Returning From The Desert
Festival 8 (A.Lansing)
I just got out of the festival where I was relying on a communal, camp wireless card the entire weekend. Gotta deal with the RV and drive up north tomorrow, and I should be getting back to regular posting by later this week. And boy is there a lot to say! Sunday’s night’s show easily vaulted to the top shelf of 3.0 offerings with a second set chock-full of chunky dance grooves and a whole lot more. We will be looking at Phish’s eighth festival from all sorts of angles…when I get home!
MrC, use http://surveymonkey.com. It’s free and will collate the results for you. Make it 3 questions as I think you should split up the tickets and download purchases.
Just in from my first (half)day back at work, and man do I feel sorry for all the sad souls I came home to. Literally no one shared any enthusiasm, and the worst part is that I just wanted to crank up the stereo and rage some more…
Phish should get their own online streaming outlet up and running…5 bucks a show. They’ve got the staffing and the budget to get it up and running. Who needs the middle-man?
If it was through Sirius it’d amount to signing up for a subscription, which is $13 a month for the package they were advertising this past weekend. But there’s no minimum time, you’re only signing up for a month at a time. Since the tour is split across Nov and Dec I guess you’d basically be paying $26 for the whole tour.
my thoughts on the live streaming as that if Phish wants to protect their assets and also open up a new form of revenue, they should do it in house.
I know there is a lot of talk about not wanting to make their house productions to big… but shit Festival 8 was no slouch, so they are obviously willing for somethings.
I’m just saying. Cut the middle man out and provide a LivePhish stream option.
What a MAGNIFICENT weekend!
While all the festivals have been special in their own way, F8 was something else to behold. While no traffic, a farmer’s market, free showers, and much more were all great, the concert venue was absolutely spectacular -the best one they’ve created to date.
Although I’m not the most analytical phan, all summer long my critical voice kept humming along in the background at shows (in a good way, I might add). But at F8, that voice disappeared -I just floated on wave after wave of spectacular music amidst a most gorgeous crowd of people surrounded by a ring of colorful palm trees and distant mountains.
Friday’s performance was a good kick-off, though it didn’t feel like the flow was quite right. I think that the cold temps might have had something to do with the energy level, as even with shoes on it felt like the cold grass was sucking the energy out of my feet.
Saturday and Sunday, however, were epic in every way that a phish festival should be. Unlike at previous festivals, where the heat made it hard for me to rage during the day, I had the time of my life during Saturday’s (and Sunday’s) daylight set. Friday’s night time chill somehow gave me all the energy I needed and more, in spite of Saturday’s heat, to dance my ass off during the entire set.
Then came EXILE.
The band’s performance during this set completely blew my socks off. And the design of the concert venue probably made for the best phish spectacle I have ever witnessed. I forgot how incredible it is to be outside surrounded by thousands of spinners all dancing in crazy synchronous patterns -and with the lighted palm trees, fire-spouting towers, burble (and Sunday’s borealis too), and amazing glow stick wars -well, let’s just say it was one of the happiest, most transcendent moments I’ve experienced in a long time. Which then got repeated again during Sunday’s evening sets.
The band looked so incredibly happy and exuberant all weekend. They had obviously practiced a lot, and it showed in spades. I was both so proud of their performance and extremely ecstatic to be hosed so hard.
Equally amazing was all of us -the festival crowd was phenomenally kind and outrageously fun. I was only able to make one stop over at Robear’s Oasis, but I’m glad I got to meet him and a few other pt’ers, including Marshall I think. (Thank you Robear! That one puff put me into the stratosphere for the rest of the afternoon, making conversation all but impossible. The walk back to Electric Ladyland was a bitch, as I had glass on me and therefore had to walk around the entire outside of the campgrounds in the extreme heat. HA! All in good fun for sure.)
Enough gushing. I am still processing -reintegration sucks- but I want to send a big THANK YOU out to the entire phish community -the band, the staff, the fans, the Polo Grounds. Festival Eight exceeded all the way. I’m ready to come back again!
Phish on The 101 – now THAT would be the ticket. Dolby Digital 4.1 surround sound and 1080p picture on my big screen. My only request would be that the camera be a static shot from on top of the soundboard. Gotta see my CK5 visuals if I’m gonna be watching a simulcast.
“next time there are Gorge shows, FYI there’s a sweet disk golf course in a beautiful, shady waterside park in Moses Lake – great place to spend the day”
im all over that shit. probably be the next shows i catch…
@albert – I have seen inside the Sirius sausage factory – it is a nightmare, a stinking death ship of doom and failure
but if they could make this happen, hey, whatever
Dolby Digital 5.1 (4.1 was a typo)
Further, I would not want a PHISH channel like the DEAD have. No way. The last thing I need is 15,000 extra people trying to get tickets or f-ing up my scene. No thanks.
totally agree that a LivePhish stream would be preferable. have just been assuming they don’t want to take it on. Not sure it’s as easy as you might think; the distributed server farms and bandwidth agreements to handle what would probably be quite a heavy load would be a large technical undertaking.
That being said, me and 2 or 3 of my network/server admin friends could handle that part of it, given a clean signal feed from LP and enough budget to work with 😮
give me a call Phish, lets make this happen :8
In house …. eventually they’ll be able to stream directly to your iPhone via an app. Not today, but not too far in the future either. Then you just plug into the car stereo, computer, or TV, and viola, you’ve got your live phish without any need for Sirius.
@BTB, if Phish keeps slaying it like they have been, those 15k are coming next summer whether you want them or not, plus about 50k more after them
“Theeeeeey’re baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack”
I too had problems with Sirius and there f’d up ways. I lost my car adapter cord and since they changed the hardware and could not get me a new one i politely told them to give me money back for the last few months of my subscription
I hope phish does their own live stream and charges accordingly
I’m holding out for the DMB channel then.
Thanks for the coozies She Divides. The smile on my face while drinking a beer out of the Party Time coozie with a Party Time opener was just massive. (The California medical nugs that my buddy had all weekend made that smile even bigger).
What Phish land is about to experience (if we haven’t already) is what the Dead went through in the late 80s. It’s a natural course when your that good and you’ve been around long enough.
Let’s hope the vibes stay positive
Quite remarkable those cali medical nugs are. That much closer to being able to legally grow your own….
The live stream would be the best way to deliver it AND you get a copy of the show. Charge $10-15 bucks.
Although, isn’t Live Phish a non-profit 501 c 3 ? I was under the impression it all goes to charity.
Maybe they make “events” out of certain shows and do a stream. I think we’re on to something though b/c the feedback is 100% positive
I pray that Phish gets no bigger than they are now.
phish already experienced it in the mid 90’s
I feel the jump from 95 summer through 97 summer is about as big as you can get
just exploded in numbers on and off tour
I think the Movie Theatres are a no go from here on out. Either stream it or get the 1080 HD going.
Love me some disc golf, CT courses are diverse and mucho fun