HARTFORD
Concrete steps stories high, Aztec pyramid-like, lead up to the lawn (a venue is a sort of temple); the lawn is littered with crushed and jagged cans (though going barefoot is spiritually required); a recurring friendly loop animates the jam of the summer (everyone stops playing and Trey dances to the loop)
MERRIWEATHER
Lindsey and I left at the weirdest point in the jam out of 46 Days. The gatekeeper made sure we knew we could not return. I looked into the illuminated fountain at the bottom of the steps and imagined microphones there, capturing the waves the music made in the pool. The way out was a path through a terraced garden, and all the kids who couldn't get in got to sit among the rocks and plants of Symphony Woods. I envied them, hearing the music as so many modifications of the lush night's air, the sound not of Phish, but of Merriweather Post Pavilion. How freeing to walk away from this concert, the object of so many months of speculation and worry! And how wonderful to hear the music all the way back to the car, possibly miles away, the whole way lit by globes that all glowed the same, for Columbia, Maryland, a modernist utopia of the 1960s, was built all at once, and according to one vision. Shapes of Oh! Sweet Nuthin' and Harry Hood floated through the vacant city. How incredible to look up at the stars and hear the most abstract summary of this music echoing off the side of a parking garage or apartment building! We heard an ambulance's siren--maybe this was Beth on her way to Howard County General, where we would meet her shortly. A woman was reading by the light of the closed library. Turning the corner we saw a man sitting in the pebbles, his back against a plate glass window, also reading. Night Phish, night reading! The city whose people love to modify their minds at night!
SPAC
Drenching rain prior to show, mud footprints on the turning calendar wheel to mark Woodstock (40, to the day). An exasperated clerk at a Massachusetts rest stop the following morning: "What's with all these kids with their wet money?"
