had an encore of sorts, since five of us stayed up until 5am, long after everyone else had either gone to bed or gone home. I couldn’t have hoped for a better party.

For the record, here’s the ridiculously complicated setlist of the first A Flock Of Kobolds official gig:

Set I: Dark Streets Of London*, Haul Away Joe***, Fathom The Bowl***, Hanging Johnny***, The Son Never Shines (On Closed Doors)**#, Finnegan’s Wake***, The Wanderer*****, Streams Of Whiskey*##, The Wild Rover***, Whiskey In The Jar***

Set II: Alice > Swagger**, Hands Of Fate****, Death Valley Queen**#, Mingulay Boat Song***, Baltimore Whores****, Mariner’s Revenge Song*****, The Blarney Stone******, Drunken Sailor***###&, Good Ship Venus***, Boys From County Hell*, What’s Left Of The Flag**

Encore: The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald*******###, Cape Cod Girls***, Haul Away Joe***&&

* – The Pogues
** – Flogging Molly
*** – trad
**** – original
***** – The Decemberists
****** – Ween
******* – Gordon Lightfoot
# – T-Rav on vocals
## – Ryan on vocals
### – revolving vocalists on the verses
& – guest verse by Lukas
&& – guest verses by Kristian

And if you want to become a superfan, you can download the soundboard recording of the show here. Although, I must warn you, listening to the second set sober can be hazardous. ;)

* – I totally stole this joke from T-Rav.
** – Wooo I’m British!
*** – drunk

Scarlet Begonias - Grateful Dead, Sublime
Name - Trey Anastatio & Tom Marshall
Pink Triangle - Weezer
Jamie - Weezer
Birthday Boy - Ween
Voodoo Lady> - Ween
Free - Phish
I Know You Rider - traditional
Twist - Phish

For some reason my high E string requires that I tune it a 1/4 note high in order to be in tune on the fifth fret. :^For some reason I felt like typing about my high E string. Whaaaa…?

So, Friday night, I went to dinner with Meghan & her family at Ciatti’s (or whatever the name of it now is… I forgot already). That was interesting. I didn’t talk much. But then, I didn’t really need to. Then Meghan & I went to the iMax and saw a documentary on NASCAR.
I feel a bit odd saying it, but I respect NASCAR a lot more now. Heh. :^D
Then we went to a Carbones in Apple Valley (?) and she taught me a new game to play, wherein one person says the name of some celebrity and the next person has to come up with a celebrity whose first name starts with the same letter as the last name of the celebrity the first person named.
It’s harder than it sounds.
’50 First Dates’ look like a funny movie.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day sitting at home, alternating between playing guitar and watch MST3K. Then Meghan & I went to her friend Naomi’s birthday gathering at 5 Corners. We saw a couple bands (one of which contained a guy known to the group); the first band sucked at first, but then they played a Morphine song and got better; especially after their trombone player showed up. That guy was hilarious.
The second band, Pine Martin was okay. They played The Gourds’ version of Gin & Juice, which was funny. We ended up leaving in the middle of their set, though, because the birthday girl wanted to go to the dance club. Hooray for thumping dance party music!
It was a fun time.
Then, I (amazingly the sober one) got to drive drunk girls home. Heh heh.

So far today, I’ve watched 2 MST3K episodes, completely rearranged all my furniture (again), and watched Chasing Amy; oh, and played a bunch of guitar.

Saturday morning, we got up around 10:30am, a bit groggy, but having slept amazingly well. Although I had to piss like a racehorse the entire night. I hadn’t wanted to get up, because I knew it would be cold as hell.
Most of Saturday was spent wandering around the campsite, check out random things; Kerry bought a Bong Recreation Area t-shirt; we checked out the visitor’s center and went to the weird little beach area. Eventually, in the afternoon, we got some firewood, and had some of the most fantastic tasting hot dogs ever, cooked straight over the fire.
We left later to the show this time, figuring we’d get out quicker if we were parked farther back. On the way to the show, we stopped at a little mini-mart and picked up some more beer (having finished the case earlier that day).
We had to wait in a car line for a little bit getting to the show, but it wasn’t much more than 10 minutes or so.
There were many, many, many more ticketless folks wandering around than the previous day. In fact, I’d say there were more people looking for tickets than any other show I’d ever been to. 
This was, obviously, because the show had sold out two days before.
Having arrived at about 7:15, with the show time technically supposed to be 7pm, we had to walk through quite a large horde of people to get to our seats. We were excited to find that our seats in the pavillion were actually fairly close; I had originally thought about 32 rows back, and that seemed about right. It gave us a nice view of the stage.
Of course, when we got to our seats, there were a couple of hippy moron kids sitting in them, who pretended to be surprised that they were actually our seats.
The show started probably about 15 minutes after we got there. The first set was good, except for most of it, I was being thoroughly annoyed by a drunk gay man next to me, who was trying to fit both himself and his lover in the space of one seat. Plus, he had friends that were two rows up that he desperately wanted to communicate with, so his elbows were in front of my face for most of the set. Eventually, I got annoyed to the point where I purposely jostled him and blew smoke in his face, and he sat down, with his boyfriend standing in front of him. I felt kind of sorry for the boyfriend, because he didn’t seem to be into the show at all, and he was crowded into a space not meant for more than one person.
So, I didn’t really have a chance to get too into the music for the first set of the show, although I do remember being really excited about Funky Bitch, because I had forgotten that song existed.
During setbreak, the annoying drunk gay man and his boyfriend moved down to the row where their friends were and thankfully didn’t come back.
Alpine can be a great place or a crappy place to see shows because of things like this. The lawn kind of sucks because it’s far away, and sitting down means sitting on the floor, but it’s also cool because it’s easy to find or create space to move.
The pavillion rawks because it’s close to the stage and you have a chair to sit in if need be, but all too often to have to defend your space because of stupid fuckers who think it’s there right to stand wherever they please, and use as much space to dance their ugly asses off as they please. It seems to happen more often at Phish shows than at other shows I’ve been to.
Oh well.
For most of the second set, I had plenty of space and didn’t have to deal with any jerks.
I was excited about Boogie On -> Ghost -> Free, both of which were jammed out for a bit. Some of the playing struck me as a bit rough around the edges (almost… forced? I dunno), but it was good. I think I was still trying to shake off the irritation of the idiot from the first set. Sometime during this, Kerry & I each obtained a glow stick, and I wound mine around a hemp bracelet I had gotten from Ben earlier in the day. Also, a couple random guys came and stood in that space previously vacated by Supergay. They just stood there, though, so that was fine.
Anyway, I sat down for Friday because my feet hurt. I got back up for Piper.
There had been a crapload of slow sticks being thrown out during the show, but never was there a full-on glowstick war. People tried desperately during Piper, but to no avail.
Finally, Harry Hood came around, which is traditionally THE glowstick song.
I was standing there groovin’, and some coked-up hippie standing in front of me started grabbing at the glowstick entwined on my wrist. He got as far as saying, “Hey can I–?” when I yelled, “NO!!” Stupid fucking hippies! Always tryin’ to steal my glowsticks!
It didn’t really bother me, though. Mostly, I just cracked up that it happened AGAIN.
Overall, the show doesn’t stick with me as much as the first night, although I have not listened to it again on CDR either. I think my subconcious spent a lot of time at this denying the fact that it very well could be the last Phish show I ever see.
After the show, we got out of the parking lot extremely quick, and although we were forced to take a detour again, we found our way back to the campsite in fairly short order.
Ben & I stayed up til almost four a.m. enjoying the fire, more awesome hotdogs, and beer. We ending up talking about Jabberwocky most of the time we up, and it rooled. I burned my glowstick to experience the ‘VOIP!’ sound.
Ricardo Multiban!
MUST.BE.STUPID.
I’ve got poison ivy on my dick.

Sunday June 27th, 2004 – Luigi’s
The ride home was mostly quiet. I spent most of the ride reading Hearts In Atlantis. Kerry slept off a headache. Ben drove. We listened to the Alpine ’03 shows, finishing up the last one about 5 minutes before pulling in the parking lot at my apartment.
On the way home, we stopped in River Falls and had dinner at Luigi’s. While we were there, we decided we had to go to Luigi’s on Friday (today!).
Overall, it was a great weekend. One of the happiest 3 days I’ve had in a long time (which is saying a lot, because it’s been pretty damned happy year so far!!).

So, tonight, I’m headed to Emma’s! With M, Ben, Kerry, Keith, Reuben, and possibly Lukas & Janelle! WHOOO!!!!

Friday June 25th – Phish
I got to bed around 2:30am after packing on Thursday night; got up around 7:30am to get ready for the trip to Alpine. Ben & Kerry picked me up around 8:30. The drive was pleasant. Ben & I had a long conversation wherein he would name songs and I’d predict whether Phish would play them. I was wrong more often than right, as it turns out. :^D
We got to the campsite around 3:30, which was perfect. It gave us enough time to get everything set up and have a beer before heading to the show, without having too much time and causing us to become bored.
We head for the lots at about 5pm, and got there around 5:45, I believe.
We spent most of the time leading up to the show just sitting on the lawn looking around for Ben’s friends from Morris, who we see at every Phish show. Turns out they ended up finding us, which was cool.
(Whoo… I’m boring!)
Anyway, the show was fucking brilliant.
I was kind of surprised by the Julius opener, because at both shows last year, we had gotten Hoist openers, and they had played Julius last year as well. Although I was surprised, I was not disappointed. It was a rockin’ Julius, and I loved it!
Roses Are Free was a helluva surprise. Unfortunately, Trey biffed it up after the break in the song, but we didn’t care; we were just happy as hell they played it. Plus, it segued into AC/DC Bag, which was THE ONE song that I’d never seen at a show that I really wanted to. :^D Unfortunately, Trey flubbed some more throughout the first set, but it was still fine, because I was happy as hell to be seeing Phish. The Wolfman’s had an awesome little funk jam in it, as well.
The second set it pure awesomeness start to finish. Seven Below was on for about 25 minutes; Buffalo Bill is a song I’ve always loved, but never thought I’d see since it’s so rarely played; Lawn Boy always cracks me up, because Page makes such an awesome crooner; he even went so far as to sign an autograph in the middle of the song.
Mike’s Song was Ben’s prediction come true. With it came the unfortunate circumstance of Ben & I screaming our affection for the song at each other, with Kerry standing right between us. She wasn’t even aware of what song they were playing because we screamed so loud. She forgave us, though, once she did hear what it was.
Mike’s Song has been one of my absolute favorite Phish songs since Slip, Stitch & Pass came out, and the Alpine ’98 show. I’d only seen one other up to this point, at the Sandstone show in 2000, but at the time I was alone, so it wasn’t as fun. 
I figured that Weekapaug Groove would bring the end of the set, but I was again proved wrong. You Enjoy Myself made it’s fourth appearance in 7 shows, and was another repeat from last year. 
You can’t ever complain about YEM, though.
After the tramps segment of YEM, it was obvious that Trey had something in mind, and after consulting the other guys, they switched gears into 2001, leaving YEM technically unfinished. 2001 was short, and led into one of the funnier vocal jams I’ve heard. My favorite part was the very end where Trey let out a little giggle.
Sample In A Jar was a fair encore for such a fine, fine show.
After the show, we fought our way through about 20 minutes of idiot traffic to get out of the parking lot. Ben & I stayed up for a couple beers in the dark (Kerry having got straight to bed when we got back), and BSed about the general awesomeness of the show.
The tradition of Bong-camping at Alpine shows has turned out to be a really really cool thing.