Do you think by this show Phish knew that Loaded was going to be their Halloween show that year, or did they work on Sweet Jane as a cover by itself first and then consider Loaded as the ‘costume’ thereafter? Maybe because they haven’t played it again since the Halloween show, I tend to believe they knew where they were headed when they dropped this one on 8/8/98.
This show, although not overly outrageous overall, was subtly special for a number of reasons, the least of which is one of only two Sweet Jane performances. It also contained one of only five Fikus performances, one of four Sexual Healings, and one of three Sabotages ever played (so far). Tela has only been played seven times since the beginning of that year, and this show contained one of them. And what’s funny from a personal standpoint is that there was one played in all of 97 and that was at my first Phish show on 8/14. About a year later, at my seventh show I got one again. It was also odd that they played NICU again after only playing it two nights before in Atlanta, but rumor has it that they did it because there was some old guy sitting in the second row wearing a baseball hat with the letters on it. 
I remember that it was brutally hot that day, we were having a northeast heatwave not unlike the one we’re having currently, and everything and everyone was kind of atypical, but not in a bad way. The lot scene after the show was like clip out of Bladerunner or Escape From New York with fights and mounted police and helicopters shining lights in all directions. That episode on stage during the Sexual Healing was kind of bizarre too and I have to go back and listen to the songs leading up to that, because Trey has a tendency to torture Fish sometimes, especially after he misses a cue in a song. Trey was the one on the drums who just kept making Fish run around the stage that night, and I remember thinking how odd it was especially because of how hot it was even at that time of night.
But I still maintain that all of these oddities had more to do with the fact that the band knew that they were doing something very special the next night in VA Beach on the anniversary of Garcia’s passing. We didn’t know it then, but the excitement of the moment when they began singing the Terrapin encore the next night was influencing what the band was doing at MPP on the 8th. There’s no doubt in my mind that there was a looseness and happiness hanging over both shows because of it.
Great memories are the reason for Phish fans.
