When my buddies and I arrived at this giant open space, the stage was just sitting there, alone, with Phish's gear so....we walked straight up to it. The stage was small, everything was so close together up there, so I rooted myself right next to Mike's monitor speaker, hands literally on the stage, and my buddy was right at Trey's monitor. (This same life-long friend told me recently that he recalls being so very close that every time Trey went to stomp a pedal, Trey's foot went all (phish)-eye lens and extended out to my pal's face. haha!)
We were 'smoking' right there, right in front, the whole, whole show, unashamedly, no prob, exhaling with pride (we were 17...I cant even fathom this today!)
The young girl who climbed on stage to hug Mike during the pause in Guelah used me as a ladder, without permission or warning. It was so, so, un-Rock-Star though, everyone just stood there all calmly as she calmly walked up to Mike, calmly hugged him, and security calmly walked her off stage. That's when Trey says "That was Mike's mother, coming up to wish him a happy Mother's Day" and Mike responds "Happy Mother's Day Mom!"
The 1st set was really really fun, with Mimi coming up to play vacuum and tell some stories about young Jon (or try!) (PS, this is mentioned in an old Phish Newsletter I still have from Fall 92, and there is a pic of her and Jon onstage this night).
The 2nd set is when things got goin. And I mean...goin. Trey's guitar went out of tune during Divided, and he used a pause in the song to quickly tune up.
I swear, to my dying day: the solo in this Divided Sky was a personal exchange between Trey and my buddy standing next to me. Trey stared him in the eyes, in the eyes, the whole solo and my buddy stared right back. I was observing this. Trey was divining energy from my buddy's energy and vice-versa. Yep, that was what it was all about.
Tela was just beautiful.
Harpua topped off the magic, and personal vibe. It was a big party; and four of the partiers happened to be playing instruments.
Something weird happened for the encore though:
Mike walks out with a bag of black plastic ties, the kind that lock and you'd tie a bundle of cords with, takes one out and wraps it around his bass neck, and for some reason played Poor Heart with this black tie under his left hand almost like a slide. I never saw anything like it, before or since.
I don't recall if he kept the weird plastic tie on his bass neck for Tweezer Reprise but........
At the end of Tweezer Reprise, Mike grabs the bag of remaining ties off his amp, runs right up to ME and pours them on my head!!! Of course we all scrambled to grab a tie to bring home, I ended up with two, my buddy had one. Mine are both lost now, but my buddy still has his.
What a time, what a time....5 stars indeed.