On August 16th, 1998 I woke up on the hard concrete tarmac of the Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine. Temporarily the largest city in Maine, the base was base for Phish’s third-ever weekend festival, a weekend-long extravaganza called Lemonwheel. In a fit of temporary insanity I had skipped The Great Went (and all Phish concerts in fact) in 1997, a year that will forever be known as the greatest year of Phish ever. Ah well, here I was.

And what I great time I had all weekend! I was there with my good friend and fairly consistent touring partner Jason, we had somehow managed to get his ailing VW Jetta onsite without completely falling to pieces, and we were camped under good weather amongst good people. The music had been absolutely divine all weekend and the vibe of the entire area was swelling with glee. I’m sure the morning was spent finding/making/drinking lots of coffee whilst the afternoon was undoubtedly spent further exploring the well-appointed festival site. And of course the night was dedicated to Phish.

It was a three-set show and strangely I had to be reminded that they played Sabotage by the Beastie Boys to open the final set, strange given that the moment they encored with the same song a week earlier in Maryland will be forever imprinted on my musical mind as a lifetime concert highlight. What I do vividly recall from this concert was the show closer when the band played Henry Mancini’s Baby Elephant Walk as a giant elephant puppet appeared from stage left plodding through the crowd spouting mist from it’s raised trunk. With fireworks blazing and a gleaming ferris wheel in the distance it made for a rather spectacular visual to close out the weekend. Good job, Phish.

But really, when I think back to Lemonwheel the first thing I can ever think of happened the next morning. Jason and I got up and puttered around until we had everything packed up and ready to go. As we prepared to pull away we saw that our camping neighbours were up and around so we went over to say goodbye. We had hung with the couple all weekend and knew that this Monday morning was their wedding anniversary so I was surprised to find the lady crying, her husband obviously trying to console her. Turns out she had lost her wedding ring the night before and they were both quite devastated…some anniversary!

I felt terrible for them but I knew I was unable to help in any way. Heck, we were packed up and leaving; the engine of Jason’s car was literally running. With nothing else to do I made a point of at least twisting my head and peering around our campsite, making the appearance of helping to look with of course no chance of actually…and then I saw it! From my spot on the asphalt I could see the glint of her ring underneath their car, about fifteen feet from me and plain as day. Wordlessly I walked over, bent down and scooped it up. She was sitting on a blanket with her back to me, her shoulders convulsing with sobs while her husband crouched in front of her trying to calm her down (I forget her name but remember that they lived in Connecticut and her email was bassgrrl – she was a bass player). I walked over and reached around from behind her, holding the ring in front of her face. She melted, we all hugged fiercely, and Jason and I hopped into his car and rode off into the sunset like heroes (okay not “sunset”, it was about noon). I felt like the freakin’ Lone Ranger…it was awesome.

As I had alluded to earlier, Jason’s car had been limping when we arrived at Lemonwheel, with its most obvious and pressing problem being the battered exhaust system that was dragging on the ground, barely clinging to the chassis. We were only a few kilometres from the border so we sputtered into New Brunswick, where my parents operated the biggest muffler and exhaust warehouse/distribution centre in the Maritime provinces. I stopped at a pay phone and called my dad in Moncton, explaining our difficulties. He told me to call back in five and hung up. When I called back he directed me to drive to a garage in nearby Edmundston where an open bay awaited us along with free coffees and Tim Horton’s doughnuts. The crew slapped on a brand new exhaust system front-to-back and sent us on our way without charging us a dime. They doubtlessly charged it all back to my dad who never mentioned a word about it to me, ever. I bet he felt like the freakin’ Lone Ranger.

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