On July 28th, 2023 I woke up at 4:30am, twenty minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I always do that on travel days. Got up, brushed my teeth, dropped the cat at the neighbours, drove to St. John’s through seventy-five minutes of highway twilight, flew to Halifax and connected through Toronto Island to Newark. Waited in the Customs & Immigration line for ninety minutes before being waved through in less than sixty seconds, took the Skytrain to Penn Station, walked to our hotel on 36th and discovered that the hotel offered a free happy hour that whattya know, was starting just as we were checking in. Soon discovered that the happy hour entailed nothing but Bud and Bud Lite served in small sample-sized plastic cups, quit the bar in a huff and left m’lady to relax in our room while I went on a mission to find supplies. Upon my return we had a drink of Duty Free and went to a rather excellent pizza place on the corner of 36th & 9th where we filled our shockingly empty gullivers with piping hot pie. Then we went to the show.

Of course the show was Phish, playing the first of their seven-night residency in The World’s Most Famous Arena™, Madison Square Garden (which is conspicuously round, and doesn’t have a garden). The last time they did something like this was their legendary Baker’s Dozen run of thirteen concerts at MSG back in 2017, when the band created special setlists each night based on a donut theme. M’lady and I were thrilled to have attended the last five of those shows and we were excited to be going to the first five of these ones.

And while there had been significant online chatter speculating what sort of surprise theme the band might have in mind for this run - Seven Wonders of the World? Seven dwarfs? Seven deadly sins? - once we were actually in the building there was little talk or speculation about such trivialities as we busied ourselves catching up with far-flung friends, acquaintances, and the inevitable random run-in’s. In this case we incurred a random run-in that saw us getting yanked into the Chase Lounge where a private bar and free bottles of water awaited us as we and our crew took over a wing of barstools.

(I actually pooh-poohed the free bottles of water until m’lady bought one the next night for $6 [plus a $1 tip that almost broke my brain].)

So after a $20 beer and a lot of fun chatter we stuffed a couple of $6 waters into our pockets and headed to our seats. I was looking forward to enjoying all five shows from completely different vantage points, but I was probably most excited for our seats on this night, which were in a short row of bleachers set up at the back of the floor directly behind the lighting board.

Which meant we were sitting directly behind CK5. If you know Phish then you know that CK5 is the nickname of the band’s longtime lighting tech/designer/guru Chris Kuroda, and if you know me you know that I am a huge CK5 fan*.

The bleachers weren’t as close to CK5 as I had hoped. I could see him standing there at his massive console but I wasn’t nearly close enough to see him pushing buttons or sliding faders. But the main thing was our view of the stage. We were straight on and seeing pretty much exactly what Kuroda was seeing, and the show looked amazing!

Good thing too. The girl who showed up late to the seat beside me danced and bumped around raising her arms in the air like a rabid orangutang the whole time, even for ballads like Brian and Robert (for realz). So I was extra-appreciative of the massive distraction that is CK5’s lighting work. I mean he has these hanging trusses that have independent controls on each corner so he can move them up and down or hang them diagonally or what-have-you. And for this tour he added spinning light bars to the front of each one of these dangling glories of polychromatic light. Gosh, it all looked so amazing. Especially when m’lady reminded me to take my glasses off so I could see it all fuzzy. So, so awesome.

I mean the lights in the first set Blew. My. Mind. For minutes on end I stood motionless gaping at the stage in wide-eyed wonder, only to break the trance with giggling fits that forced me to grip my head in my hands to keep it from exploding. I did this for at least fifteen minutes straight. I’m sure it must have looked like I was on all the drugs that I wasn’t.

Unfortunately there was no light show to help distract me at setbreak, when the two couples sitting behind us began conversing so loudly amongst themselves that they were literally screaming. They were clearly having a blast, heck, they probably had a few blasts before they got there, but it was killing me. However, just like the whirling dervish flailing beside me for the whole first set, I said nothing. I ain’t here to step on anybody’s legitimate good time.

Overall the show was very jammy (Melt was a definite highlight) and the lights remained spectacular throughout.

The Good Times Bad Times encore was unquestionably a nod to it being the 50th anniversary of the middle night from Led Zeppelin’s three-night run at MSG that was recorded to create their iconic Song Remains the Same concert film. I only made this connection in retrospect, when I saw a meme about it the following morning. This tidbit led me to speculate that Phish might play the entirety of the movie’s setlist at their show the following night, which I had tickets for**!

By the time the show ended our day had been pretty long and we were exhausted. When the house lights came up we found the nearest exit and bee-lined it back to our hotel, where we clamoured into bed as quickly as we could and fell fast asleep.

*The three reasons why I go to see Phish all the time are: m’lady, CK5, and the band. In that order.

**Spoiler: They didn’t.

https://toddmanout.com/