Post Phishing Trip

Hello! So I'm back from the two day adventure up to Northern California to see Phish, and it was definitely the experience I was hoping for. I left Tues. afternoon for Santa Rosa and visited the fam for a night. My dad and I grilled a tri-tip and feasted on steak and baked potatoes, pared with some delicious melot--it was probably the best meal I'd had in six months. After dinner we capped off the evening with "Romancing the Stone", the mid-80's (I think) film starring Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. If you haven't seen it, I'd say its worth checking out at some point.
Wed. morning I hit the road to check out Two Rock Amplifiers, a Rohnert Park based amp company that builds some of the best amps on the market. For perspective, a few players who sport a Two Rock amp are John Mayer and Santana, so you can get an idea of the caliber of musicians that Two Rock attracts. I met with Mac, one of the five or so employees that Two Rock has, and he gave me the rundown of their facility and the amps he'd lined up for me to try out. All the amps sounded amazing; the Classic Reverb is definitely the one I'd like to pick up in the future. So after an hour or so of playing ridiculously expensive amplifiers, I said goodbye and drove to meet the madre for a sandwich before I took off for the Phish show. She's an awesome lady!
I got down to Mountainview about 4pm, and the pre-show antics were already in full swing. For anyone who has been to a Phish show, you know how sweet the parking lot is beforehand. It's pretty much this massive mobile colony of hippies who've been following Phish for the last however long, plus everyone who's come for just that show. Everyone is blasting great music, jamming on acoustics, throwing frizbees, and going from tailgate to tailgate saying "what's up" to see where people are from and such. I handed out a bunch of demos before I went into the show, and got to meet a lot of really cool people. A photographer came up to me and snagged a pic, saying he was going to write a story about the show. I got an email yesterday with the link, so check out the show details, and if you go to the photo album, you'll see a great photo of me with a pretty cracked out expression.
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/entertainment/music/Phish-30-Lands-at-Shoreline-for-One-Night-Only-52638702.html

Phish!!

So this week is going to be my first Phish show since 2002. The band is playing at the Shoreline Amphitheater on Wed. (8/5), and I think my biggest question is whether or not they're going to have the same gusto as they did back in the day. Granted bands change inevitably throughout the years, but to put it more finely, I hoping I'm as in to their current state as I was in '02. Trey has always been one of my influences and favorite guitarists, so it's going to be sweet seeing him jam again. And they always throw out a tasty cover or two, and I'm hoping they're a few new ones I haven't heard. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon to go see the folks before the show the following evening, but I'll do a little recap of the experience later this week. It's going to be a cool little adventure.