This show marked my "coming out" as a Phish fan. Having recently moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, I was introduced to Uncle Pete and the menagerie of cartoon characters that inhabited his Northeast Taproom as a "big Phish fan" by my roommate Rocky. I found this description to be odd at the time"...but I have certainly attempted to live up to this new identity. Upon learning that I was a friend of ours, Pete immediately invited me to come along on his upcoming "Phish bus" trip to Stabler Arena. This trip included catered refreshments (Stoudt's Bathtub Gin), several pit stops at watering holes along the way to and from the show, a surprise trip to the backstage loading dock area of Stabler Arena to drop off some beer for the band (Brad Sands is a former Readingtonian and Taproom regular), and a healthy blast of mace in the face from one of Kutztown's finest (a misdirected shot during his foot pursuit of a fleeing suspect).

Musical highlights of the show included the debut of "Guyute", a riotous first time bluegrass cover of Boston's "Foreplay/Longtime", and my first live "Tweezer." As "Tweezer"s go, this one was nothing special when compared to some of the monsters that were unleashed in Fall 1994. But, I am now a "Tweezer" addict, and not unlike many other habit forming substances, that first taste is always one of the more intense experiences one can have with it.

Overall this show seemed to have a vibrancy and vitality that seemed entirely absent from the Grateful Dead shows I had attended at the Boston Garden and Madison Square Garden on the weekends before and after Lehigh. The contrast between the ascent and descent of the two entities was stark and overwhelming. The Dead, from that moment on, were sadly enough dead; Phish however, to my great pleasure, was definitely a live one.