More Phellowship and Phamily

I woke up around 10 Sunday morning and sat around camp talking with the neighbors, Sara and Daniel for a while before heading out to go try and sell some necklaces. I walked around with the necklaces for a while and stopped by Dana's camp for a bit and continued trying to sell the necklaces around their camp. I ended up getting like 3 sold before heading back to my place to rest for a bit. The 6 hours of music the day before had exhausted me haha. After chilling at my camp some I headed back out to work my necklaces and sold a few more and went to camp so I could go into a show with the neighbors. We went in together, but I stopped to buy a sticker from a walking vendor and lost them. I knew where the girls would be, so I headed to the rage side (Page side) near the front and found them fairly quickly and waited for the show with them.
I was still holding out hope for an entire set of TMWSIY complete with narration, because they haven't played a single Gamehendge song from there yet the weekend. It is a long shot but that was all I could talk about before the set.
When they finally came on they opened with a Bob Marley cover of "Soul Shakedown Party" which was a great way to start the night with a lot of energy, because the entire audience was worn out from the previous night. The next song they played was "AC/DC Bag" from TMWSIY. When it came on it killed my hopes for an entire set with narration, but that feeling quickly faded into one of joy for getting to hear "AC/DC Bag" live is always fun. They went from that into "The Curtain" and they did this one 'without' the jam session that sometimes accompanies this song in the live setting. This was the first time in 202 shows that this song had been played. After this the band stopped to talk amongst themselves, and I could see trey mouth "Colonel Forbin's" and told everyone what was coming on before they played a single note. Some of the girls thought I was psychic. After "Colonel Forbin's Ascent" they quieted down and Trey began narrating.... He told a story of coming through Watkins Glen in 1988 on the way to Colorado and the entire band getting trapped in a storage shed. They proceded to jam and jam and jam until it felt like they had left the storage room and Trey said all SuperBall IX was is a mental projection of a reality that the band created in that storage room back in 1988. This led up into the song "Fly Famous Mockingbird" and was the first time that song has been narrated since Sept 2000. That also put 3 Gamehendge songs almost in a row in the same order as the album. After rocking out to "Mockingbird" they played "Destiny Unbound" which is a cool song I hadn't heard before. Sometime during this song or the next a giant balloon fish with 3 eyes floated into the crowd and bounced around for a while. That led into "Big Bad Furry Creature From Mars" which is a very punk sounding song that is lots of fun. I had been wanting to hear that since I first heard it on the Hampton Comes Alive CD set. During this song Mike teased the theme to Leave it to Beaver They then played the two chords that signals the start of "Wilson" and the crowd immediately yelled "Wilson" and began to sing along. That segued into Mound which I hadn't heard all the way through yet (they stopped in the middle in GA and started again where they left off) and really enjoyed it. After that was another song unfamiliar to me, "A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing" which Dana was able to tell me what it was. It was interesting, and I can't wait to hear it again on the show download so I can actually try and listen to the lyrics. After that was another cover, this time of Little Feat's "Time Loves a Hero". They definitely did Little Feat justice with their cover, jamming it out. They then went into Reba complete with whistling and all. When they played it earlier in the tour they had done it with the whistling, and the whistling made the song soo much better. Trey looked he was having a lot of fun during this song, playing air guitar while Mike rocked, and bringing the guitar over to Page to play air guitar on. They went from this and continued jamming smoothly blending into "David Bowie". "Bowie" was a great way to end the set, and during set break I went to buy a beer, and got the FOAM beer brewed especially for Phish by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. It was a great beer, and I hope they end up putting it into production. The music during the entire set break was all American themed music for the 4th.
Fishman opened the second set by singing the opening to the AC/DC song "Big Balls", which is a Phish debut. During this song about a dozen ballons with a 10-12 foot diameter were thrown into the crowd and bounced all around. Mike looked like he was having lots of fun playing bass on this song, and the whole crowd loved singing "I've got big balls". After that they jammed right into Down With Disease, but didn't finish the song, instead segueing into a cover of "No Quarter" by Led Zeppelin. This was the highlight of my night, and Page again proved he is the best vocalist of the group, although not quite on the level of the mighty Robert Plant. They played this for around ten minutes with Fishman definitely doing John Bohnam justice. That was followed by a energizing "Party Time" with the band dancing all around stage. After a short pause came "Ghost" which I had called for the night, but I called it to come after Rock and Roll. "Ghost" was great, and even better than the other time I had seen it. "Gotta Jibboo" followed "Ghost" and was another song that got the crowd full of energy. After that the lights grew brighter and brighter as the band began playing the song "Light". That was followed by another one I was unfamiliar with, "Waves" and followed by the instrumental "What's the Use?". After talking with the band, Trey began playing "Meatstick". The crowd always goes crazy for this song, and they played it complete with the Meatstick Dance and singing the song in Japanese. I've heard the song enough now that I know the dance and the Japanese lyrics. The exhausting Meatstick was followed by "Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan" which left me with a blank space where my mind should be. The last song of the set had the entire band come up to the front and sing "The Star Spangled Banner" which had the entire crowd taking off their hats and masks and placing their hands on their heart and looking to the American flag. It was a great way to end the set on the fourth (it was after midnight by then). I was betting on a YEM encore because it hadn't been played yet over the weekend. They came onstage and Trey had a piece of paper with all the people he wanted to thank, and he proceeded to thank everyone involved with the festival. When Chris Kuroda, the light director's name, came up the crowd went wild, as most phans consider him an unofficial 5th member of the band. After he was done thanking everyone they went into "First Tube" which was also their encore at the last festival they played, Austin City Limits. During and after this song there was an amazing fireworks display, which had smiley faces and hearts and giant balls and other cool designs. All in All it was a great way to leave the weekend on a high note. After the show all the girls had to leave to get Allie back to work at 9am, so I told them all goodbye and told them to get in contact with me for future shows, and then I headed back to my camp. I talked with the neighbors for a minute or two, but went to bed pretty early.