I’ll tell you this much blogosphere, I miss Phish at times. I have previously written on this here blog-0-thing about my contempt for Trey anastasio’s current work, and I stick by that. But i was just looking at the Phish Live Downloads site, and it brought on a wave of nostalgia.
I miss the music for one, thats a given. I had my moments where i could talk to you for an hour about how great “You Enjoy Myself” was and that a-capella jam at the end? Duuuuude!! YEAH! But that was only one part of it. Above all, I miss the food. There has not, nor will there ever be a better veggie burrito than the ones in the parking lot beforehand. You could get 2 for 5$ and it was delicious. The 1$ grilled cheese could not be topped. There would always be a dude putting garlic on that shit, OOOH. While other were looking for “doses” “Mollies” “Nugs” “Rolls” and other misc controlled substances, i’d be roaming the parking lot isles yelling “Whose got my veggie burrito!” There were also these things called “Goo Balls” which were a mash of usually peanut butter some form of sweet cereal and chocolate chips…Delish. It was very hard to find the ones Without weed in them, but it was worth the search.
In fact, at the first phish show I ever attended, with my dad, his advice to me was “Steve, don’t eat the brownies” One time i did eat a weed brownie several years later, and it just pissed me off that there were these little bits of crap in it, and the dude who made it wwas obviously not a professional baker, because it was about 78% butter. Anyhoo…
What happened to all these people? There were literally thousands of slackers who would follow this band around from city to city selling various food and goods in the parking lots. Do they just dissappear? Did they all get real jobs? My advice? Open up a fucking restaurant! One time, I believe it might have been somewhere in PA, I had some delicious rissoto on the walk back to the car that i have never quite topped. One time a dude cooked french bread pizza in an oven that was built into his truck. You could get a quesadilla with various ingredients for 2$. Man, it was wonderful. One time i bought an excess of burritos after a show, hoping to figure out the secret ingredients and have a supply for the off season, but those things done last more than a day. CRAP.
But in the later years, i must say. the quality of parking lot food definitely declined. I was not in the game for incredibly long, but i did see about 22 shows. My first show was in 97, and by my last in 2004, there was not a single burrito to be found in all of the Coney Island Parking Lot. It was a sad day, which for me, signaled the end even more than the half assed half hour jams coming from an aging band of innovators most likely strung out on coke.
There were about 4 months in 1998-9 though….Oh man did i eat so much wonderful food. At the encore, I would already be thinking- Should i have a grilled cheese? Or go for the standard Veggie? It was always a tough choice, but there was never a wrong answer.
And for that dearest Mike, Trey, Page, and John, I miss you dearly.
PS- also, i gave up an offer for like $2600 for my fucking new years eve comeback show tickets (web master T Bone will attest to this) and you guys fucking sucked. Not like “eh, they were ok” no, it was like “Holy Shit, i wouldnt pay 5$ at a bar to see those guys cover Creed and Whitesnake songs”. Really dudes, what the hell?