I want to live inside a Phish show. At a Phish show, I suppose. But it's really a state of mind at a physical place. How incredibly psychidellic of me. Wow, I am such a Phishhead. NOT. The thing is, I don't really fit the mold. I am a Catholic wife and mother with a pretty clean-cut life laid out in front of me. My vocation is made clear, and I follow it willingly and joyfully (most of the time, ha ha ). I met an actual Phishhead the other day at Lucy's school. He had on a phish hat like I did. It was about a month after our Cobo show, and I was still on the high. We were both surprised and delighted to find each other. We talked about the Chicago show vs. the Detroit show, which we both deemed better, and talked about how long we had been following them. But it ended there. Were we to meet at a Phish show together, persay, and discover we were both from TC, I'm sure it would have been much more bonding. But he was very negative about life and not really mature enough to get beyond Phish. It's not that I expected to be best friends with him, but I was struck by another stream of thought that I'm still working through. What IS a Phishhead? People generally think, if they know anything at all about music, that phishheads are just hippies that took off after Phish when the Grateful Dead stopped touring. The truth of the matter is, that whether you like or hate the Dead (and I happen to dislike them mucho grande), an educated Phish "phan", as it were, knows full well how different the two are. And how much more mainstream Phish is, but in an underground fashion. Most people have still never even heard of Phish, since, sadly most people just listen to the radio where I'm from, but when you go to a Phish show you are at once within a family of "phans" who are sharing an intimate secret. And no, it's not (only) the air we're all breathing:)

A phishhead is anyone in any state of life who "gets" Phish. And you either do or you don't. Unlike DMB, who I used to follow, I would always be annoyed by all the people there who didn't know any songs and just sat there, but when "Satellite" came on, they'd dance and sing, because that was the song they came for. You'd never encounter that at a Phish show. And first - timers brought there by their friends still show that respect, and dance whether they know the songs or not! If you know Phish, you love them. If you don't really know them but you have friends who are into them, you have a respect. Or, if you're my friend Libby, you know their music and you hate it. I can at least respect that, because she at least knows who they are! Knowing Phish isn't like knowing who John Mellencamp is. And hey, I like his music. But while it might incite an old memory from time to time, it doesn't have deep, lasting value. Phish are exhuberant, vibrant, and deep, all while never changing their lighthearted essence. No other group can do that. I challenge you to come up with one. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but you'd better be able to hold your own if you challenge me on this one!!!!! xxoo to Trey,Jon,Page and Mike.