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Phish Reunion Parking Lot: Up Close and Personal With the Jam Bands’ Big Fans

3/9/09, 7:49 pm EST

Rolling Stone brought you full coverage of Phish’s reunion sets in Hampton, Virginia, this weekend, but the real scene was going down — where else? — in the parking lot. More than fourteen thousand people, including a good number of accountants, lawyers and insurance brokers left their “normal” lives for the chance to see the Vermont jam legends rock for the first time in nearly five years. Some traded their suits for flip-flops and briefcases for hibachi barbeques. For others, however, this is their normal life — following jam bands from state to state hoping for a miracle ticket. They all drove, flew and hopped trains from just about every corner of the country and spent their hours before boarding the Mothership (the term affectionately given the Hampton Coliseum due to its resemblance to a spaceship) in the parking lot tailgating, trying to score a last-minute ticket, selling food or homemade wares, and even attempting to find some chemical enhancement for the show later (not that we’d condone such behavior).

Every person in the lot has their own story, and Rolling Stone was there to hear as many as we could. There was the insurance broker from Long Island who relies on Phish concerts as an escape from his everyday life. “This is my vacation,” he told us. “After this I’ll be able to make it through the rest of the year.” Then there was the accountant from Manhattan who was once so determined to make it to a New Year’s Eve show at Madison Square Garden that she successfully sneaked into the arena underneath a complete stranger’s coat.

Impressed? Horrified? Confused? Meet the other characters we encountered in the lot here:

Phish Reunion Parking Lot: Up Close and Personal With the Jam Bands’ Big Fans

Related Stories:

Photos: Phish Reunite at Hampton
Phish Rip Through Fan Favorites at First Hampton Reunion Show
Phish Break Out Rarities, Free-Form Improv at Second Hampton Gig”


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Comments

Trey | 3/9/2009, 9:33 pm EST

Losers.

Reuben | 3/9/2009, 9:56 pm EST

Have you read the whole thing? Some of these people are accomplished and leading normal lives,

Dan | 3/10/2009, 12:39 pm EST

What did anyone Lose. what is the competition?

Ryan | 3/10/2009, 2:54 pm EST

Helllll yea

Neal | 3/11/2009, 6:47 am EST

Phish plays music that tens of thousands of people really like, and who are from all walks of life. And they became popular in an almost 100% grass roots manner. That must be respected even if you don’t enjoy the music they produce (which is like a Zappa Jam Funk band with incredible skill)

I don’t see why people have to get in a huff about it.

Anybody playing music to people who love it is a good thing

Carry on

See you all June 6th at GREAT WOOOOODS. yea

PhishTube | 3/11/2009, 10:57 am EST

Phish is blowing up the scene, raging it harder than any other band, the fans are more into it than any other band. We’re the best fans ever! Any body that says anything negative is just hating. I’m bringing the renegade live online broadcasts from the lot, the hotel, and inside the show this summer so tune in and see what it’s all about… and if you don’t know now you know.

anti-phish! | 3/11/2009, 6:27 pm EST

phish sucks ass!bro

KB | 3/11/2009, 9:01 pm EST

who got my asheville xtra???

Michael Twilley | 3/11/2009, 11:11 pm EST

I wear my butterfly wings to every Phish and Panic show and paint my face with glitter. We phans love to express ourselves in beautiful and different ways and no one makes you feel strange about it in the lot or in the show!

jimmyjamfakemarinetrampstamp | 3/11/2009, 11:57 pm EST

i wish twilley would go to lunch with me

lana | 3/12/2009, 12:05 am EST

anybody seen my toot toot?

WowwyZowee | 3/12/2009, 12:56 am EST

Alpine Valley is going to be Grateful Dead 1989 all over again. 40,000 people can fit in the venue…I say 100,000 people show up. It’s going to be utter chaos. I can’t wait.

headband | 3/12/2009, 7:54 am EST

phish suck. Their best days are way long gone…The “scene” is overcrowded and lame. Too many better bands, to be stuck into just one, old, tired, worn out group.

2112 | 3/12/2009, 11:54 am EST

I love Phish and am not a hippie. It’s about the music and nothing else. I think they are now too big to tour which sucks! I bet this is the last tour. :-(

Will | 3/12/2009, 4:32 pm EST

Phish is the best live band to ever grace the stage.

haters dont know shit about music, at least not the kind i care to talk about.

Lana Lee | 3/12/2009, 6:52 pm EST

Hey Waitingforwhoreplane, where’s my hat bitch?

weegie | 3/15/2009, 1:42 am EST

Being a hippie ceased being cool in about 1973……….

Bobby C. | 3/15/2009, 2:20 am EST

Hoist [Elektra, 1994]
A Live One [Elektra, 1995]
With their damn newsletter at 80,000 and counting, the growth of their economic base is impervious not just to criticism but to any eventuality that doesn’t involve the breakdown of the American transportation system. So give ‘em 10 years, and don’t worry you’ll miss something in the meantime. Phish isn’t a classic two-guitar jamming band like the Allmans or those guys from Marin. It’s a keyb-guitar-bass-drums quartet, its music dominated conceptually by the high-cholesterol chords and florid arpeggios of Page McConnell’s piano. Occasionally there’s a good song–naif that I am, I like the one called “Simple.” But they’ve never put more than a couple on one studio album, and this two-hour live double is where they show off their base-building specialties, e.g. “a mind-blowing 35-minute version of `Tweezer’”–which is actually only 31, praise God, and guess what else they got wrong? C+

Billy Breathes [Elektra, 1996]

Slip Stitch and Pass [Elektra, 1997]
Kinda restores your faith in humanity for these guys to make like they know the difference between intelligent and pretentious. Page McConnell plays blues, Trey Anastasio plays Jerry, and David Byrne, ZZ Top, and the 19th-century team of Joe Howard and Ida Emerson beef up the fey songwriting. Plus you have to love their long overdue Doors interpolation: “Mother . . . I want to cook you breakfast.” B+

Farmhouse [Elektra, 2000]
Tuneful, sturdy, unfaltering, bland, it’s the pioneering jam band’s bid for the market share located some years ago by Dave Matthews. Enthusiasts may even claim it proves they’re better than Dave Matthews, as indeed it does, though why that needed proving I couldn’t tell you. Inspirational Verse: “Each betrayal begins with trust/Every man returns to dust.” “One man gathers what another man spills” was taken. B-

Bobby C. | 3/15/2009, 2:23 am EST

Oh, and Hoist and Billy Breathes were given an “F” ;)

Miles Kimbrough | 4/26/2009, 2:04 am EST

Seriously, I don’t understand the logic that drives Phish vitriol. No one is making you listen to their music; why does it bother you? You have every right to dislike Phish and any other kind of music, but I cannot fathom what drives people to outwardly proclaim their hatred for Phish, or any other band for that matter. Well, except for Nickelback.

fishstank | 5/5/2009, 12:31 pm EST

At least Nickelback keep there songs under 4 minutes. Only a short torture, unlike phish whose songs go on forever

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