Big Cypress

Big Cypress was a new year's event at the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida, 12/30/99 to 1/1/00. The three-day event had two days of shows, each with two sets, the second of the second show lasting from midnight until dawn.

The first day featured an afternoon set and two night-time sets; the second day featured an afternoon set and a seven-hour-plus, midnight-to-sunrise set. (Sunrise was about 7:11 a.m..) Tickets were $150 until 11/30, then $175, and many counterfeits. Advance estimates for attendance ranged from 50K to 100K; 60K tickets were initially allotted; over 50K have already been sold and 15K additional were released in late November (according to Addicted to Noise, 11/25/99); an estimated 80K showed up. ABC aired part of the event (planned as approx. 5 minutes at around 12:50 a.m. EST, but aired as approx 4 minutes at around 330 am), hosted by Peter Jennings.

• Maps: close-up detail (unofficial)
• chant
• Photos of the site
• Tara Fowler's travel page
• LiveDaily story
• Palm Beach Post story
• ABC aired part of the show (Heavy Things, lasting about five minutes, at 3:30 a.m., but not with Trey's intro babble about driving in the right lane. The airing was pre-announced at Army Archerd, Daily Variety Senior Columnist:

  The 23-hour ABC New Year's global show -- 5 a.m.-4 a.m. -- has just added Elton John. Producer Gary Smith will tape him a day earlier at the Mack Arena in Las Vegas, so Elton can be seen at primetime during the New Year's Eve show. Billy Joel will be live from Madison Square Garden. Also live Faith Hill from Nashville, Barry Manilow from Foxwood, Phish from the Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida, Blondie on the beach in Miami. Enrique Iglesias will be taped Thursday in Madison Square Garden.

• The Seminole: According to the New Year's Eve 1999 Tour Extra, "Thousands of years ago, long before the arrival of the Europeans to the southeastern part of North America, nearly 400,000 Seminole ancesotrs lived throughout the Florida penninsula and its surrounding areas. Though disease had killed many by the time the Spaniards explored the territory in the early 1500s, several of these tribes carried on, such as the Euchee, the Ymasee, the Abalachi, and others. In their core language of Maskoki, these tribes were known as isti seminoli (Seminole), which means they were "free people" because they had not been conquered by the Spanish or the English. With the formation of the United States in the late 1700s, clashes between white inhabitants and Native Americans were widespread, with Presiden Jackson illegally entering Spanish Florida to burn villages and destroy resistance leaders. Even after Spanish Florida was declared US territory, unequal rights resulted in two more wars during the 1800s. Over 3,000 Natives had been forcibly removed from Florida to the western territory of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Possibly as few as 300 remained in Florida, taking refuge here in the swamps of the Everglades."
• AFTER:
• Photos of the event from the Sun-Sentinel
• Photos from Tall Images
• Photos from Kevin McCormack
• Photos from the Sandman
• Photos from Dr Pong
• Photos from Ebay (??)
• Condorito's Photos (Balloons, Fireworks, and Trey on screen - best show photo ever?)
• Other photos:
  • http://w3.sarkcincinnati.com/~jmills/ http://www.starcom2.com/BIG_CYPRESS/ http://www.web-point.com/~billster/nye.htm http://www.angelfire.com/music/boogietarpbliss/ http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~kmmccorm/nye2000/nye_front.html http://www.helixpro.net/nye/frames.htm http://homepages.go.com/~sandman242/phish/bigcypress.htm http://hometown.aol.com/drpong007/myweb5/index.html http://members.toast.net/edd/ebay/phish/phish.html http://www.howareyou.com/homes/1063/ http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/photogallery/phishgallery.htm http://www.phans.com/pictures/nye2k/bigcypress.htm http://www.sickestever.com/bigcypress/index.html http://blueridge.etree.org/ http://www.web-point.com/%7Ebillster/nyepics.htm