My first Phish show

Though I sometimes wish I'd started seeing Phish earlier, I don't know how reasonable that is considering the first time I saw them I wasn't even old enough to drive (legally, at least).  On August 7, 1993, I was just over four months away from my 16th birthday.  Luckily I didn't need to drive that day, as I was able to get a ride with a couple guys (whose names I don't remember).  I don't really remember anything about the drive or the parking lot scene.  That was nearly 25 years ago, and my memory isn't the best.  A couple parts of the show itself, however, are still rattling around in my head.

That first Phish show was only my second concert of any kind.  The first was the Grateful Dead at Rich Stadium on June 13, 1993.  (It's been quite a while since I listened to that show.  I should probably rectify that soon.)  I remember thinking that the Dead show would be some four-hour affair like I'd read about them doing in the past, but in reality they had long since left those freewheeling ways behind.  I don't remember if I had any preconceived notions of what the Phish show would entail, and if I did I certainly don't remember what they were.

Two things in particular stand out in my memory about my first Phish show.  The first is Page's solo during Maze.  I remember the lights combined with his solo really grabbing me, and for whatever reason that moment has stuck with me as the moment that I really got into Phish.  (I'd certainly listened to them before the show, and enjoyed what I heard.  I had a copy of A Picture of Nectar that I believe came to me via an art teacher at my school, Mr. Day.  He knew I was into the Dead and recommended I check out Phish.  I don't remember if I had heard any live recordings of Phish before my first show.)

The second thing from that first show that really stands out in my mind is the encore.  When the band left the stage at the end of the second set, the guys I was with wanted to head for the car to beat traffic.  I was reluctant and held them up as much as I could.  The first song of the encore was a song that I vaguely recognized as being some sort of old timey traditional number.  (Unlike the Soggy Bottom Boys, I was not steeped in old timey.)  I think that as the band made their way through the song, we were still moving across the lawn and towards the exit.  When the second song of the encore began, though, I stopped in my tracks and refused to leave.  I instantly recognized the song from my lifetime of listening to classic rock radio.  It was a song I'd always liked, and I would have never guessed that Phish would cover the song.  It was the ZZ Top classic, "La Grange."

I'm not going to say that Phish did the song better than ZZ Top could, but it was still a solid cover and a great end to what I would later learn was one of the better shows of August, 1993 (a month that had enough solid shows to stand among the band's best periods of live performances).

I wish I could say that, at the time, I was fully able to appreciate the Mike's Song > Kung > Mike's Song.  I wish I could say that I appreciated any of that first show the way I would now if I could hear it again for the first time.  What I can say is that I had a great time and that this show was the beginning of a big part of my life.  Since then I've seen Phish around 50 times, and spent countless hours listening to them.  I'm listening to 8/7/93 as I type this.

The hardest part is that while I will hopefully see Phish live again, I'll never see August '93 Phish live again.