Following a day off* in the middle of our five-show (of seven) Phish run at Madison Square Garden, m’lady and I took it rather easy until we felt it was time to pre-gather, which we did at a rooftop bar called Local that overlook the front door of MSG. For the second time on this trip we became part of a large, friendly crew that took over almost half of the bar’s airy patio, slugging pricey IPA beers and making do with a basket of chicken wings and fries for supper.

We had GA floor tickets for this one so m’lady and I went in to the show pretty early, staking out a spot abut a third of the way back and sitting on the floor to wait for the concert to begin. As we waited I met a tall, short-looking guy named Nate, a guitar player/gambler who was seeing his only Phish show of the run before moving on to the Newport Jazz Festival, where he would be seeing the great Kamasi Washington, among others. I was jealous.

Nate told me he was currently living in New Orleans and I quickly got much jealouser. I told him that I would be visiting The Big Easy a few months hence and he told me to give him a shout when I was in town. (I eagerly did so when I arrived the following December but unfortunately Nate was in Vegas “working”, so we didn’t get together.)

When the lights went down the band started with a nice long and jammy Ghost opener before following up with an equally long and jammy Reba, killing the first half-hour of the concert in excellent fashion. M’lady and I were feeling a little zing-y so the hands-down highlight of the set – heck, it was the hands-down highlight of the entire show – was Phish’s cover of John Lennon’s psychedelic masterpiece I Am the Walrus. When the song finally cascaded to a close and the lights went up for the setbreak Nate and I exchanged solemn high-fives of unspoken wonder. My gosh, that Walrus was so great, especially endowed as it was with Kuroda’s astounding light show.

So, so good.

As was the rest of the evening, which included David Bowie, You Enjoy Myself, Sneakin’ Sally, and a four-song encore that started with Wilson and had the whole crowd chanting along from the fourth note. After the show m’lady and I arranged to meet with our great friends Jay and Kyla, who had flown in just for these last two shows and were booked into the same hotel as we were. Nate agreed to join us for a quick nightcap but ended up bailing as we waited for our friends outside.

When J&K did arrive we took them to the nearby rooftop bar and picked up where we had left off several hours earlier, and it proved to be a rollicking good time. Afterwards we strolled the few quick blocks to our hotel, where our friends found themselves locked out of their room. It’s comical how long it took us to determine that they were actually staying at a different Springhill Suites, just a few streets away on 37th. Crazy. The hilarious snafu was reminiscent of the time I discovered the telephone in my Montreal hotel room had been switched with a phone with the same room number from a completely different Montreal hotel. Although that had obviously been a prank while this was clearly human error.

Anyway, we got ‘er all figured out and hung out in our room until 2am.

*A day off that happened to coincide with m’lady’s birthday, which we spent meandering through Central Park and getting ice cream, arriving at the Met too late to see the Van Gogh exhibit, and having a delicious dinner at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que with her cousin and his family, a very cool bunch who live in a corner apartment in an old Brooklyn toy factory.

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