On August 10th, 2022 I woke up in Toronto ready for my first Phish show in three years.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. When m’lady and I moved to Newfoundland near the end of 2019 we had planned on hopping on a plane every once in a while to take in a concert or two here and there. Things started off well with a trip to Florida for our first Jamcruise but shortly after that the world rolled up the carpet and hung out a “closed” sign for longer than anyone could imagine. Sure I had flown to Africa for an instrument drop and even to Ottawa for a work trip while m’lady had taken a few flights of her own, but this marked our first flight together since the beginning of the ‘vid, and we were happy to make the most of it.

My good friend Anne-Marie sure helped by offering up her house to us even though she and her husband would be at their cottage throughout our entire visit. It would have been great to see them but staying at their house saved us a huge pile of money that would have gone to an overpriced hotel (as all Toronto hotels were that summer) and she even left us the keys to her car which proved wildly convenient.

With all that cash saved we felt okay spending money willy-nilly during our three-night stay. We had arrived the night before the show and after a great pizza meal and craft beer hangout with our friends Meggo and Brian we hopped a cab downtown to meet another friend Corey and his buddy AJ at their hotel, where we drank their champagne until 2:30am. And now, after a tidy half-dozen hours of sleep and three paragraphs of semi-informative filler I’m right back at the beginning of this story: waking up on show day.

M’lady and I walked to a no-nonsense burger joint for lunch then hopped a pair of busses down to the venue. We arrived in the venue’s extremely barren parking lot shortly after 2pm and immediately found our friends Jason, Jennifer, and Grey. We dumped a few beers into their cooler and slumped under their tree. Aside from a short foray to the other side of the lot for a quick visit with friends and a half-hour poster lineup diversion that was where we spent the remainder of the afternoon. Corey and AJ showed up, we went through our coolered beers pretty quickly and started into Jason’s stash, and finally it was time to head in to the show.

M’lady and I had seats about midway back in the pavilion and the show started the very moment we reached them. The band opened with Sigma Oasis and proceeded to deliver a great first set that was more jammy than songy, but song-filled nonetheless. Like Theme From the Bottom for example, a song if there ever was one, with a delicious bass riff, several intriguing verses and a heckuva chorus. Late in the set I took Wombat as a great opportunity to refill my beerhands and duck into the bathroom. While I was in the latrine Trey launched into that ever-identifiable riff that opens one of my favourite Phish tunes: Stash; I raced back to my seat.

At setbreak we did some eating and moseying. We found several friends who pointed us towards several more friends and just like that we were on the lawn for the second set. And a good set it was too. Groovy, jammy, dancy. Funny how nobody seemed to see 2001 coming but of course it did come, and when it did 15,000 of us simultaneously thought, “Oh yeah, 2001. They always play 2001 in Toronto.” And the song was a treat as usual, especially as a sonic canvas for CK5’s lighting wizardry which was simply stellar throughout.

Sneaking Sally Through the Alley got everyone dancing again and a Lawnboy/S.A.N.T.O.S. encore left us all sated. We socialized on the lawn for quite some time after the show until the urge for a bathroom run got us moving. Plus I was eager to get back to Jason’s car so I could retrieve my poster. Once we left the lawn we started running into friends in real earnest, inspiring a series of pleasant yet rushed incursions, all of which included suggestions of aftershow activities.

But I was having none of. At this point I was way too tired to pay a cover charge so I could ignore a band and drink beers I didn’t need while fighting off fatigue and yelling into people’s ears about how much fun the show we were no longer at had been. Fortunately m’lady agreed and we were soon back at Anne-Marie’s place capping our night and cooling our heels.

The next day m’lady and I went to an amazingly good breakfast place on Dundas called Dirty Food. Definitely order the home fries. In the evening we met a gaggle of friends for a little backyard party and got the lowdown on the aftershows we had missed. Every tale was confirmation of another bullet dodged. And one more sleep later we were on a direct flight back to St. John’s, and happy.

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