My Phishy Experience

Phish - Festival 8 from Michael Marantz on Vimeo.

This is to set the scene of what a Phish concert is like.

This past Saturday I attended my first ever Phish concert. I have heard many epic stories about people’s experiences at Phish concerts, but I honestly did not know what to expect. Before arriving to the concert venue in Albany, NY, we wanted to check into the hotel that we had previously booked online. Although the Econolodge isn’t the best place to stay, it would definitely be fine given the circumstances. We chose this Econolodge because it was only a mile away from the venue, and we would be able to walk there and back without having to worry about driving while being fucked up. However, when we arrived at the hotel, the owner (who is Indian- this is important later on in the story) alerted us that a pipe had burst in our room and that there were no other rooms available. Although we were pissed off, the owner said that he would set us up at another hotel for the night. FINE WHATEVER! We argued that since he was really fucking us in this situation, that they needed to give us a ride to and from the concert. So it seemed like everything was going to work out. We packed a 30-wrack of Coors in the trunk of the ‘Company’ Land Cruiser, and had more than enough “herbal medicine” to last us throughout the concert and night. On the way to the venue, our driver graciously let us know that there in-fact was no pipe burst in our room, but instead the owner had overbooked the hotel. BASTARD! Fuck that shit. Anyway, we get out of the car at the venue, and the environment is crazy. We go into the parking lot where thousands of people are smoking bowls, pounding beers, and buying and selling acid, weed, weed brownies, weed everything, Ecstacy, shrooms, and an assortment of other drugs. The area where you go to buy all of these goodies is called “Shake Down Street.” Loud music, people partying, and getting really, really, really fucked up. I have never seen so many fucked up smelly hippies in my whole entire life. Awesome. Anyways, my friends and I decide to experiment with one of the many “goodies” that were available. It literally took 3 minutes for us to be offered these “goodies”. Then we consumed it….etc..etc..

The concert was unbelievable. The music was hypnotizing, the lights the accompanied the band was even more impressive. I felt like I was a fish in a fishbowl with little kids pointing colored lazer lights at my face…..way cooler than it sounds. During the show I sent a couple of text messages to my good friend Deejae:
Deejae: How’s the show?
Me: Speechless. I know why now?
Deejae: Welcome
Deejae: Super funkalisious!
Me: Magnafunktatiousness!!!!
Deejae then proceeded to advise me to get home safely. I did. I also made a voice recording of some of my thoughts that I had during the show:
Voice recording 1: Phish is from another fucking planet. They are trying to brainwash our heads to feel good all of the fucking time. All the lights make it seem like a brainscan. Oh my god! They, they are, they are from another fucking planet, they know how to take over people. This is awesome.
Voice recording 2: Oh shit. I feel like I can grunt as well as they can play music. They are just describing hallucinagetic drugs, And I feel like if I was a grunter of an artist I would play good music like this, but not music, but grunting, but people would like it just as much.
Voice Recording 3: I see all of the combinations of pepperonis and vegetables in the audience. Oh my god it is the lady of the earth. Where did she come from? The lady of the earth was there. She needs to come back. OH MY GOD!!! Theres green man!

My experience at the concert was similar to these voice recordings. Anyways, after the show ended at 12:30 am, we walked outside to the nearby McDonald’s where we said that we would meet the car picking us up. After waiting for 20 minutes for the car to arrive, and after we tried to buy McDonald’s food by walking through the Drive-Through, the car arrived. As the four of us approach the car, we notice that there is an Indian woman driver with her two kids in it. We pile in the car. I sat in the back with the 5-year old Indian boy who must have been ridiculously scared of me because I kept motioning to him that I was sorry for bumping into him as I climbed over him to my seat. The kid really needed to be in bed. Why was he in the car with 4 extremely fucked up men? We realized the Indian woman driving was the owner of the hotels wife…what a bastard to make your wife do your dirty work. I felt so guilty…and confused…and paranoid…and I thought it was funny. The driver, name Eama, first drove us to the Econolodge so we could pick up the rest of our beer and some other necessities for the night. We then piled into the car to be taken to our new hotel.
We had thought that the hotel was going to be about 5 minutes away and probably at another half-decent place. We were so wrong. Eama drove us 20 minutes away from the Econolodge and our car to a shitty little motel, and a SHADY SHADY area. The motel was called “The Hostfield Inn.” We go to the front desk, which is barely a front desk, and another Indian woman is waiting for us. We could tell that she had just woken up from sleep in a backroom behind the front desk. I think that’s where she lived. We then realized that the owner of the Econolodge also privately owned this shit hole of a motel. So he had purposely overbooked us and was making more money by putting us here. The cards at the front desk were cards from other hotels, and he had crossed out the name of that hotel and written ‘Hostfield.’ After struggling to deal with the logistics of being placed in a room, which was so hard because we were fucked up and the lady didn’t speak a word of English, we started to walk towards our room.
Room 12 was behind a dirty, shady, warehouse in the middle of Buttfuck, NY. As we approached the front door, we noticed that there were massive dent marks in it, and it looked like it had been broken into multiple times. FUCK ME! We opened up the door and of course it was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my whole entire life. There was a massive cockroach on the wall, the sheets were disgusting (I wouldn’t be surprised if there was poop on them), one of the mattresses had a massive bloodstain on it, the TV was literally from the 70s, and all of the little soaps, shampoos, and mouthwash bottles were stolen from other hotels (the mouthwash bottle said RAMADA-1999 on it).

Also the lock on the door was a simple door knob click lock. SHADY. So to remedy the situation, I put this little desk infront of the door so we would if someone was trying to break in. So finally after watching TV (Dirty jobs, Jackass, and Swordfish) and talking about teleportation, and levetation for 5 hours. We finally went to bed.

We woke up the next morning to the sound of knocking on our front door. It was the “cleaning service” to let us know that we had to check out. When we opened the door I was not surprised to see that the cleaning service was an extremely old Indian couple (probably 105 years old). They had a shopping cart with a dirty blanket on top of it. WOW. Great. We call Eama to get picked up from the shit hole to have her take us back to the Econolodge. We got back, we immediately went to the owner and let him know how pissed off we were and how shitty of an establishment he was running. It’s a fucking crime to overbook people at a corporate hotel, and then send them to your privately owned piece of shit, and charge the same amount of money. We demanded to be refunded our money. But of course, he refused and told us to get the fuck out of his hotel. CUNT! After cussing him out, and calling him a retarded businessman, we proceeded to call the Econolodge headquarters to file a formal complaint in an attempt to be refunded our money. Then I went to dominos to get a sandwich, and drove home. This was my Saturday night.

All in all, Phish is epic. And I think it is important that everyone gets a chance to see them perform before the stop touring. I’d love to go again.