This was an awesome show. I remember The Circle opening. I liked The Circle, they were from Ft. Collins, I believe, and played in Boulder quite a bit. They had an excellent guitarist, and a hot female lead vocalist. I also remember thinking that even though I liked them, who would want to open for Phish? They're going to make you look silly when they follow you. I had been trying to convince my buddies to go see Phish, to no avail, so I went and bought 10 tickets at Wax Trax records "on the Hill" so they would not have a reason to say no. The tickets were, if I remember correctly, $6.00 apiece. Everyone who went to this show with me went on to see many, many Phish shows over the years. They also played the part of missionaries and introduced many people to the band as well, so it was a great night all around.

I remember that they played "Good times, bad times" in the first set. I remember this because during the set break, one of my buddies made a great comment. He thought that this was just another psychedelic lounge act, until he heard them play GTBT. He said that Led Zep would have been embarrassed to try to play it after Phish. He was hooked at that point. After the show, we had 2 kegs back at out apt unit. Most of the people living in the 6 units went, and it was a major blowout.

Another funny story about this show. The night before, we were all hanging out, as we usually did, at "The Walrus," a bar not too far from the Boulder theater. As usual, we were playing pool. I was very excited about the next night, and I said to my buddy/playing partner, "I can't wait for you to see them, they're the best band I've ever seen." One of the guys were playing against says " you talking about Phish?" I say "Yeah, have you ever seen them?" He says "I'm their light man." At first I thought he was yanking my chain, but he finally convinced me that he was. I then asked where they guys were, and he said that they should be in at any time. Sure enough, ten minutes later, they all walked in. No one even knew who they were. I ended up talking and playing pool with Chris Kuroda and Jon Fishman. I remember Trey playing a motorcycle video game, and his being pretty good at it. At closing time, I mentioned that I had some top quality fun back at our apartment, and Chris and Jon came back with us and partied a bit. I had only given them directions as to how to get there, and they managed to find it. We partied for a bit, but there were no girls there, no surprise, so they left after a bit. I don't think they were looking for girls, but who knows? I gave them some fun for the road. I said HI to Jon the next night at the Boulder Theater, but didn't press him as he was swamped with people that he had to entertain, so I let him take care of business. We did reconnect at Cutler Quad on Earth Day, but that is a story for another time.

The Circle was good, and they were from Colorado Springs. Mike's little brother played guitar in the band. The interesting thing was the rare opening act allowed the band and a few of us to hang a ton more in the dressing rooms downstairs (which is probably why we all flubbed the recording!).

This was a great show. I met the band and their music on this tour starting at JJ McCabes earlier in the month, and this was the show where they returned to Boulder less than three weeks later, and the crowds quadrupled (from 25 or 30 at JJ's). Dancing to Good Times Bad Times in the first set was with abandon in this historic floor terraced theatre the entire first set blew doors...!

I showed up with my friend Mike helping lug his gear in to make a multi-track. Paul was ever so helpful, but this tour was plagued by gear and house problems, and our recording was the last thing on his mind. After ridiculous sound problems getting only one or two lines into our recording, we basically pulled all of our gear and gave up. Phish was new, and there was more a sense of discovery and fun than huge work to produced great recordings. (For a night when Mike did right with me as his assistant, check out Cutler Quad, the famous Earth Day show...) One day I will dig up the first set list and share it...it is packed deeply away!

This month and year is one of my favorite and I am still seeing them strong today. '90 Rules! Did I say 1990 Phish RULES! This was the night they conquered the Front Range. This was the night, and of course this was the tour, that set up all future Colorado performances as one of Phish's special places. There were so many reasons for this (and the Dead had so many reasons too...) but none of them matter from a historical perspective - all this was private, extremely private.

Anway, for those who thinks every show today is "epic" and better than the last one, and also for those who are 3.0 phans, you can never, know, nor compare, the present of this band, to its storied glorious past, before they got really big!

The recording for this night starts out in mono. Basically it’s just Trey in the mix for the first two tracks. The rest of what’s available for set 1 and set 2 sound similar to the Steamboat recordings.

Both Reba and GXBX from Set 1 are in mono. After Good Times Trey says they need to inform everyone to keep the isles clear. He also adds that this is the pinnacle of their trip out west. The recording improves for Fluffhead and Uncle Pen.

Possum starts off the second set. The beginning of McGrupp has Fish requesting that fans not stand in the isles again. It sounds like they’re playing to a full house tonight. DaaM is followed up with YEM instead of the now standard Bouncing pairing. Decent YEM. This is the first version of Love You where Fish introduces the entire band by name. Fish introduces himself as Henrietta. Afterwards, Fish says “and if you feel like making out with our guitar player you can just come up here and rub your face against the spit guard”. lol There’s some tape pauses following Love You and during the Highway to Hell set closer. Carolina and Golgi wrap up the first visit to the Boulder Theater.