From: Yance Davis 

Harpua Files:   10/31/95

  Still pissed after missing the previous year's unforgettable Halloween
show, I and two others hopped a plane to Chicago for the show right
after 
my 1pm exam ended.  We had no idea what the second set would be
covering,
but had faith that it would be more than entertaining enough to take
such
a trip in the middle of the week.  Of course, we were not let down.  The
hotel was right next to the arena, so of course it was overrun with
phreaks, but it was Halloween, so there were less stares and doubletakes
from the 'normal' folk than usual at a show.  There were several
Makisupa
Policemen walking about, Highway Bill and Highway Jill... I seem to
remember a few playing cards walking around too, but It's been a while
and
I can't place the song.  Out in the parking lot two guys are putting on
a
puppetshow version of the tale of gamehendge, with colorful sets and
puppets and background music by Phish, and a guy with a toy dog he's
pulling with a leash is yelling out "Come on, my dog needs a ticket."
Yeah it was worth the trip.

Once inside there were these fake gold coins they were handing out, but
I
didn't take one so I'm not sure what it was.  The guy with the toy dog
apparently found a ticket for his pet, since they were both walking
around
inside.  I think now he was saying his dog could really use some buds...

Icculus started things off in true Halloween fashion, with the Helping
Friendly Book, tome of infinite knowledge, getting its ass KICKED by the
spirits of Halloween.  Two more Gamehendge songs, Divided Sky and
Wilson,
have the venue in a buzz over whether or not we'll be getting the story
told to us, though Ya Mar came next and we knew it was not to be so.
Later in the set, the triumphant return of Gyute, now with whistling
accompaniment, after nearly a year's hiatus and tons of speculation from
the fans over where it had gone, Antelope was, I was convinced at the
time, the most powerful and insane one ever, but Antelope always does
this
to me at shows.  Still, it was pretty fucking hot.  On to Harpua though.
It's an easy song to have fun with on Halloween, but after the previous
year (War Pigs, Barnet, etc) it was less than expected...


  "It's Halloween night in.. Gamehendge.."

  (loud Gamehendge applause)

  "Somewhere on the outskirts..  Somewhere on the outskirts on this
Halloween night in Gamehendge, there's this old man.  An old man right
now
is walking down this hill and he's walking down the hill towards the
town
and it's late late at night.. People are pretty much snug asleep in
their
beds and uh, this old man is walking down the hill and he's walking down
next to this dog that I was just singing about of course, and you guys
know this story, it's the famous HARPUA.

  (Huge cheering to which Trey answers with a simple "yes..")

  "Anyway, it's Halloween night and on Halloween night, Harpua sometimes
takes on some of the most evil shapes of all, his fangs growing longer,
ugly mucous coming off his face and turning into an awful killing
machine.
And so these two people are walking down into town and um, as they walk
into town the people in town are all asleep and they don't know what's
coming, but these two people, the evil people are coming towards them as
they sleep, they're all dreaming together and if you can picture this,
as
they sleep they're all having this terrible nightmare and as they're
having this terrible nightmare, the eeriest thing about it is that
they're
all dreaming the same dream simultaneously and here comes the man walk
into town and the people are dreaming the same simultaneous dream..

  (Now at this point, things completely stray from typical Harpua
narration as Mike, notorious lucid dreamer, steps of to the microphone
to
narrate the 'dream')

  "I'm in my parent's . . . House
   I'm downstairs
   I start walking upstairs
   One step at a time
   I am upstairs at my parent's old house
   All of the rooms are empty
   I walk down a hallway
   I see something SCURRY!
   So I walk towards the bathroom
   I walk in the bathroom . . . and it's a raccoon
   I say . . . "WATCH IT ROCKY!"
   I push the raccoon into the bathtub
   Quickly
   And walk back towards the bathroom door closing it
   And turn around, heading towards the bedrooms
   Suddenly, I see motion
   In the bedrooms
   I walk towards that motion
   And I can start to see
   Many Raccoons in the Bedroom!
   Hundres of RAccoons . .  in the bedroom . . coming at me!
   So I walk TOWARD those bedroom DOORs
   Trying to push, what would be the raccoons backwards
        into the bedroom
   One raccoon at a time
   But it seems like there are many many too many raccoons
   And they start coming towards me
   And I start coming towards them
   And I start to notice that they're TINY raccoons!
   BABY RACCOONS!!"

  (Trey's Harpua narration riff starts up again as Mike steps back, and
Trey continues with the story)

  "Everyone was dreaming this dream at the same time.  Just as YOU will
all dream this dream when you go home tonight.

  (The audience goes nuts after that..  I have to say that at the time
it
was the most energetic audience I'd ever been at a show with, though
there
were times when things on stage were quiet, where I kind of wished
they'd
chill a little.  Just as an ed. note, no one I talked to who was there
had
the dream, though we were all asking about it the next morning)

  "One person wasn't dreaming the dream.  And that one person... was
Jimmy.  Jimmy wasn't dreaming the dream, because, Jimmy wasn't asleep.
Jimmy was actually sitting on the couch with his little pussy cat,
Poster
Nutbag. . .

  (Typical Poster Nutbag craziness from the audience)

  "Jimmy was sitting with Poster Nutbag and playing his favorite album,
which lo', was the very same album that Phish was playing as their
Halloween album at Rosemont Horizon that night...

  (Here they go into "Beat it" by Micheal Jackson for about 20 seconds
or
so while the audience goes nuts.  They had been teasing random Jacko
songs
for the past week of the tour, so after hearing this from Trey, we were
all set for Thriller in the next set.  Of course, it was the Who's
Quadrophenia...)

  "When suddenly, Poster Nutbag runs outside, encounters Harpua... They
battle. . .

  After that, things proceed somewhat normally, except that when the
rest 
of the band sings "I waant . . . A Dog", Trey substitutes "raccoon" for
"dog". So Poster dies, Jimmy wants a dog, the set ends.  Not bad at All
for only the first of three sets.  The second set was a show in itself
and
the third blessed us with a HUGE Y.E.M. as well as some GCHorn action
during Suzy Greenberg.  Well worth the trip. . .