There are a few things I tend to do every morning, normal morning things, like drink four black coffees and smoke three menthol cigarettes in an hour because I’m crazy and I don’t do anything in a way that isn’t excessive. I actually don’t look at any of my screens for the first hour or so because there’s too much going on there for my early morning thinking (or lack thereof). When I do look at my phone, I usually open Tapers Section, which is the Android app that streams from the Live Music Archive. If you have an iPhone like a normal person, I suggest Relisten. I look for which Grateful Dead shows in Grateful Dead history happened on a given day and spin a few songs to see how things went. This has led me to the discovery of some of the best tapes I’ve ever heard, which is why I do it every day. Today in 1976 at Beacon Theater is a real doozy, but I can’t get too into that due to the other significant personal events that happen to also fall on June 14th. I will, however, link this Dead tape because it’s fierce:
I’ll just say that whenever I hear “Crazy Fingers” between ’75 and ’76, I’m in for some blissful shit, not to mention the numerous other tunes that come off as smooth as butter that night. Plus, the tape is directly from the soundboard, so the quality is high fidelity. I think you’ll enjoy it.
June 14th is Flag Day, and as I think back, historically it was the last day of school for me. It was the last day of 10th grade in 2002, and I had tickets to see this guy Trey Anastasio at what was known as the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, MA…but everyone still calls it Great Woods. Anastasio is famous for leading the Vermont jam quartet Phish into a viral cultural cult- phenomenon and one of the highest-grossing touring acts of at least the last 25 years, and probably longer than that, and rightfully so. I may not be as phished out as I once was, but I can tell you unequivocally that Phish is not only a bitchin stadium rock act, they are an American institution as a rite of passage for white stoner kids like me to go and have adventures on various psychedelic drugs in parking lots outside of hockey stadiums in places like Camden, NJ, Hampton, VA, or Noblesville, IN. There is only one reason why I’ve even heard of any of those towns, and it’s Phish.
In 2002, I was just getting into the obsession with Phish that would carry me around the country over the course of the next decade or so. There was just one problem at that moment: Phish were on hiatus from touring since October 7th, 2000, right as I started obsessing over them. I would talk to all of the older kids about the adventures they had in the late ’90s going to the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation for the highest-attended paid concert of the eve of Y2K or a decommissioned Air Force base that’s further up in Maine than anyone would ever travel for any conceivable reason with 80,000 people. I watched the Todd Philips film about the band, “Bittersweet Motel,” on a constant loop for at least the entirety of 10th grade, if not junior year too when I finally found myself up in the potato farming country of Limestone, Maine. I still think of Anastasio’s description of his creative process when I go through mine and how I approach it. I’m going way off track though, so let me reel it in a bit.
In the summer of 2002 Trey was tourin with this 10-piece world music/Afro-Cuba/jazz fusion band he had put together, with all of these horns and a really unique Brazilian percussionist who had played on Paul Simon’s big Central Park live record. They were booking venues that Phish would regularly sell out, and I suspect they weren’t getting packed like Phish shows because I never heard of Trey booking those kind of 17k seat outdoor amphitheaters again. It didn’t really matter, though because clearly the guy had something to prove to all of his faithful followers who were upset they couldn’t see Phish. There is not one night on that tour that doesn’t absolutely burn the place down (I’ve listened to them all) with 20+ minute improvisational excursions that were basically designed around Trey shredding on guitar. The guy is good. He closed the tour at the first-ever Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee, which my parents wouldn’t let me attend until 2 years later.
So, I had these tickets to start my token, suburban white boy jamband journey, but as june 14th moved along, I wasn’t able to find a ride out to Mansfield. My father stepped up to the plate that day and drove me and my knucklehead stoner fans to the show. My dad got a really good seat, and he said he was impressed, especially with the Billy Preston cover of “Will It Go Round in Circles.” He did have to leave before the end of the show due to the intensity of the lights giving him motion sickness.
Meanwhile, I just wanted to be on the lawn with my homies, who had naturally located some psilocybin mushrooms in the parking lot and devoured them before going into the show. We had achieved liftoff back there on the lawn, unbeknownst to my father who was a lot closer to the band. He never knew that we were psychedelically faced as we played it off pretty cool on the ride back home in our green Ford Taurus station wagon. The very same Ford Taurus station wagon that would carry me on my big Phish pilgrimage to their IT festival the next summer.
The show was beyond amazing on every level, even though I didn’t really know what was going on. especially because i was only 16 and fairly new to any live music.you could just tell that Anastasio was having the time of his life, not that I knew what to compare that to until years later at the unmitigated disaster in Coventry, VT in 2004. To top it off, Phish bassist Mike Gordon came out for the encore, playing the song that really put the hooks in me as far as becoming wildly obsessed with the band (Mike’s Song). I quickly got the tape of the show off of the BitTorrent tape trading service “Furthurnet,” and it rarely came out of my Discman as I was going to high school. Naturally, I made everyone with a pulse get a CDR copy of it, so if anyone who knows me is reading this, they definitely have their own experience with the music on the recording. I still listen to it occasionally.
Honestly, that summer 02 iteration of the Trey Anastasio Band is as good as any band that I’ve ever seen, even Phish.
Sweet blog, right?
Well, in 2009 something happened on this very same day that blew any expectation that I had for live music out of the water. I’ll put a pin in it for now, but I’ll tell you the story involves someone with deep connections to my New Jersey origin story and is one of the most critically acclaimed American songwriters and biggest rock stars in the history of rock stardom. Oh yeah, and Phish.
i have to go to midtown, now. let me see if i can get part 2 out later.
Part 2, Bonnaroo 2009
When I did my morning “This Day in History” search for bands with taper policies whose shows are traded, I not only found a very tight Grateful Dead show to dig into, but I was also reminded of another one of the most mind-blowing concert experiences of my life that also fell on in June 14th, this time in 2009.
Before I dive into the details, you need to know a bit about my background. I was born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and my father grew up in Manasquan, New Jersey. These towns might not be well-known unless you’re from Monmouth County, New Jersey, but you may have heard of Asbury Park. Asbury Park is famous for being the launching point of Bruce Springsteen, and his first album was even titled “Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ.” Later in life, I spent some of my best years in and around that area, and it’s a wonderful town for live music. I really miss it.
There’s an unspoken rule when you come from New Jersey: Bruce Springsteen is this mythical, blue-collar, saint-like figure. People often imagine him working at a factory or muffler shop when he’s not drawing crowds of over 100,000 people to his legendary concerts or making some of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time, he is just that down to earth. At the time of the story I’m about to tell you, I actually didn’t know much of Springsteen’s music. Oddly enough, the only record of his that I had listened to in full was not one of the big hits but “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” mainly because Rage Against the Machine covered it in the late ’90s. I was very impressed with the song “Youngstown,” which depicts the decline of a blue-collar, rust belt Ohio town and captures the repercussions of steel mills closing. I just couldn’t fathom how someone could write such a song without any personal experience with the subject matter and make it so convincing.
In 2009, myself, my then-girlfriend, and about 10 of my dearest friends drove down to Manchester, Tennessee for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. There were so many acts I wanted to see, but at the top of my list were Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and of course, Phish.
Even though I didn’t know much about Bruce Springsteen, I wouldn’t stop talking about him playing on Friday night during the entire 24-hour ride from Plymouth, MA to the farm in TN. I think when you’re born in New Jersey, you just know that Bruce is a really big deal. In my parents’ eyes, seeing him and the band was a borderline religious experience, and in my household growing up, he was a hero, end of discussion.
The friends I was going to the festival with weren’t from New Jersey, so they didn’t share the same worship of Bruce Springsteen that I did. Understandably, they were A) tired of hearing me talk about Bruce Springsteen and B) not particularly impressed by him. I guess they kind of saw him as some sort of dinosaur rock for old people. You’d have to ask them for their perspective. However, I can tell you that none of them think that way anymore.
At that time, I was at the peak of my phase of drinking all the time and being a total jerk-off. So, I spent a lot of that weekend blackout drunk and looking for my campsite. I missed a lot of the music I wanted to see because that was also the peak period of me going to tons of music festivals but being unable to escape the party atmosphere that permeates every festival campground. Bonnaroo, like any festival, is a free-for-all drug orgy, reaching levels of depravity that most people will never experience. For me, it’s hard to break away from that and actually do the thing I came all that way for: to see live music.
However, I can tell you one thing I did not miss: Bruce and the E Street Band on the main stage on Friday night. Firstly, it was sweltering hot in Tennessee in June, probably over 90 degrees even at night. Yet this man gave his all for more than three hours without a set break, without any dip in energy, all in that Tennessee heat. I have to emphasize the E Street Band because I can’t just say “Oh, I went to see Bruce.” That band is a well-oiled stadium rock machine and absolutely astounding to watch, especially their lead saxophone player, Clarence Clemons. They rocked the place, and I finally understood what my parents were describing as a religious experience from the shows they attended.
This group of people are consummate professionals at holding massive crowds in the palm of their hands, maintaining a level of energy that very few performers can ever reach.
Bruce even went into the crowd to grab signs and then played the songs requested on those signs. One of them was “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” I remember him saying something like, “It’s too damn hot out here for Christmas” before tearing the song to shreds.
Needless to say, I was very impressed, but this isn’t the thing that happened on Flag Day that year.
Phish had returned that spring from what was supposed to be their permanent disbandment after the Vietnam War of festivals that was their “last” Phish show in Coventry, VT, in 2004 (I was there, but I’ll save that story for another time). I saw them that March in Virginia, then at Fenway Park (their first time there) the weekend before the Bonnaroo festival. I caught a few more of their shows later that summer too. Everyone was thrilled that they were back, and we would jet off on little trips to random places to see them play whenever we could.
They were headlining the Bonnaroo festival, and I’m quite sure it was the first time since their mid to late ’90s peak that they played a festival featuring other bands. They had previously thrown a few city-sized festivals where they were the only act and played seven sets. They were scheduled to play on Saturday and Sunday nights at Bonnaroo, 09.
Now, I can’t really tell you much about the weekend as I was fiercly and thoroughly intoxicated and lost most of the time. I know we all had a really good time and created a lifetime’s worth of inside jokes about our behavior. I remember seeing a lot more of the actual music when I went to Bonnaroo in 2004 since my drinking hadn’t progressed to the point it had in 2009. I’m convinced I gave myself alcohol poisoning that June weekend on the farm. But Phish was closing the festival, and I was determined to be at the stage, alcohol poisoning or not. The show was as good as 2009 Phish could be. I don’t think they regained their full improvisational powers until a few years later, but Phish shows are like pizza. Even the ones that aren’t life-changingly amazing are still good and better than what most bands could do on any given night. It was a lot of fun, and my girlfriend made me eat some real Tennessee ribs during whatever the slow cool-down song was. Her whole trip was looking after me and making sure I did things like put something in my belly. The ribs were amazing; I love ribs. There I was, having a rack of ribs and watching one of my favorite bands.
But what happened next is where the night really stands out:
Trey Anastasio is the same age as my parents and from New Jersey, so I can’t imagine what it was like for him to invite Bruce out to share the stage with Phish for a few tunes. He expressed how much respect and admiration he had for Springsteen, even mentioning seeing him as a kid and thinking that every concert was going to be a four-hour, red-hot, energy-filled affair after that until he started playing them himself and realized how difficult it was. They played a few songs together, including “Mustang Sally” and “Glory Days,” and it was amazing to see my New Jersey roots collide with the band I spent most of my adolescence obsessing over.
After that, none of my friends had anything bad to say about Springsteen ever again. Now I listen to Bruce all the time, especially his live stuff and his first record. since then I’ve watched documentaries about him, and his Netflix special about his residence on Broadway where he explains the songs and his process of writing them. seriously, Bruce Springsteen is a Bob Dylan level America treasure of a songwriter.
I saw him again in 2018, sharing the stage with Social Distortion of all bands, but that’s a story for another time.
For me, the highlight of the weekend was seeing the E Street Band, but the Bruce/Phish collaboration was just icing on the dirty, sweaty cake that is the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee.
I’sfunny how certain dates have so many memories attached to them, and i always remember them.
Side note by the Ev: As I write all these stories, I know they could be improved later on, maybe woven together into something bigger. I just like to get a post out every day, and then they’re there for me to revise and repurpose whenever I get to it.
the TAB tape in question: https://www.jamstreams.net/trey/2002/2002-06-14
the usual word from our sponsors (you) about the coffee : https://ko-fi.com/evr0ck17
