It is 3:54 a.m. on Wednesday morning, and I am still awake. I already half-consciously made my way through Dazed and Confused on HBO, and even took a Nyquil to help speed up the process, but neither did the trick. Hours earlier, I prepared a nice column on Daft Punk's drug-like effects (be sure to tune in to Off the Record next week). Everything seemed to be in its right place for me to drift away with nothing on my mind. But something was left unfinished, perhaps even as unfinished as Phish's career, which ended abruptly in 2004 when the band decided to take an indefinite hiatus.
I learned from Saving Private Ryan that if you really want to fall asleep, you should try your hardest to stay awake. Eventually, your body will give up peacefully. So shortly after 3 a.m. I decided to get out of my bed, leave the memory foam behind, and check out my usual go-to music sites. Immediately, when working my way through a few of my favorite jam-band music forums, www.phantasytour.com specifically, it became apparent that Phish had a big announcement in the works. This speculation was often commonplace for these forums, and usually it provided some very redeemable comedic value because people truly lived and died by it. Generally someone would post something saying that they are friends of Trey Anastasio's dog-walker, and a reliable source revealed that Phish has reserved dates at Madison Square Garden.
This time, the reunion post only had a link to Phish's homepage. So I obviously took the bait: Oh man, something new - a dramatic time-lapsed intro showing a man painting something. (This was probably the first time the Web site has been changed in years.) What is he painting? After the basic color structure, I knew it was the Hampton (Va.) Coliseum. In the Phish Bible, Hampton is equivalent to Jerusalem. Then the icing on the cake came next - "Phish-Hampton, March 6, 7, 8, 2009."
Was it really supposed to be that easy? At times I often forget about the band that took me from a Dave Matthews obsessive teen to a musically savvy adult. I told many people that I had moved on from Phish, but it is now 4:22 a.m., and I am listening to "2001" from the second night of the Lemmonwheel Festival, and looking forward to working my way through the rest of the show. It will take me well past sunrise, but sleep is overrated anyway. It will also give me plenty of time to adjust my spring break plans.
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