Look forward to spinning this one up. For me, the positive experience was certainly the camaraderie that was born of the nightmare conditions. On Saturday afternoon I headed to my car to survey the scene, understand the stuck nature of the little Hyundai Accent, the potential escape route and what steps needed to be taken to get to higher or drier ground in anticipation of the conclusion of the festival. As I approached the car it was clear that many other people parked near me had the same idea. We all sort of gravitated towards each other and over the course of about 30 minutes we devised a plan to meet on Sunday morning (not too early) and one by one maneuver our cars into better positions and ensure we weren’t stuck when it came time to leave.

Sunday morning came and 100% of those who committed to helping out the collective group showed up and we drew a map of our strategy in mud on the side of car. One by one over the course of an hour or two we pushed and shoved and grunted and hollered as we maneuvered each vehicle to a manageable position for exiting. It was gonna be a breeze because we were 50 feet from an exit gate, right!? Wrong but that is a story for another time.

I don’t recall anyone’s name but those individuals were the kindest people all things considered with how muddy the situation was and how poor the music quality was. Everything else sucked owing mostly to the fact that the only comfortable place to be was in the concert field area, and that was where we were experiencing a runaway train wreck of a music concert. Navigating everywhere else was to post-hole your way through knee deep mud, not knowing what was mixed in with the mud and water.

I didn’t listen to Phish for two years after that show believing that if they were gonna retire then I was gonna retire them too. It was almost a relief that it ended on such a low note, because it left such a poor taste in my mouth, I cringed thinking about revisiting their music knowing I inextricably tied it to that last experience.