those pics are bard arse.
i witnessed that same storm system here that night. it was unreal. very cool, scary, eerie at the same time. you could smell the ozone.
Very cool pictures! That was so much fun!
I loved how all of us would cheer and scream for the lightning and then give each other that “We’re all gonna die” look but with smiles and laughter.
yeah that night was the best concert experience i have had simply because of the lightning.
yeah Deer Creek was fucking sick…such a memorable night
and now that I’ve seen “The Connection” live, I can die a happy man
I ran into Phil Lesh 6-19-09 walking out of the pavillion before the show. 1 minute later he was followed by Tom Marshall. Always cool when you are carrying your son down to seats so he can eventually play air glowstick drums to Fluff. Anyway Erika took the kid to the seat (1) for the evac, and my buddy and I moved the car to section 3!, did Patron shots, dressed like Dog Logs in garbage bags and brought the “big bowl” in the 0 re-entry security. With purpose we tried to re-unite with my wife and son. Success! Now with 4 nice pavs (we only had 1) we all were ready for the de-facing thrills of the next 1/2 hour.
I love this show. Especially since we were only in the bad rain for 30 seconds as we got out, and had towels ready. Our campsite was swept away (taking out someone elses in the process). That’s a different matter. The nights irony was during Stealing Time this guy kept almost falling on us while nodding. Nice neighbors helped push him the fuck away.
Phil was a Deer Creek this year? Sweet.
^Yeah it was pretty sweet. Phil had this custom bass guitar tank-top, and brand new Adidas. I kinda of looked at him, and he kind of looked at me we both smiled and kept going. I had been backstage with the G.D. twice and been to more than 40 shows so somehow he might have recognized me. I would like to think that the smile was an aknowledgement of my family or something. I don’t dwell on it, but it happened at the Creek this year!
You were?!?!
:-*
this stood out as one of those shows that just led to something.
the first set was cool. Lots of great songs and not many sluggish parts. Good mix of ragers (Moma, Melt, Stealing Time, WEDGE) and some of those “newer” more melodic Phish songs that i happen to love (Connection, Backwards, Water in the Sky) and of course Lawn Boy and Fluffhead were like birthday presents.
I’ve never seen anything like that rain delay and some of the sweetest lightning i’ve ever seen (and i’m from FLA - lightning capitol of the world) and the raging 2nd set it led to was prefect. These are the situations where you need Phish. Nobody can harness a situation that is totally out of everybody’s control, take total control of it while being out of control quite like they can and this set is a perfect example.
Night 2 of my tour could very well have been the best. We were super late getting to Deer Creek. Thanks a lot Googlemaps! We ended up taking this single lane highway through all these small towns and it set us back big time. We were literally running into the venue as they were hitting the opening notes of Number Line. We got to hear 90% of the song anyway and it was great. I’m really loving the new Phish stuff, except for Alaska.
AC/DC Bag was short but sweet, and Limb By Limb was just off the hook. Fishman was most definitely on his game, which Trey alluded to after the song, so you knew they had to give Fish the spotlight for a second. MOMA DANCE! Sweet jesus that’s some nasty funk. That was the first one to get everyone on the lawn up and dancing, and about when we noticed that this storm is going to come on strong. The slow version of Water in the sky was great to hear, and the Melt was a rager to be sure, but it wasn’t a Top 5 version by any means.
Lawn Boy was great. Page really seemed to be in the mood for it. It was probably one of the more sensual Lawn Boy’s I’ve ever herad, and it takes on a different kind of meaning when you are out on the lawn in one of these big venues. The Wedge was a big bustout…wasn’t it? Maybe I’m wrong, but if they played it before on this tour then I hadn’t heard it, so I was ecstatic. I really love the song Stealing Time, but I felt that the placement was a bit off. They probably should have played this in the second set and played Let Me Lie where they played this, but that’s my one and only complaint about this show.
During the Connection everyone around me sat down. Seriously. I’m like “wtf?”. First Connection ever and you’re all sitting. I partied down. Same with during the Ocelot. Great song. Great great song. I was thinking one more, but I was totally not expecting a Fluffhead set closer. It was huge, but (you’re all going to hate me), I went and took a piss during one of the sections, since I figured we were in for a very short setbreak and I didn’t want to miss the beginning of set 2. The ending was great and it was getting mighty ugly out.
So, long set break. We went back to the car and tried to set up our tent, (we paid the ridiculous $70 for onsite camping), but the wind was too strong, so we just chilled in the car until the rain let up. We started walking back at 10:50 and somehow missed most of ASIHTOS, which kind of pissed me off. They could have waited a few more minutes, since I noticed half the crowd wasn’t back in there yet. OH well, we got up way closer on the lawn…actually we just stood in the aisle since the lawn was slippery as fuck.
Drowned was great. One of my favorite covers, and perfect placement. I believe it was somewhere into Twist or Let me Lie where we met up randomly with Hank and Patricia. (BTW, nice girl Hank.) It was great hanging with them for the rest of the show. Getting down with you guys during that Tweezer > 2001 > the end of the show, was very memorable and one of the better experiences I had all weekend.
The band was just on fire for the whole second set. They could not be tamed. So I can excuse the relatively weak encore, but even still that Tweeprise was amazing.
Anyway…this show, or the next night, were probably my favorite of the shows I saw, and due to that ever present bias, I’d consider this maybe the best show of the tour. I always hated when you phans used the phrase “you had to be there” to describe why a show was so great, but really, you had to be there. 
Weak Encore?
^ RELATIVELY weak. Just compared to the night before and the whole show overall. On a standard night it would be a great encore I’m sure.
At least it wasn’t Character 0
Devin, I am super happy for you! Couldn’t have said it better myself!
i thought that encore was badass!
first Sleeping Monkey since Miami and the lighting striking right when Page chimed in on Tweezer Reprise?
wicked!
The encore was fine.
I thought the encore was perfect! I mean yeah, I would have taken the encore from Camden over that for sure, but like posted above first monkey since miami, and a rockin’ tweeprise. Trey was sooooo animated during that reprise. I was dancing like a madman in the rain for the whole thing!! I noticed a lot of people leaving though… IMO that is LAME LAME LAME! Leave a Phish show early? hmmmm…
I hope it doesn’t get predictable as the dead 93-95 fri. I Fought The Law, Sat. Liberty, sun. Baba>Tomorrow Never Knows. Repeat…