Phish in Cville

Thanks to a tip from Lee I entered in the pre-sale lottery for Phish in Charlottesville awhile ago. Surprisingly I scored two lower level tickets. The show at Merriweather over the summer wasn't that exciting because they played all new unknown songs. I was looking forward to this indoor show at John Paul Jones Arena.

The plan was to leave at a decent time for the 2.5 hour drive to get settled at the hotel, enjoy the lot, and make it in the venue comfortably. The forecast of snow made things harder to plan. Being the morning after the office holiday party it was not so easy to get out of bed. Teri was especially hating life. I woke her up around 10 or so and said Lee was leaving around noon and we had to leave no later than 2:00. She didn't sound happy and I didn't blame her being unfamiliar with the band, hungover, and having a bit of a family crisis back in Montana. I was surprised and a little unprepared when she showed up at my place ready to go before 1:00. We grabbed some food and took off in the snow.

I drove and we had to go pretty slow at first. Even on the highway we were going about half speed. Lee, Kari, and their friend left about a half hour before us. Once we got off 66 the rode conditions got a little better. And the closer to Charlottesville and further south we went the better things got. We checked in to the hotel room, got some food, picked up beer, and met them at their hotel a few blocks away. All the hotels were packed with Phishheads. After a beer we took off to the show.

The original plan was to take a taxi but I should have known that would never work. Even if we got one there we would never get one back. Teri was kind enough to drive. That turned out to be an issue as well with the traffic. It took 30 minutes to go a block. We finally just turned in to the shopping center next to us, parked, and started walking. It wasn't too far of a walk. The venue was decent and our seats weren't too bad at the back of the lower level.

The first set rocked. It had some good funk. We were rollin' and getting down. I've never seen so many glow sticks. They were constantly in the air. The entire place was puffing. The light show was excellent as usual. The whole event made an impression on Teri. At the start of Ya Mar a naked guy jumped on stage and ran around for a minute before security got him. The second set rocked as well. Lots of classic songs. Trey and crew referred to the naked guy in Run Like An Antelope which got the place going. Here is a video of naked guy and naked guy references.

The setlist:

Set 1: AC/DC Bag > Chalk Dust Torture, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, The Divided Sky, Ya Mar[1], Sneakin' Sally through the Alley[2], The Old Home Place, Cavern > Funky Bitch, David Bowie, The Wedge, Bold As Love

Set 2: Tweezer -> Light > Piper -> Free, Sweet Virginia, Harry Hood > Suzy Greenberg > Golgi Apparatus, Run Like an Antelope[1]

Encore: Loving Cup > Tweezer Reprise

After the show we couldn't find much of a lot scene so we boogied. We partied in Lee's hotel room for awhile before passing out and sleeping late. It was a nice sunny drive home after a fun night.