, attached to 1994-10-31

Review by Fluffhead

Fluffhead I was there. It was a great, smallish arena. As I walked in, a man in a white Fluffhead looking mask was handing out gold chocolate coins. I got one, and my friend poked fun at him. Lights go down, and out walks that guy. It was Trey. A friend later pointed out that his mask was a perfect caricature of Jerry. I'm convinced Trey was dressed as Jerry for Halloween. Even had the black t-shirt.

General Admission. Very laid back. I could go anywhere I wanted. Getting close to stage was even easy. First set was amazing. The Reba and Simple were standouts. The Reba chill is simply phenomenal. The Harpua, my 2nd one, was so much fun.

The White Album was great too. It was Brad Sands' birthday, so for Birthday, they brought out a cake for Brad. Brad was dressed as Fish. I remember Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey being a bit jammed out. Wish they played it more often. Seeing Fish totally naked for Revolution #9 left the whole venue speechless for about 5 seconds. Seriously, you could hear a pin drop when he pulled off his dress / muumuu. Mike was absolutely mortified.

3rd set was great as well, but not as powerful as set 1 and 2. The show ended at 3 am!!!!!

I believe I saw the Dude of Life after the show (but I might be confusing it with 10/31/95), who had brought me backstage that summer at Great Woods (Gamehendge run, see my review for that run for a whole different story). I asked him if he had an extra pass again, he didn't. It didn't matter though, because I wound up winning the Greenpeace raffle, and went backstage anyhow. As I write this I only now just realized the fate of asking the Dude for a backstage pass, and then winning it at Greenpeace. They called like 10 names before they called mine. Right before they called my name, I suddenly realized I was going to win. I then see my high school friend, Tim Kelly (we both went to SUNY Plattsburgh, and yes I was at Clifford Ball too), and bring him backstage with me. Fish and Mike were there. I had a piece of Brad's birthday cake. I was dressed as Mrs. Pizza Shit. Fish gave me the strangest look when he saw how I was dressed. Imagine a guy wearing a yellow dress that is too tight, with a pizza box around his neck, with fake turds on every corner. That was me.

The backstage scene was totally uncool, and completely different from Great Woods backstage, 7/9/94. It was elitist at 10/31, lots of young tour heads who were not nice to me. Mike and Fish were unapproachable. We left after a beer or two and some cake. On the other hand, backstage at Great Woods consisted of myself, and strictly old school Phish family and band. Amy was there, Big Phil as well. Maybe 10 people in total. They were so nice to me, and I met the whole band (only a hello to Trey, and then he was ushered off to talk logistics with the Dude about his appearance the next show at SPAC). I was also backstage at Beacon Theater in April of 94, and that was pandemonium. Great Woods was the best band experience I've had. Fish told me stories about the origins of Weekapaug Groove.

Enough digressing, 10/31/94 is still one of the greatest Phish memories I have.

I feel like this was the last truly intimate Phish show I saw (Sessions at West 54th on 10/20/98 doesn't count, but I was there too). That 1994 NYE run they sold out MSG. Something about 10/31/94 was small and magical.


Phish.net

Phish.net is a non-commercial project run by Phish fans and for Phish fans under the auspices of the all-volunteer, non-profit Mockingbird Foundation.

This project serves to compile, preserve, and protect encyclopedic information about Phish and their music.

Credits | Terms Of Use | Legal | DMCA

© 1990-2024  The Mockingbird Foundation, Inc. | Hosted by Linode