superball ix

      Superball was such an amazing experience with such wonderful people! Phish played two sets Friday, three scheduled sets and one secret late night set Saturday, and two sets to close the phestival on Sunday. Sundays show concluded with magnificent explosions of fireworks filling the open sky at Watkins Glen, NY. I could not have asked for a better going away present! Arriving on Thursday around noon after a long and arduous 15 hour car ride, the crew set up an absolutely perfect and extremely large and welcoming campsite!
       My Friday highlights included 5 covers in the first set!!-->Zappa (peaches en regalia), Rolling Stones (torn and frayed), my personal favorite of the night, Bowie (life on mars?), Ween (roses are free) and concluding the first set of the phestival with Dylan's (quinn the eskimo). The second set continued the ongoing trend of jaw-dropping covers opening with an erie and ambient jam-->crosseyed and painless by the talking heads, another one of my personal favorites! The first night of the phestival ended with one of the most amazing experiences of my life--watching STOP MAKING SENSE, the talking heads dvd, on the big screen after the show. During the film the crowd broke out in several glow stick wars and everyone was cheering as if David Byrne was actually playing live!! Truly one of the coolest things I have ever participated in!
       Saturday's highlights began with the day set rowdy opener of TUBE! Hundreds of balls quickly took over the crowd as phish killed the day set opener! My first ever day set ended with another outrageous and undeniably perfect cover: MONKEY MAN, another Rolling Stones cover and a phish first! The middle set could not have been more perfect including mcgrupp, axilla, the much anticipated stash, its ice, SCENTS AND SUBTLE SOUNDS (uh-mazing) and ending with the rambunctious and always a killer, run like an antelope (possibly the biggest glow stick war of the phestival) In my personal opinion, the third set on Saturday was the weakest, but still fucking great! The highlight of the third set was by far the Tv on the Radio cover, Golden Age-->what a great song! Saturday night was the ambient jam for the secret set. The phestival goers were going crazy trying to figure out where the music was coming from it was the perfect phish prank at Watkins Glen! (jam was coming from the USA storage building in which Trey later explains during Forbin->Mockingbird narration) (don't worry, i knew where it was and was posted up outside the building watching all the confused spunions wonder :)
      Sunday was the perfect ending the perfect weekend because not only was it my favorite show, I got to be with all my friends :)  The first set saturday was my personal favorite beginning with the great opener of Soul Shakedown into a bunch of gamehendge(always a pleasure) FINISHING REBA, time loves a hero, mound, just so many awesome things! Definitely my favorite of the weekend! The second set was another rager containing ghost, disease, meatstick, whats the use, etc. And the perfect ending the phestival was the first tube to the fireworks! Could not have had a bigger smile on my face!
     To make a long post short: SUPERBALL was such an amazing and wonderful experience with the most amazing and incredible people! Thank you for everyone that made it possible and thank you to all my friends for making it unforgettable!