Steal Your Face

After a brief stay in Spokane we setted out for The Gorge in George, WA to spend the weekend with Phish. The whole reason for us going to this show was because Nate's cousin who we are staying with in Portland was going, so we wouldn't have a place to stay and none of us had been to a Phish show so it seemed like a good time. On the way to the show we stopped off at a grocery store to pick up some supplies (aka beer & cold hot dogs) then continued on our way. One minor note about the Safeway we stopped at on the way to the show, it had a needle disposal. Now I don't think Washington has a big problem with diabetes patients dropping their needles in the bathroom, so I don't know leave it up to your imagination. When I asked the girl that checked us out why it was there she said she didn't even know it was there and that there wasn't one in the girls bathroom, weird eh? Now I knew that The Gorge was a scenic venue, but on the drive out there we would have though that we had taken a wrong turn because there is nothing out there just barren desert like areas. Once we got there we were ready but at the same time not ready for what we were about to get ourselves into. Now I have been to plenty of concerts in all sorts of venues, but nothing like this, Phish shows are something of a different breed of concert. We wait in line to get into the camp ground and you can already smell the heavy odor of cannabis filling the air. When we finally got in it was a first come first serve, just find a spot, type of camping. The camp grounds appeared to have once been a crop field of some sort because they still had the large sprinklers set up. We find a spot right next to these two guys from Canada, Hank (The Tank) and Zetty, they were cool as hell and down to have a good time. Side note on Canadians, every Canadian I have met has been cool as hell, they are always nice, friendly, and very open, way to go Canada your people represent you well. After we get settled we pop a few beers and head out to meet up with Nate's cousin. Now I don't know if this happens at all Phish shows but there is a "street" where people sell "things". It's called "shake down" and people are selling food, shirts, drinks, and everything else under the sun, and their not venders selling things they are random people, mostly people following Phish around. We make our way down to meet up with Nate's cousin Cristy, dressed in a penguin suite, selling pina coladas, she's cool as hell. We meet all her friends and go to where they have camp set up. We chill, have some mini jam sessions and get ready for the show. After properly getting ready for the show we head towards the venue, which is about a mile walk. CJ and I hadn't planned on going to the show the first night but with enough peer pressure we fold and decided to find tickets. We found a pair for $15 each, they retail for $50. On the walk to the venue we found that people give away tickets for free to Phish shows, this would benefit us the following night. Upon entering the Gorge we walk up a small hill and then BAM! This venue is amazing, you have a perfect view of the Columbia River and mountains in the background. This is probably the best outdoor venue I have ever been to. I would say look at the pictures but they don't do the place justice. There was no opening band just Phish. They are one hell of a live band, I can defiantly see why people follow them around the country. Phish isn't exactly my cup of tea but I have always wanted to go to a show and the musicianship they have is unreal. They went on around 8 and played 2 different hour and a half sets. The show was a lot of fun, pretty much you can dance any way you feel and its accepted, there are more glow sticks than you can shake a glow stick at, and the scent of the evening is "a night in cannabis". After the show the party keeps going. Bands set up and play, DJs spin through out the night, and shake down is packed with people getting their late night munchies. I don't know how these kids party so late (drugs) but we stayed up for a little bit and passed out pretty early, by that I mean we didn't watch the sun rise. Day 2 was pretty chill, we mostly sat around our camp kicking it with the neighbors. The funny thing about Phish shows is it brings people from all walks of life, you had your stereotypical dreaded hippie, then you have your burn outs, and you even have little babies running around. Yes, people bring their children, some of them probably no more than a few months old, to Phish shows. Not that I believe they are in any sort of danger, but this place is just so much of a circus it can be a little overwhelming. You can also find any drug under the sun here. Just walk down shake down and people are just walking down shouting out "headies, doses, yay, chocolates, molly, k. . ." so its all here. We thought it would be funny to walk around with a spinning office chair and say "dizzy! get dizzy for only a dollar.", maybe next time. We also talked about how interesting it would be to follow some of these people around on a daily basis, because some of them are just so out there I dont know how they function on a daily basis in the real world. Another anomaly we noticed in the hippie world is that they have really high beer standards. You would think with all this massive alcohol in take that they would be drinking something cheap like keystone or natty (like we were) but no a majority of them were drinking some sort of micro-brew or premium beer, standards change I guess when it comes to beer. So 7 o'clock rolls around and we start to get ready for the show. CJ and I again don't have tickets for the show but we figure were going to try our luck at scoring a free pair (sounds crazy right?). Well we get right up to where they scan your tickets to let you in, still no tickets, hold our finger up like were ordering a beer and sure enough some guy comes up to us and hands us 2 tickets and tells us to enjoy ourselves, they scan and we go in and join the craziness. That is the one cool thing about Phish shows is everyone there was super nice, friendly, and would try to look out for you the best they could. Once Phish comes on everyone goes insane and starts dancing. Then once the lights go out my god I have never seen so many glow sticks in my life. People are just throwing them in the air, and I mean in colossal amounts. At some points it was just raining glow sticks, there seemed to be an endless supply. The show was yet again awesome and yet again we couldn't hang too long into the after party. We woke up around 9 the next morning, packed up camp, and said goodbye to our Canadian friends. All in all we all had an awesome weekend, going to this show was like nothing any of us had experienced in our lives. Even if you aren't a big Phish fan I would recommend going to this drug infused traveling circus, because you'll have a great time, and hey you might get in for free. That leaves us to where we are now in Portland, OR. So until next time, god bless america

-mac