was at the show.
probably my favorite of short road trips with phish.
will called tickets the day before… mind you i’m in MI. grabbed my brahhaan after work and we drove all night.
sunrise we were cruising through the daybreak mist in the WV mountains… so cool. windows down with that cool moist air all around. anyway…
rocked out a breakfast stop at a Bob Evans in Charleston WV… can only imagine what we looked like to the early risers of that town LOL.
hopped back on the freeway south… stopped for cigarettes at some crazy place in NC north of charlotte. like a humidor inside a flea market. anyway my friend’s $20 from an ATM made a weird mark when the girl ran the authenticity marker on it paying for the cigs. some crazy ass security guy came over, actually asked her to look for the the FBI in the phone book 
still, i was buggin, thought they’d call the cops for sure. goddamn nat sherman cigs
anyway we eventually made it to our hotel… crashed out for a couple hours before driving to the lot. fuck… the traffic to the pavilion was HORRIBLE. we barely made it in time for the start.
it was my first show since fall 98, so GBOTT got me fackin’ pammpped! what’s the use in the #2 was odd, but i do love it. a solid Billy Breathes, much much better than my first at DC 97…
the Wolfman’s flub is Trey almost skipped the “So with meaningless excitement…” bridge, playing the chord change that would lead into the jam instead… when he realized his mistake he said something like “let’s go back and try that again” and went right into the bridge. they never skipped a beat. i think it actually pumped up the end of the song a bit even.
i thought it was a solid and trippy 2nd set with the addition of My Left Toe… really couldn’t believe i was hearing it. plus hearing Fish on the electrolux intermittently behind the drumkit was cool and surprising!
the YEM vocal jam distinctly has a “racecar” theme to part of it which was pretty cool considering it was obvious we were in NASCAR country 
although the Derek Trucks guest spot is cool, he’s far too traditional a guitarist for my tastes, so its a nice memory but not too meaningful to me. much more fitting on Possum than Funky Bitch, but if you are a fan or just wanna hear some top flight slide blues in yer Phish, check this encore out 
