Phish - Atlantic City 10/31/10

This was my first Phish show.  Can you believe it?  Years of going to shows, and I never saw Phish.  Like I said in an earlier post, Colin managed to get tickets to this show through the Phish lottery and our final decision to make the trip was pretty last minute.
The drive from Newport News, VA to Atlantic City was a pretty long one, and it didn't help that I had a major headache AND had to deal with east coast drivers.

We got to our hotel with just enough time to check in and change before we grabbed a taxi to the boardwalk... where we saw the creepiest mask ever made.  It was awesome.

We didn't spend much time outside - we just went in and got our seats.  I was super excited that I would have the option of sitting down since I had a headache and was just exhausted from the 2 nights of Cheese.  We had a little while to wait, but it was fun to see the place fill up with all kinds of Halloween characters.  I found lots of Waldos.  Finally, it was Phish time.

I'm so glad that I finally caught a Phish show!  It just wasn't in the cards until this night.

Phish 10/31/10 Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, NJ Click below to preview tracks from this show DOWNLOAD THIS SHOW

String Cheese Incident Hulaween 2010

Colin won the lottery.  The Phish lottery.  He got one pair of tickets for Halloween night in Atlantic City.  I couldn't believe he even tried to get those tickets since we've never even been to the east coast.  But, String Cheese was also playing on the east coast - in Virginia on October 29th and 30th.  We'd been going back and forth, trying to decide if we should go, and finally, five days before the shows, we made the choice and bought our plane tickets.
To save the most money, we drove down to Kansas city Thursday for our 5:30a.m. flight to Philadelphia on Friday.  From there we rented a car and hauled ass down to Virginia.

Things worked out perfectly and we got to the venue just in time to meet Kelli and head to the front right at the end of the Disco Biscuits.

As we were standing there, waiting, we started to realize that we were really there.  We had really done it.  We had just traveled much farther east than we'd ever gone and we were about to see Cheese!  They came out and the warm fuzzies began.  They opened with Best Feeling - and it was.

This was such a fun show!  My highlights were Best Feeling, Texas, Walls of Time, Black Clouds, Just One Story, Rollin in my Sweet Baby's Arms, It is What it Is, On the Road, and Jump.  

The String Cheese Incident 10/29/10 Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA Click below to preview tracks from this show DOWNLOAD THIS SHOW

The next morning we were well rested and ready for the day.  We met up with Jamie and Kelli, got some lunch, and went to Buckroe Beach.  We wanted to go to Virginia Beach, but we were moving a little slow and just didn't give ourselves enough time.  But, it was pretty amazing that we were able to visit both coasts this year.  

After the beach we went back to our hotels and got ready for the big night.  We made it to the Coliseum just in time to get a good spot in line and get a good spot on the rail.

Cheese did three sets, the 2nd set being a special Halloween set with Keller and Liza joining them for most of it.  It was pretty cool, but the crowd around us got really rowdy and out of hand.  It was mostly started by one wasted girl who threatened to pour her beer on me and actually poured it on another girl... who almost kicked her ass.  It seemed as though both nights we were in the teenage section.  Yuck.

Keller: "Let me take off my hat and put on my sunglasses."  Hilarious.

Getting the setlist at the end of the show was quite the ordeal.  Andrew was nice enough to put it right in my hand, but the young dudes around me still tried to get it.  One of them even grabbed on me and tried to pry it out of my hand.  I mean come on, it's just a setlist!  I yelled at him that he shouldn't be grabbing on a lady, and we left.
We really enjoyed these two Cheese shows, but the crowd was really hard to deal with.  Also, they could have added a little more variety to their song choices for those of us that saw them all 9 times this year.  ;)

My highlights from this show were Come as You Are, Restless Wind, Turn This Around, Breathe (Pink Floyd), Rivertrance, It's the End of the World (And I Feel Fine), Born on the Wrong Planet, Mothership Connection, Groove is in the Heart, Bumpin Reel, Shine, Desert Dawn, Search, and Howard.  Toward the end of the show I was thinking, "all we need now is Shine, Search, and Howard".  Awesome.  And I was waiting for that Desert Dawn all night.  I love String Cheese.  We are so lucky that we've got to see all of their shows this year.

The String Cheese Incident 10/30/10 Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA Click below to preview tracks from this show DOWNLOAD THIS SHOW