Wow! The past few days have been jam packed with a bunch of different events. We shall start off with Wednesday...
My Malta party ended up being really great. Mostly everyone was here by 4:15 and we just socialized and ate, as planned. I really like being around them because they are the only people I know of that have some of the same memories as I do. We all absolutely loved it and would go back in a heartbeat. There is "always that draw of Malta" when deciding where to travel next. I topped the night off with seeing Matthew and meeting his good friend Adam, who I have only been hearing about for two years. It was good to put a face to the name.
Thursday is when it all really started. Anticipating rain, everyone was pretty geared up and prepared. Keep in mind, it was supposed to rain Thursday, Friday, & Saturday. We ended up leaving for camp around 11:50 am and headed to Noblesville, IN. We made a pit stop at the beloved Fair Oaks Farm and got our fixes for some damn good cheese and ice cream. So delicious. It makes all other grilled cheeses a waste of your time. We ended up getting to camp around 3. We found a great spot around some trees and some other established camping sites. We got things set up pretty quickly and started our fire. To our luck, the weather was perfect. Clear skies, sunny, no rain. It was all we could have asked for. The campers were all excited and getting into the groove of camping; listening to music, makin fires, walking around greeting people, the works. It was a good atmosphere. Looking back, it seemed like all we did thursday was have a lot of good laughs and walk to the bathrooms. Or should I say the nasty portable johns lined up across the campsite. It was actually a little muddy in certain areas before we got there so this made it harder as the night progressed. None of us carried out a big urge to sleep so we all pretty much were coherent till 5am. Some of the party opted not to sleep, however, I need a few hours to keep me going. We had two tents, one for John & Brian (a 3-4 person sleeper) and one for my John (my brother), Clarissa, Matthew, and I (which was three rooms). Needless to say, everyone was damn comfortable where they were. We were ultra prepared too, making it all the easier.
On Friday, I woke up around 11. It was nice to get a few hours of shut eye and boy did I sleep well. Everyone was getting excited for Phish, especially since we woke up to clear, sunny skies. How great! We hung out, made a fire for breakfast and made some donuts and eggs on the grill we brought. Good stuff for sure. Oh! We even made coffee! It was like luxury camping ha ha. The doors opened at 6:30 but we got there early- around 4:45pm. There are always a ton of vendors outside the show selling a whole bunch of things. Shirts, food, jewelery, you name it. We strolled through that and poked around until doors opened. Matthew had a meeting back home at 11am the next morning (saturday) so he knew he was going to leave the show at 9:30. So we all get settled and wait for Phish to start jammin. The weather was still really holding up. It was perfect out. A good breeze with a few clouds in the mix. It looked a little messy, but weather patterns are so unpredictable, so something off in the distance doesn't necessarily mean it will effect you. They came on around 8 and played a great set; AC/DC Bag > Limb By Limb > The Moma Dance > Water In The Sky > Split Open and Melt > Lawn Boy > The Wedge > Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan > The Connection > Ocelot > Fluffhead. I was pretty happy with this. They sounded GREAT. The stage effects were great and I got what I expected. I held high standards since, like I said, I enjoy their live stuff the best. I really wanted them to play Weekapaug Groove, The Divided Sky, Golgi Apparatus, Bouncin Round The Room, Character Zero, or a Sweet Jane cover (& many others). But I liked what they played. Their Fluffhead performance was pretty much an encore kind of performance, which was good for what happened next. So I walked Matt out at 9:30 (2 songs before set break) and got re-aquainted in our spot...
At this point, the lightning really started to flare up. Not vertical lightning, horizontal. It was so crazy. People were applauding each time a huge number of bolts made their way across the sky over us. It was really beautiful, but a little threatening looking. Instead of Phish coming out to start playing again, they announce that all people in the lawn area (that would be us) had to go back to their cars because a severe storm was just about to hit us. They also informed us that they would be restarting the show at 11pm. It was expected to move through quickly. We all slowly made our way out to the car (just the people in the lawn, people in pavillion got to stay). We were like cattle trying to make our way through and once we got back to the car, we decided, soaking wet, that we were all really happy with the set we saw and did not want to have to deal with the large mass of people once again. So we played some live Phish in the car and headed out. I am happy with our decision and am so glad I saw them. We oddly enough ended up going to Red Robin for a dinner. Ha Ha. It was SO odd going from a Phish concert to a chain restaurant. The rain ended up taking a pause for an hour or two. As we got back to camp, Brian & John decided to hit the road instead of waiting till morning. Off they went, and then there were three.
I am glad I didn't go with Matthew back home. I was able to help John and Clarissa out with anything in the morning. Once we were all parked and settled in the tent, we heard a few rumbles of thunder. This was followed by some really really bad downpours. The winds were really strong too. I cannot even beleive how hard it was raining. It was terrifying at one point because Clarissa and I literally heard "the train sound". It sounded like a tornado was going through that place. Luckily the rain died down and we were all able to take off our ponchos and relax. We ended the night with a game of war.
This morning /daywas pretty whatever. I slept like a lamb and then got up around 7am helped clean up. Drove home (left around 8:45am) We ended up making decent time and got home around 1. We sat down to eat and hit some traffic. When i got home I hung out with Danielle and we finally caught eachother up on our busy lives, and then I hung out with Matthew. We ended up meeting up with Eric and that was fun. However, I am VERY tired. I need more sleep! Sorry for making the longest post around, just wanted to dish about the concert! What a great weekend! I am so so so glad the weather held off. All we really wanted to do last night was just kind of lay low anyways. I HOPE PHISH COMES AROUND NEXT YEAR!
-Tessabee
