Super Ballin!
Super Ball IX - July 1-3, 2011
Yesterday, Phish finally confirmed the rampant rumor, announcing their July 4th weekend festival at Watkins Glen International Race Track in the Finger Lake Region of New York state. With campgrounds opening at 12 noon on June 30th and closing at noon on July 4th, the stage is set for three full days of patriotic Phish and the first East Coast festival of this era! Superball IX, the band’s ninth festival, was unveiled with one of Phish’s more clever videos, to the delight of an announcement-starved fan base. (But no second leg dates….for now.)
The Clifford Ball - 1996
Get ready for hours of one-laned traffic on small highways in New York, because this ain’t Indio, California, folks, this is the Northeast—Phish’s home turf. With only eleven days between the end of Leg One and Superball IX, the band should be plenty warm when they hit the festival stage, and, hopefully, the monstrous feel of festivals past will return. Though Indio was a laid-back West Coast dream, highlighted by the Exile and acoustic sets, the rest of the weekend brought only spots of musical madness. But the band was still on the rise and regaining their chops in October of ’09; Summer 2011 will be an entirely different story. With no specialty sets to prepare for, one would hope Phish would come out and crush skulls as they did in every previous festival but Coventry. The Clifford Ball, The Great Went, Lemonwheel, Oswego, IT—these events were grandiose spectacles in every sense of the word, but when thinking back to the weekend playgrounds, my first memory is of the music.
Almost exclusively coming at the end of tours, festivals of lore were super-sized showcases of summer Phish, and the ban always delivered with spectacular shows. Each festival reflected the improvisational style of their respective tours with jams aplenty, and in festivals, the band usually pushed things just a little bit more. There is no need to type out the laundry list of household jams that sprouted from these festivals, they are monstrous memories—unforgettable experiences—that live on within us and on tape. But that festival sound defined them all; that open-air thunder that traveled a bit slower than usual as the notes bellowed across the field, growling out of sets of speaker towers three-deep; that booming sound and toned down tempo allowed every note to fully blossom before the next one began. And the space in the music expanded as well; jams—literally—became larger than life, enveloping 70,000 brains at once. And at Watkins Glen, this could happen all over again.
Summer Jam - 1973
To up the ante just a bit more, Superball IX will be the first concert held at Watkins Glen since the legendary “Summer Jam” of July 28, 1973—a one-day show featuring The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers, and The Band that drew a world-record 600,000 attendees. Many historians estimate it to be the largest single gathering of people in the nation’s history, outdrawing Woodstock almost two to one. And now, Phish will step on this hallowed ground (thankfully with a far smaller crowd) and write their own slice of history into the books.
Tickets go on-sale Monday at noon for $200 a pop, and you can find all the details, information, and humor on the official Super Ball IX website. See you in the Finger Lakes!
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Jam of the Day:
“Halley’s > Cities > Llama” 8.16.97 III
When I think of massive festival music, my mind often races directly to The Great Went. Here is one of my favorite portions of Phish’s first festival in Limestone, Maine.
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DOWNLOAD OF THE DAY:
8.15.1998 Lemonwheel, Limestone, Maine
FLAC Torrent (via etree), Megaupload < Links
Lemonwheel - 1998
Other out-of-body festival experiences—night one, sets two and four of Lemonwheel; to-die-for festival Phish.
I. Mike’s Song > Simple, Beauty of My Dreams, Roggsae, Split Open and Melt, Poor Heart, Moma Dance, Divided Sky, Water in the Sky, Funky Bitch, Cities ->Weekapaug Groove
II. The Wedge, Reba, Gumbo -> Sanity, Tweezer > The Horse > Silent In The Morning, Chalkdust Torture, Slave To The Traffic Light
III. NICU > David Bowie, Strange Design, Limb by Limb, Brian and Robert, Loving Cup
E: Halley’s Comet > Cavern, Tweezer Reprise
IV: “Ambient Jam”
Source: (FOB) Schoeps CMC6/MK21 > Sonosax SX-M2 > Apogee AD-1000
@willow if you can reach “it” in your back yard watching her play, why bother with all the hassle?
Red State, Blue City.
Same as Illinois.
But Louisville can’t dominate the state quite like Chicago.
palmer,
place is nice. mike t may or may not work there.
wanted to try the pappy van winkle 20 year but were sold out. the 23 year was a little too rich for my blood last night. rocked some bookers and dickel taboot. things got fun.
Because she knows how important this band is to me and she wants to share it with me and I with her
Not singling you out or anything, just musing, considering my own options now that I’m with family as well…
No way I personally could have fun with my kid there, worrying about some ass elbowing her in the head.
I dont think it will be too bad. Multiple entrances and people who are used to large crowds. People don’t wait 20 hours in line for a neck-car race.-Mitch
I’ve been to one NASCAR event in Joliet, IL for the Tropicana 600
It was a nightmare getting in.
@ AW
then try moving outa Lincoln Park if you want racial/economic diversity.
custy mango = buying new WW shirt. i plan on working there anyway once work gives me the days off i need.
jtran, well played last night re: burn
@ Cub
Illinois is not a red state with blue city…
It’s true blue
No worries Dorn. I think it’s a great question.
Is it worth it?
The 3.0 heads have learned lessons from our past. Do we still like to get down? Of course. But we are a little smarter than we used to be.
We’re good people. I am confident in our community.
I’ve been to one NASCAR event in Joliet, IL for the Tropicana 600
It was a nightmare getting in.
^you’re supposed to be there at 4am so you can roll in and start pounding cheap beer. different strokes i guess
One of my dearest friends stayed up all night making this video, she’s made it her mission to get the wife and I on-board for SuperBallix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqjzGVMe95A
::caution, custies and newbs abound::
Coors Light Mitch
they shoot off a canon to open the indianapolis motor speedway for races. canon goes off at 6am and thats how everyone knows to start letting people through the gates.
@dorn
It takes a village to bring kids to the festivals
considering me and my girl are both battling H and rock addictions el dude we choose to live in places without open air drug markets. or places where we saw a lot of drug use and sales.
even things I see in Wicker Park make me uncomfortable
unfortunately we are kinda stuck where we feel safe from that aspect.
although I would def prefer to live in an area like Albany Park or even Hyde park just too much going on. so I deal with white families. boring but safe.
@aw, pleasure to have hte back and forth. Always dig the discussions on this board, respect the folks that engage…
Not a fan of the red either. Crazy exists somewhere, everywhere right?
Related post: Interested to see how the innerfield party at superball measures up to the innerfield party on Derby day. I think the superball crowd will out perform them race fans. A little less lewdness, me thinks.
@gratefulcub, thanks. go blue.
What I find funny about the South is that historically it’s a democratic region, but this Christian moral right made it red…
There’s still a ton of backward thinking down here in support of what AW said.
given that our kids would go to public schools here they would def be exposed to the diversity this great city offers
as a kid growing up in the suburbs this is very important to me
“Illinois is not a red state with blue city…”dude
shennaingians?
AW
Have you ever ate here: http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/2/11313/restaurant/Lincoln-Park/Charlie-Trotters-Chicago
Good Friend works there the last I heard, though its been a while.
You guys still struggle with that after 4-5 years of being off H?
that’s where I thought the m-maintenance comes in?
Remember that just 2-3 blocks north of you there’s an open air drug market too, right by my old condo…
If you look for it, you’ll find it.
“Sure enough they’ll be selling stuff when the moon begins to rise”
nice that gmail motion is sick @halcyon
I bet your kids would go to the Catholic school K and her sister went to and where your future mother in-law works would be my guess.
Besides you’re making hedge fund money so you can afford it
addiction is no laughing matter
Not the sort of Phish related April Fools news we were looking for:
http://www.jambands.com/news/2011/04/01/vivid-entertainment-sues-phish-for-trademark-infringement-over-super-ball-ix