ONE FOUR THREE TWO FOUR FIVE

hmm… ok where to start. its been almost 3 months since halloween. all the music boards were completely inundated with Festival 8 coverage shortly thereafter. i have had plenty of time to go through photos & collect my thoughts, but its still quite hard to describe. the last phish festival i attended was Coventry, although incredibly fun & an unforgettable adventure, it was musically disastrous. on so many levels Festival 8 was the complete antithesis of Coventry. perfect venue, perfect weather, beautiful music, gorgeous scenery, happy people, friends new & old. i flew to san diego alone, and set out to meet up with the crew. on thursday evening i met up with justin, pete, kochan, adam, tim & john in the parking lot at chili’s, and we made the 30 minute drive to indio. we got our campsite set up, and retired relatively early. friday was a wonderful day. plenty of time to check out the scene before the first set. enjoyed the music, and the burble. saturday started off nicely with an afternoon set. we recieved our playbills & learned that they would be playing rolling stones exile on main street, with sharon jones! as if that wasn’t enough, i managed to get both pollock prints for the weekend. the musical costume set lived up to the hype, and it stands up well on tape. i got my second loving cup for the year, but with sharon jones. thanks to all the tapers for capturing this weekend. apparently it was also filmed in 3D for a release sometime this year. sunday started early with coffee & 8 shaped donuts, courtesy of the band, thanks guys, as if the music wasn’t enough. then we were treated to a first ever acoustic set. everyone sitting down to watch the start of the set was amazing to witness. the torches erupting during the harry hood jam seemed appropriate. i can still feel the heat watching the video. unfortunately, it all came to an end on monday morning, and everyone departed. parts of it still seem like a dream, a really really good one. the first video i have included is courtesy of michael marantz. its a collage of thousands of of still photos. i think it really captures the weekend, at least visually in lots of ways. a couple of the other photos were provided by pete & michael & are noted accordingly. the main image is michael’s but i couldn’t bring myself to ruin the image with the watermark, its just too good. thanks for those guys. other than the costume photo, somehow john managed to escape all my photos. so if any of you guys have one that captures johnny fiasco, send it on. this weekend was a blast. i’ll see you all out there. hopefully sooner rather than later. happy phishing.

Phish Festival 8 by Michael Marantz