I second this question because I got the DVD today and watched the first three disks. What a rage fest

@jackl, really great. Were you there?

Edit: thank you for the link and info, 9th largest city in NY?
Flatbed jam? Who drives around on a flatbed jamming, must of been awesome.

Love this: (from the above linked review, J.D. Goodwin)

Serendipitously, this was also one of those points along the line of Phish's history where both the band and the audience simultaneously *got* something, and realized that things were changing at that very moment. Sometimes this happens through the music, on a night like 5/7/94. Sometimes it happens through the event, as at the early New Year's shows, or the first show at MSG. The Great Went "Gin" was a time when both of these paths to transcendence collided. On these occasions we all grow up a little, as a community, and for a clear moment achieve a shared consciousness. There are moments sometimes on tour when the room *knows*…knows that we're all moving forward, in a way, entering ground that neither band nor audience had ever been to before. At least not together.

It was a freakin' blast. Obviously. We took a van up there between junior and senior year of high school, counting the seconds until that weekend. Our interest was piqued with heads-ups and info published in the Doniac Schvice. Traffic wasn't bad getting in there. Mounted police all over the place, though not giving anyone shit. On the first night there were drum circles everywhere and a massive one near the gates of the concert ground, where we all flocked when we could vaguely hear the soundcheck coming over the field. The gates for day 1 opened up at noon (I believe) and my one buddy Wiedes and I decided we'd try to get up front since there were a bajillion people in attendance and we'd only been way up front once or twice before (10/7/94 and 12/15/95 off the top of my head). So we lined up at the gate. I was clad in a rain poncho, Merrell hiking boots, and a fanny pack containing a bottle of water and a granola bar. They unlatched the section of gate right next to us and the security people were all shouting WALLKK, which prompted us all to start running. It seemed far as hell to the stage area, and the vendors and employees were cheering us on as we sprinted to plaster ourselves up against those barriers in the front. We made it to the spot right in front of Page, and the stage was huge. We hung out for what seemed like all day, and now that I'm in my mid-thirties and slovenly I wonder how the hell I made it on a granola bar and a bottle of water.

But I guess you wanted to hear about the music. We were all pumped to begin with, and the mysterious camera crew kept going up and down the front row getting our cheers (we wondered what the cameras were for and thought at the time it was only for the MTV half-hour special that aired that fall...so you could imagine how psyched I was that they released the DVD a few years ago.) The band came out and we couldn't see the crowd behind us, but we could see them checking it out and Trey grinning ear to ear. They plugged in, people around us all called the first song, and someone around us called Chalkdust and so it was. So we're high-fiving and everyone is flipping out and it's pretty raucous, and it was thrilling to hear the noise of everyone shouting 'CAN I LIVE WHILE I'M YOUNG?' behind us. Every song during that first set seemed to appeal to a different vibe that day - "Esther" really stood out, both because I hadn't heard it live before (I don't think) and also because of the circus-like atmosphere of the whole place. The weather was nice and the sky was clear, and they followed with a soaring rendition of what was my favorite song at the time, "Divided Sky." The pause was long and Fishman scoffed Trey's goofy-yet-metaphysically-serious staring up at the sky with his mouth open-look before 'ting ting' and back into the song. To follow that up with Halley's > Bowie, in our opinion, gave the band a challenge to top that in the next five sets. We were all thinking, 'this is how they start things off?'

The set break seemed eternal, but we had the full effect light show to look forward to when they came back out for "SOaM." At some point after "Squirming Coil," I decided to bail and get something to eat & take a much-needed piss, while my comrade opted to stay up front. It turned out to be decent timing, as far as I was concerned, since their little acoustic set-within-a set was just as enjoyable sitting in the grass over by the vendors eating a sausage peppers & onions sandwich. Again, I was astonished when they pulled out the roaring "Mike's > Simple > Contact Weekapaug" to end the set, because where could they go when they already have it turned up to eleven?

They answered in the third set with "2001 > DWD." Everything after had a twinge of mellow to it, sort of a way to settle us all down (with the exception of the crescendo in "Hood" . The "Life on Mars," I had never heard before and was busted out apparently because of a recent news event (I hate to sound ignorant but it was either that rover reaching Mars or pictures taken by the rover of some horseshoe-crab lookin' beast on the surface of Mars, I forget), and the people around me were talking about that.

We slept through the flatbed jam. People weren't cheering and they weren't playing loud, and of course there was a world of lot-noise going on all night, so when they rolled by our camping area none of us stirred. Ah well. I will say that the whole weekend had a feeling that they weren't doing it to make a buck or sell records or whatever, they were doing it for us. The flatbed jam was part of that, but the entire scene was one that was meant for us all to enjoy ourselves, which we definitely did.

Day 2 I won't go into a lot of detail, but I remember the entire first set being songs that worked best when sunny outside; instead of squeezing up front again I gathered in the way back with everyone we drove up with and some other buddies. I took off my shoes for "Old Home Place" and enjoyed how serene the "Reba" and "Lizards" were (always a treat, maybe my third or fourth "Lizards" . We got up near the soundbord for the rest of the show and dug the Ben & Jerry's "Brother" (first one of those) and the scorching "Antelope" with the acrobatics, the band sort of meandering until she got going and they could accompany each other right. "Slave" reminded us that we were leaving that night after the show. Set three was a beast, people jumping on tramps in skis and whatnot (?) What a novel idea!

The "Harpua" encore blew our minds, although like everyone else we were sort of baffled by the quietness of the ending. I think there was a miscue with the glider, and I'm sure people commented on that on other threads. Trey did seem miffed as they left the stage, I think. I mean, you throw a weekend-long hootenanny with tens of thousands of fans who have a blast, only to get criticized for an awkward encore.

We left that night in an effort to beat traffic, and also because my one friend was flying out of Albany the next afternoon. We made it down 87 a few miles and decided to pull over to get some sleep in a rest station. I tried sleeping in my driver's seat of the van but it wasn't happening so I threw my sleeping bag down in the grass and fell asleep immediately.

Here's the funny anecdote of that drive that is something we still talk about: our friend P was dead to the world asleep, coming down from the weekend as a whole. We dropped our one friend off at the airport in Albany so he could fly out and meet his dad for a college visitation somewhere. So when P woke up he was groggy for about forty five minutes, not saying a word... finally, he looked around and said, "Guys? what the hell? where's Eel?" We told him not to worry about it or even mention it again, that we left him at a rest station because he was being an asshole. P was getting all fired up and yelling at us to turn around and pick him up, that we couldn't just strand him on the side of the road in upstate New York and so on. To quell his concerns we told P that Eel got a ride with some Rainbow people, but he continued to freak about it for... too long. I think we had him going for an hour, eveyone played along perfectly. I guess you had to be there to appreciate that part of the story, but that's all part of the mosaic that made up that weekend.

I had no intention of writing this much... I recently found out at an inservice day at school that by writing about positive experiences you experience those emotions again; your brain can't tell the difference between the emotional response from the experience itself and the vividly recalled memory of that experience. So thanks, Clifford Ball, from a Sunday morning in 2012.

I had a ticket offered to me for this festival. 5 of my friends were going and I was going to be the 6th, and when everything was packed they realized there wouldn't be room for me. I'd drawn the short straw by getting in last on the plan.

At this point I'd seen 3 shows, and looking back on it it ended up that 1996 was the only year I didn't see Phish since first seeing them in 1994.

This is my most heart-breaking "should have/could seen show."

Cypress ended up being my first festival, which was TERRIBLE because everyone knows how horrible Cypress was and we all hated it equally with a firey passion.

@spacecoyote said:

In the summer of 1996 I traded my '84 Toyota Pick-up to my neighbors for their '77 Volkswagen Campmobile and took it on, and off of, summer tour. Just me, and two friends, both of whom happened to be recent ex's and good friends...

::how it begins::

I now have a man crush on you bro. Dead serious. That is f***ing awesome, love it, only an awesome person would do such a thing. +5

@sirhotpants,

"I had no intention of writing this much... I recently found out at an inservice day at school that by writing about positive experiences you experience those emotions again; your brain can't tell the difference between the emotional response from the experience itself and the vividly recalled memory of that experience. So thanks, Clifford Ball, from a Sunday morning in 2012."

Thank you. It gets my brain sparking reading about it, random note it was the biggest concept of the year raking in +$4m but more than $4m was spent to put it on. What a band.

Again thank you for sharing

@crickjaw, sell some molsen buy some ice, thank you for sharing man.

@chrism27, more at work than just luck I think to find a group of 15 out of 60k. Thank you

@crickjaw

"I am sorry to say that I missed the Flatbed Truck jam because I passed out in the tent too early. Shame on me!"

LOL...You weren't alone....

@Issiah, anymore about hot chic on rope? Ha ha

Thank you for sharing bro

...

On our way west the fuel pump, which in my bus I believe was the first ever model to have a fuel pump, began giving us problems. By the time we got to Silvertown CO we had to push the vehicle up to inhuman speeds just to pop-start the engine with the clutch. The last 160 miles to Boulder, where we would be housed for our stay in the Rockies, were traversed in a tow truck. Thankfully we were headed to the VW Bus Capital of The World. Also, Needle Park. I tipped the tow truck driver with the only thing we had to give, some Case's Pork Roll from an ice-filled cooler. We then waited in the parking lot of the garage where the bus had been left for the sun to come up and our friends to come get us. It was the day before the first show in Morrison...

@careful_w_that_axe_Miller said:

@Issiah, anymore about hot chic on rope? Ha ha

Thank you for sharing bro

found a little video of it on Youtube...

Hot Chic on the Rope

@spacecoyote, love reading individual accounts I'd be pretty stoked if someone tipped me from the heart with the only thing they had, pork rolls

...I forgot to mention that while in Boulder we picked up another rider, one of my best buds in the whole wide world and the person that would, sixteen years later, be my Best Man...and so, the sexual tension between the two lovely ladies that I shared relations with in the past, and close quarters with in the present, was sufficiently diffused...

::carry on::

N'ope. But our carnal knowledge of each other was wholesome and lawful.

My wife I picked up in a bar that I used to work at in Brooklyn. She said she drank Yuengling, I lied and said that was cool. Now she drinks witbier, lambic, and American Pale Ale.

Creepy? Nah man, that ain't me. I'm a bear, like'a boss.

Husky dudes with beards are hot, thanx to me and Zach G.

Outside of my wedding and the birth of my kids, it was probably the best (or top 5) weekends of my life. And to this day, I say 2nd set of 8/17 is the best set of phish I've ever seen or heard