June 21st, 2009 was the second of two nights of Phish at Alpine Valley and was the last show of the first leg of their summer tour. It was also the end of a four-night run for me, having caught the band in Deer Creek and Star Lake leading up to this pair of shows at Alpine Valley.

Luckily it generally takes more than four straight shows for me to tire of this band. They are such a fun little pocket of the rock and roll world, and they come surrounded by a really cool scene and generally pleasant fanbase. The hotel I was staying at wasn’t quite as enamoured with the scene, employing security guards to roam the parking lot perimeter checking for wristbands and ensuring no nonpaying customers set foot upon their property. Fortunately this sort of situation is getting rarer as more and more hotels start to see the serious cha-ching in welcoming touring music fans with open arms.

At the show I found myself at the base of the steep lawn section, Page side. The stage really is in a valley with sizeable hills all around. It’s impossible to stand there and not think of that fateful night in 1990 when Stevie Ray Vaughan and four others died in a helicopter crash departing those hills.

sigh

Ah, but this was not a night for sad memorials, it was an evening geared towards outlandish fun and revelry with 37,000 of my fellow Phish-following compatriots. After two jumpy, dancy sets the band closed out the run with Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein featuring Page McConnell front and centre on the keytar. Not to be outdone, Trey amped up the silliness by donning a five-necked Hamer guitar very reminiscent of (identical to?) Rick Neilson’s exaggerated axe. I wonder Trey’s guys called up Cheap Trick’s guys and arranged to borrow it? What am I saying?!? It had to have been Neilson’s guitar. There’s no way there are two quintuple-necked Hamer guitars in the world, right?

Back at the hotel I spent the evening revelling and proudly showing my wristband to the increasingly wrinkle-browed security staff at every stumble.

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