My first show. I still get the tinglies thinking of that night…
My friend who was also my ride to the show bailed on me about 10 hours before the show so that he could play in an all-important D-League intramural hockey game. Thankfully he regrets it, but it put me in a bad spot. I had seen a poster the day before the show on campus advertising 2 tickets for face. I emailed the guy right away but he said they were already taken. I emailed back and offered $60 each for the tickets (face was $42.50). They were good seats and I desperately wanted to go to a show. Luckily, the other person didn’t want to go that high, so I met him on campus and made the exchange. The next day (2/26), my friend informs me that his intramural hockey team has made the D-League intramural hockey playoffs because 2 teams didn’t show up. So it’s 11AM, I’m a sophomore in college, I have no car, no ride and an extra ticket for the show, which is a 3 hour drive away. I started calling just about everyone I could think of when I remembered I had randomly had lunch with some freshman a couple weeks ago who liked Phish. I looked him up in the campus directory and gave him a call. I asked if he’d be interested in going to Phish with me. He didn’t hesitate. Next, I told him that the tickets were more than face, the show was tonight and we didn’t have a way of getting there. He was fine with all of that. We met up and I checked the Amtrak schedule. Perfect - there was a 2:30PM train that would put us in Worcester in plenty of time to hang out in the lot, grab some food and mosey into the venue. We get to the train station and see our train up on the board with a flashing yellow light and “1 hour delay” next to it. We’re thinking it’s no big deal, since the Worcester train station is directly across the street from the Centrum. We wait a little longer, then the “1 hour” turns to “2 hours” and finally “3 hours.” Now there’s no way we could make the train and still be on time for the show. I called the Albany bus station and they said they had a bus to Worcester leaving in 12 minutes. We cashed in our train tickets and hailed a cab across the river to the bus station (to borrow a phrase: it’s a wretched hive of scum and villainy). The cab ride literally took 4 minutes and was about 1 mile. The cabbie charged us $16, but we didn’t have time to argue. We ran through the bus station, got tickets and jumped on the bus 30 seconds before it backed out. At this point, we’re thinking we’re in the clear. WRONG. We’re rolling along on I-90 just fine and then we get to exit 10 for Worcester. Dead stop. The bus crawled up 290 towards downtown Worcester. By the time we finally reached the exit, it’s past showtime. We finally pull into the bus station, then realize that we have no idea how to get to the centrum from the bus station. I relied on stereotypes and approached a nice looking girl with dreads. I asked her if she was going to the Phish show. She was, and better yet her boyfriend had room to bring us there! Now up rolls the boyfriend in a beat up Ford Ranger with those fold-down back seats. The cab is full of trash and clothing, so the guy shoves it all behind the driver’s seat. I’m squashed into one of those fold down seats, the girl has her legs awkwardly wrapped around the stick shift and my friend is crammed into shotgun. We pull out of the bus station and drive literally 2 blocks to the Centrum. If there hadn’t been a building between the bus station and the Centrum, we would have seen it without a problem and realized that driving there is a silly idea. We finally get to the glorious Centrum and manage to get through security and to our seats shortly after 8:40. We had been seated for all of 30 seconds when the lights go down, the band comes out and the guy next to us hands us a joint because he overheard us saying it was our first show. We sparked that baby up and then Trey let out the Charge! tease and dropped into a smokin’ YEM. The rest of the night was pure bliss (except for Final Flight 
).
