I ❤️ Tour
Balter’s Essays of Mostly Acerbic Witticisms
I ❤️ Tour
[part I of II]
It began at the age of fifteen, my Dad's friend owned the Providence Civic Center and I believe Touch of Grey was on the radio and I believe the Grateful Dead sounded like a band I'd like to get to know.
I believe I was dosed at that show and the bus came by and I got on and that is, indeed - and now forever - when it all began.
Stats matter, so if you please:
Seventy shows with Jerry but, sadly, only a dozen where he and Brent beamed grins at each other all night.
Then, to date, a generous 'take all my money please' 450+ Phish shows, strung together like a motherlode of pearls, kicked off by the fortune of starting college in the northeast in 1989.
I love tour.
In the lot, on shakedown, the roving characters of a mobile circus sell whatever it is you desire. Perhaps a grilled cheese slathered in I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!, while nearby an aging mixed-mutt sleeps, tongue lolling, unsanitary, on Tupperware bins of pre-chopped vegetables. Fatty kind burritos, glass pipes, Stealies, hemp necklaces, $1 water, and $4 Heady Toppers, all for sale. And there's the waft of patchouli and the tuft of a furry armpit, supporting a single finger seeking a miracle ticket.
The air carries whispers, "doses, shrooms, molly, chocolates," as you stagger through the throng.
What time are doors? (6 PM)
What time do they go on? (8 PM)
F*ck the Tarpers
Screw the Chompers
Actually, where is Shakedown? (Lot B, follow the whoooosh of nitrous tanks)
Tour is for the outlaws. Bikers, leather-clad; grifters in cargo shorts, rich kids in perfectly pressed tie-dyes. Tour is for cruising the land of the free and the brave: A California run, the Southeast for four nights, a one-off in Columbus. Short hauls on large planes, the airport speaker crackling, "could Mr. Miner please pick up the courtesy phone," a prank of an inside joke for the faithful. Cities you've never seen - and places you've been a dozen times before.
It's new friends, old friends, your crew, my crew, and the awkward dance as crews consider each other in section 119.
Each venue a special snowflake: The good-vibes GA of the mothership in Hampton or the jam up of the parking lot at Great Woods in MA (where Bahstan Cops go undercover in a Finance Bros weekend outfit). Labor Day at Dick's and old school vibes at Alpine Valley or Merriweather Post. The sunset gloats at the Gorge; a banning from Red Rocks.
Vermont as a musical glow up, from the mini-putt course at Townsend Family Park to the deluge of rain at Stowe (Trey offered, "they tried to cancel the show, but I said just plug the guitar up my ass and I'll play llama." To which he did...sans plug), onto the gate-crashing of Sugarbush and, a decade later, the muddy demise that was Coventry.
There's the navigation of personal dance space: Sharp elbows for an oblivious seat neighbor, or the pull of taffy to ensure extra floor near the rail (I see you Kovach). There are pro moves: Bringing plastic caps for uncapped water bottles, a ticket palm-swap to get stubbed down, a Ziplock Big Bag for your parka at a winter stop. Your tour outfit should sparkle or peacock; you'll want extra pockets for show accoutrements.
There's time with the band: Backstage in Rome in '97 where Trey tried on Versace outfits privately for your wife; or with Fishman, aftershow, in the hallway at the Four Seasons in Denver. There's thanking Les Claypool of Primus after the sit-in in Vegas or, in 2.0, always chomping on carrot sticks at the second backstage, The Betty Ford Clinic. The real one.
There are setlists for comparisons. Bustouts, 5-song sets and extra long encores; new songs, sit ins one-and-done covers (Tuesday's Gone, anyone?); there's air guitar and Ck5, clams (bad notes), scoot-scoots (many notes together), machine gun trey, and bobby spit on me. It's always who saw what, who made the trip - and who never missed the Sunday show.
Yes, of course, of course, it's about the improv. The ever-evolving treasure trove of musical creativity, of jazz lines set to a funk groove or of evil F chords from the clav. There's the chatter of current status: The Disco Biscuits like each other again, Ween can't get their sh*t together, Moe's back, Umphrey's drummer quit, Bird Bird Bands Aren't Real, but somehow they sell out MSG. Dead & Slow tour in place at the Sphere, the speed bluegrass of Billy MF*cking Strings, and the new crop: Pigeons, Dogs in a Pile, Daniel Donato, Eggy, and Spafford, who support each other more like cousins than competing show ponies.
But mostly - and most-importantly - Tour is about community: The brotherhood, the sisterhood, and the phish widows who stay at home. It's a connection of like minds, an obsession of a scene, the willingness to find freedom, to be who you are, whoever that may be. It's your oldest friends alongside the immediate camaraderie on the lot, in your row, at your hotel, on the bus.
Tour is the comfort of your favorite pair of socks with the addictive jolt of four shots of espresso.
I ❤️ Tour
But, man, tour is hard...
part II of II to follow