SHARING THE SHOWS
So a little background: I first became acquainted with Hampton Coliseum in November 1999 when Phish released a Hampton Comes Alive, a 6-CD compilation of two live shows they had played at that venue a year earlier. I remember annoying the brothers in the fraternity house by playing it over and over again.
Anyway, fast forward 15 years later. I had been taking a hiatus from Phish (long story), but in May 2014, I had an interview with Hampton University. As my department chairperson drove me from the campus to the Newport News-Willamsburg Airport via I-64 West, I saw it to my right. The Hampton Coliseum. I gasped internally as I remembered that album cover. Someday, I was going to see a show there. Four and a year half years later, I would be putting together a dossier to be promoted to Associate Professor at said university. After a day of finalizing my first draft of it to give to my Department Chairperson, along with teaching, grading, advising, and troubleshooting, I made my way to Mama Rosa’s on Mercury to meet Drew, Mark, and Jesse for our preshow chow. Tonight’s dish was chicken picatta, accompanied by salad, spaghetti, and garlic knots. The above food porn was taken by Netta, our lovely waitress. We weren’t sure if we had to pay $20 to get into the lot, so we parked at the shopping center across the street and headed in. The Mothership, as we headie folks affectionately call it, lights up beautifully at night. After waiting on some crazy lines to get into the venue and go to the bathroom, we staked out a spot Page side. Hampton Coliseum is definitely the most intimate venue in which I’ve ever seen Phish. As I walked in, I got chills: seeing Phish here had been on my bucket list for a long time, and it was happening! And Drew, Mark, and Jesse had already been there, including for those Hampton Comes Alive shows. Sadly, I felt a cold coming on about a half hour before I left work, but that wasn’t stopping me from enjoying the show. I didn’t dance as hard as I typically do, but I was still enjoying some good grooves. “Strawberry Letter 23” opened the show; the first time I heard them do this was 7/22/17, Night Two of the Baker’s Dozen. “Blaze On” is always welcome, and I had never heard “Mock Song” performed live. As I typed “Roggae” into my Pages app, I hit a misspelling, but the phone autocorrected it. It knows!!! “Sparkle” and “Undermind” rocked, and the clapping during “Meat” made me feel unified and connected with the crowd. I love when they play “Walk Away,” which closed the set. “Carini” was bumping, “Sand” was thumping, and “Golden Age” housed one helluva spacey jam. “Twist” brings chills to me everytime, and being able to shout “Woo!” after the lyric about “substituting every sound” followed by those other “woo”s can make even the most mundane show come alive for me (not that any show is mundane, of course…hahahah). It ws the first time I heard “Mountains of the Mist,” which was superchill. “Meatstick” followed (“Whoa-oa, shocks my brain), as did “Split Open and Melt.” Mark had gone down another tier to get a closer view of the band; Gary joined us for a bit (you remember him as the chest flasher from Merriweather), but he had also gone to another section, so Drew, Jesse, and I called encors. Drew called “Harry Hood,” Jesse called “First Tube,” and I called “Show of Life.” “Lizards” was a good compromise. I had my phone off during the show to conserve power, but when I turned it back on, I saw Mark’s picture of the band from his much closer viewpoint. Drew said, “We thought you got stuck in the glory hole or something.” Mark replied, “I couldn’t resist the call of the rail.” A meme of The Hangover’s Alan with the text “One Man Wolf Pack.” My final thought of the night: I love these guys.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2024
Categories |