The Barryfest Chronicles

As the final notes of “The Curtain With” vanished into the cool Vermont air on August 15, 2004, I was exhausted, dehydrated and completely heatered-out (Coventry was the culmination of many things, not least of which being the most nicotine drenched six months of my life).  But more than all of that, I was confused.  A month-long hallucinogen binge and five straight days without a good night’s sleep didn’t do much in the way of helping me process the monumental events unfolding around me, but even if I was perfectly straight as Phish was supposedly drawing their career to a close, I doubt I would been any more clear-headed as I made my way back to the damp campsite I had called home for the weekend.

I was at a loss.  Even after following them around for the entire summer and amassing a gratuitously large collection of live recordings from their first 25 years, I only had a few years of legitimate fandom under my belt, making me a relative novice in the whole Phish game.  Plus, I got into the band during college – when free time was a renewable resource, substance abuse had no appreciable consequences, and the world was an altogether simpler place – and to be honest, I was already wondering about Phish’s long term standing in my life now that I was tentatively inching my way into the real world.

So suffice it to say, I didn’t know my dick from my balls as I headed to the Manchester, NH airport covered to mid-calf in caked-on mud and probably smelling like an ashtray that just ran a marathon. Then without ever really digesting what was going on and/or coming to a conclusion about how it all made me feel, I moved on with my life.  And the longer I went without queuing up a show, the easier it become to explain away my reverent devotion as something as innocuous as youthful indiscretion or as insignificant as a fluke.

I really did a number on myself in the fours years since Coventry, considering news that the band was getting back together could barely get a rise out of me.  I put in for the ticket lottery like the rest of the citizens of the world, but I did it with the caveat that if my number failed to come up, I would strongly consider letting the dream die completely.  That’s right, friends.  I was willing to let a random pre-sale drawing cast the deciding ballot on whether or not I was going to allow myself to enjoy the musical styling of Phish in the future.

And I’m embarrassed to say it, but I almost had myself feeling relieved that I got passed over.  I mean, imagine how impractical and inconvenient it would be to travel around the country catching as much of the summer tour as possible now that I have a job and other adult responsibilities.  And I haven’t earnestly listened to the band in ages, so maybe I don’t even like their music anymore.  And shit, after taking so much time off, who knows if they will even be as good as they once were.  Fuck it, right?  Maybe it is best that I leave Phish on the trash-heap of passing fancies that I go through life claiming to have outgrown.

This, of course, begs the question: When did I become such a fucking ninny?  It only took one listen to this past weekend’s reunion shows to realize I have been pulling the wool over my own eyes and I’ll be goddamned if I let the bullshit charade go on any longer.  Of all the reasons I could conjure for why I was done with Phish, not a single one of them even approaches “good.”  It may have taken me a while, but I’ve finally got it figured out…  just in time for the summer tour.