Saturday evening brought the next to last Phish show ever. We attempted to make it into the show but the mud was literally mid calf deep sucking off my shoes and just generally making life miserable. So we went back to camp to listen to the show on the radio. After partying away the rest of the night we crashed to do it again on Sunday.
Sunday brought another round of beautiful weather, but the emotions in the lot could have been cut with a knife. The feeling was a rabid excitement coupled with a melancholy sorrow. That we were there to see the end of the era spurred the excitement but the actual end began seeking end bringing about the sorrow.
The band kicked off about 6:00 with a great first set. During the second set Trey was bawling just before kicking into a great jam on Split Open and Melt.
After the third set a fantastic, if short, fireworks show exploded and then the band came back on.
Trey then gave a brief personal history about living in that part of Vermont writing songs and used it to announce the last song Phish would ever play. It was a song that he had written while living solo in an unheated cabin during the very early days of the band (circa '83 or '84). The band then went into the final song "Curtain" and jammed it right. After the song was over the applause for another encore lasted forever, but Phish was not to return. The era had ended and one of the greatest bands of all times was no more.
Monday morning 8/16 we packed up and got towed out of the lot about 12:00 pm. Traffic moved extremely well and we were out of the venue by 2:00. We then headed north for another expedition. We hit the Canadian border, breezed through customs and arrived in Montreal around 5:00.
After a long, hot shower and about 15 minutes of foot scrubbing to no avail we were ready to hit the town.
We ended up bar hopping (I think we went to 6 bars) along Rue St. Catherine until 3:30 am at which point we finally made it back to the hotel and crashed.
We woke up around 7:00 am 8/17 to begin the trip home.
After driving through the beautiful Adirondack Mountains into Albany and then Pennsylvania I had a cache to drop the bug in. We let the bug out on 8/17 at about 4:00 pm.
We then continued to head south, dropped of our buddy in Petersburg, VA around 12:00 and arrived in Raleigh around 2:00 am. Unpacked the van, returned it to the rental place and got to bed around 4:00 am, just to wake up at 6:00 and go to work.
All in all it was a great trip, despite the weather. I got to do many things I may never do again and see one the greatest bands ever play their last show ever.
It was an honor to be able help this bug fulfill its mission and hope that others that follow will be able to continue it along its chosen path.