the people you meet at shows...

Phish General
#1

i was thinking about this the other day while listening to 10/30/98 (which i haven’t had a copy of until like 3 days ago when i found it on etree :slight_smile: but i digress). “back in the day” i.e. - pre-hiatus and BC (Before Coventry) - it seemed like most people at shows were either (a) college kids or (b) high school kids. it was very rare (for me at any rate) to meet someone at a show who actually held a responsible job that didn’t involve asking “would you like fries with that”.

since hampton this is a short list of the people i’ve met at the half dozen or so shows i’ve done this year:

  • chef
  • doctor
  • professional poker player
  • government contractor(s)
  • IT
  • real estate broker
  • fabric merchant
  • CPA

the list goes on and on. i guess the point is, all those people i used to meet at shows have all grown up and gotten real jobs. but since phish was missing for a few years it’s a culture shock to meet the various occupations people have taken during the interim. it’s like having this moment frozen in my mind of how things are and finding that the whole world has changed when i wasn’t looking…

#2

The Cobo show was the first show I’d been to since the hiatus and this was the first thing I noticed with the Phish crowd. Everyone’s OLDER!! Rather than the mid-20’s or so that the average was before, it’s definitely up to low-30’s now.

Stevo

#3

We’re all growing up together, the band and all the fans together. I like that. I’d feel like a real nob if I went back to see Phish after years and everyone was 19. :shifty:

It’s great to see that my peers on tour from 10-15 years ago are still my peers now. Love it. We’re all in this together. :slight_smile:

#4

i like it. i love to party, but i love the fact that we have a more ‘responsible’ crowd right now. i’m all about the shrinking of the wook population

#5

I kinda feel like I grew up with this band. I started seeing shows at a very young age ('97), and everyone was just as young as I was or not much older. Now, the people who who started seeing shows when I did are in their late 20s or early to mid-30s.

It’s so nice to see our crowd growing up, having families, and lives!

#6

I liked being the younger person in my section at the Cinci shows, I felt like I was being talked to by like some extremely awesome mentors or something…An older guy on the second night was talking about how he had seen Led Zep, the Stones, and all those legendary bands right there at “The Crown”…I was really looking forward to possibly talking to some older Heads that had seen The Dead in the prime years, but as luck would have it, this guy saw the Dead once and walked out on them…

I couldn’t understand this because he said what he loved about Phish shows is watching the crowd just as much as the band, and I think the crowd was pretty similar at Dead shows to Phish shows, the band didn’t have as much physical energy or lighting energy, but the crowds were grooving non-stop

#7

The first night at Cinci while I was sitting with phishinsky, the young kid next to me was all the entire time. It was pretty cool, he was super pumped for every second of the show.

Of course… I could have imagined all that.

#8

In Cincy, I had a weird thing happen…these two youngsters were rocking out similar to ^ and when they started playing YEM the kid says to me “what song is this?” But then when they played the new stuff ala Joy, they knew every word!!!

Thought it was neat that they still have twenty years worth of Phish to learn!!! They have a lot of good listening to look forward to. :wink:

#9

Hahahahahaha :clap:

#10

i met a dude in hampton who first got into phish right after coventry. he was right there on every song until they played caspian and he turned to me and said “is this a cover song?”

#11

On caspian!!! NO WAY!!! Gotta love the Prince.

#12

Last show I was at which was albany on the 28th, I met fishmans dad who was sitting right behind us. We only realized it was him at setbreak as people were raving about him…I knew I had to talk to him and was overly enthusiastic as I was pretty high on mollys. I went up to him, shook his hand, told him how grateful I was for him raising Jon and also how grateful I was for him being an orthodontist, as me having a lot of orthodontic work when I was young, I know the value of a good orthodontist. He thanked me and I preceeded to ask him for some orthodontic advice. He looked at my teeth and told me I needed to have a wire removed from my mouth and it wouldn’t hurt to get all the tar cleaned off my teeth haha…I thanked him and asked him one last question, “are you just here for jon or do you enjoy the music?” He said that he actually really enjoyed the music and has been to a lot of shows. I thanked him a lot for even taking the time to talk to me as he looked very wise and mature. Later on in the show, I turned to him right after that money 25 minute ghost to find that he had a huge smile on his face. I leaned back, smiled at him and said, “so was that a good one?” He put on his biggest smile of the night and said, “oh yea”…of course I didnt need to hear it from him but I thought this was a really cool experience

#13

man i can’t even conceive being thirty.

#14

Great story there :thumbup: :clap: :clap: :clap: :thumbup: :slight_smile:

#15

i love talking to people at shows that are about my age and finding out that we were at the same show years ago. meeting a stranger that has a lot of the same memories that i have is awesome.

since i didn’t grow up around a lot of people who liked (or had even heard of) phish, it’s very cool to meet people that followed a similar path. kinda like meeting a distant relative for the first time.

#16

One day…you will.

I think it’s great that Phish coming back has brought in a new generation of fans!!!

Mainly because that means I’m not as noobish as I once was.

I mean, I still am, just not as much. Thanks junior!

#17

I couldn’t agree more!! :stuck_out_tongue:

#18

It’s just like being twenty, except you have a lot more money, a nicer car, and a cooler house. :slight_smile:

#19

Wait, really? Are you sure it’s Phish you’ve been seeing? Every town I’ve seen Phish in has been completely overwhelmed and taken by storm by the phans, or at least the hotels and their surrounding areas. Especially at night, the phans take over and generally just do whatever the fuck they want. I mean, I’m one of them, so I’m not complaining, just sayin’…

#20

The shows I went to this fall were very subdued…philly 1 and msg 1 and 2 were both very mellow… once inside the playing was hot though!