I went down to the crossroads.
12/29/97 revisited 25 years later.

Well it occurs to me today that it’s been a quarter century since my first NYE run, and first Phish shows at Madison Square Garden, and if I’m not going to put down in words what went down those few days–for me and and this weird wonderful band, then when am I? As I write this it’s 12/29/22, and the band is about to go on stage. But I’m not in New York, even though unlike 97 I could choose to queue up a 4k webcast of the show. No, in 97 the web was still new, but our band wasn’t, exactly. About a decade deep, really, give or take, but on December 29th as we all rolled into the Garden they were about to close out a year that to this day is holding its own out there as one of the best they’ve had.

I was still 17–the same age Homer Simpson was when he drank some very good beer as Brian McGee (and about six years after that episode aired)--but wasn’t quite a noob either, myself. The last show I had seen was my first jaunt to the Worcester Centrum, for the first night of their three night Thanksgiving run on that glorious tour. And I had had my life–and possibly DNA–permanently altered at the Went the summer prior to that. 12/29 was show number 7 (the Clifford Ball and a hometown debut in 94 rounding out the previous entries). By this time my Hotmail account was seasoned, my tape collection was growing, and after a contest entry on rec.music.phish a few weeks prior–wherein I wrote a South Park-inspired Christmas story about Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo getting his friends together for a NYE gag–I had won two DAUD1s of the Hampton Run, in addition to the early copies of Rochester and Dayton I had scored through B&Ps. We took the train down from Montreal, a ride that’s still longer than it should be ( a great travesty of the American railway system. We’ll be forced to get back on the railroads eventually as infrastructure and weather continue to beat us back, I suppose. Might as well be prepared, and enjoy the ride to Hell, in the meantime I suppose…) Anyway, we went down to the Crossroads is what I’m saying, and got out at Penn Station, basically up from the belly of the beast right onto the square-one lot scene at MSG, cold and dank, like the nuggets everyone was cradling in their coat pockets.

Like I said, I had amassed a bit of a tape collection by this point, and this was a nerdy opportunity to bring it along for the long ride that now carried some real chutzpah and significance. If the festival shows were as much luck and intuition as anything, and Worcester had been a bolder venture, these shows were an early and necessarily aggressive coming of age–a knowledge that whatever was going on out here with these weirdos across the border from Vermont–not so far from home, really, even if it was also an entire world away–that i was going to try and be there and find out what it was all about, and be a part of it. So I show up and New York basically spits me up and out of the rail system and into the world of Wooks and Wizards. I’m with my two friends, also 17 or 18. Another older friend and fan, Mathias, 19 or 20 maybe, was also in town going to the show, in the tape section with his friends DAT, but I wouldn’t see him until later–the first of many shows we’d share in the years to come. So I’m walking with my bag, and my little handheld briefcase-tapecase. These little holders you could throw I dunno 12, 24 tapes into? We have to check into our hotel in midtown and then get our tickets from will call and get into the show. There wasn’t a ton of time but I wasn’t panicked or stressed either like I might have been a year or two later, wanting to make sure we made it where we needed to be. As we’re trying to get out of there my tape case and its weak little clasp gives way, and spills out onto the ground. Disaster! I don’t think I lost any tapes. Some wook lot kid was like ‘wooah dude can I have one?’ but that was the extent of it. No damage done, except–I had lost my friends. And we didn’t really have a plan. We were going to head to the hotel first and drop shit off. I looked around for them, assuming they’d be looking for me. You gotta understand, it was packed and the place was circulating. I looked here and there and then realized we were good and separated. I made my way a bit closer to the entrance of the venue and saw a cop with a megaphone. Naive me thought this might be a chance to get some help. After collecting my tapes I wandered over the cop and asked him, hilariously in retrospect, if he would be so kind as to say “is Dain Hammerback out there?” He looked at me with half smile and put the megaphone to his mouth, pointed it right at me, and using it barely for a second spoke “No.” Welcome to New York, kid. Now get back out there and figure it out for yourself. So I did. I went with my gut and headed for the hotel. Found them having just checked in and getting ready to head back to the venue. Miracle number two? We headed back to MSG.

Still had to get our tickets. They were mail order and at will call. We didn’t even know where our seats were. We had them for all three nights. In the will call line as we were waiting, someone had the previous night’s setlist from the one-off in DC on 12/28 in his hand. These weren’t even as quickly and readily available either, though the Net had certainly made them quicker to come by, especially by 97. An older fan had asked to look at it, and commented aloud. “Ghost, huh?” Slave, huh?” As if to remark with surprise that these songs were likely already off the board for the NYE run about to go down.

But no matter. Plenty left on the board. We got our tickets a minute later, and opened them to find out what we had. For tonight? Just behind the tapers section on the little raised section at the back of the floor, in the middle. “Jackpot,” another fan commented upon seeing our tickets as we made our way to the door. Not many obstacles left now, except the other cop at the gates who stopped my friend (the one I had asked to have paged earlier unsuccessfully), and patted him and his huge winter coat down. It didn’t take him too long to find the nugs he had scored, and suddenly were were dealing with a cop and the words “if I take you down today you won’t be out until after New Years.” He took the weed and let him go, and got inside the building. Nugless, sure, but in the building, unscathed. I think some actual ushers helped us to our seats, which were indeed primo all things reconsidered. No sooner had we taken our spot, I swear to you, and the light go down.

What else do you want to know from here? 12/30 tends to be the night that goes down in the history books, and that’s probably right, depending on the threads you’re tracking; the AC/DC Bag that night is the best thing they did on this run, and up there among the highlights of a very high year. To say nothing of the Sneaking Sally>Taste to open that one, or the epic encore, the Harpua.

But 12/29 has something special to it, and it's evident from the opening notes. For a year like 97, that saw first set masterpieces on 11/17, 11/21, 22, 12/7 among others, it’s not like this one blew the roof off with improv or segues. But they’re just so tight and energized from the NICU on. I’m still waiting for them to bustout Crossroads again (will they do it tonight, as I write this the second set is about to start?). The Theme and Fluffhead are two of the strongest if straight ahead versions of the song the band has ever played. And the Antelope is an all-timer, too, full of start-stop funk and dominant interplay between Mike and Page on the clav, a must-hear for ninja-like precision and poise. “We’re going to take a 15 minute break and we’ll be right back with lots more funky music, we’re just get going, so don’t go anywhere…” I can imagine a lot of noobs at the time probably got their start on a tape of thi set like this, and it’s no wonder why. Not too dense and impenetrable, but plenty of showpieces.

I’m still trying to wrap by head around the second set, and the Disease>Bowie that makes up the front half. I’m not sure it holds up against some of the other monsters from November and December second sets of this year, but I also wouldn’t be surprised to hear something new and satisfying in it upon another relisten. The highlights I recall at the time and would still draw your attention to linger in the back half. The Possum with Cant Turn You Loose segments, the classic funky-ass Tube ala Dayton reprised, a pretty pitch perfect YEM to close things out, and Good Times Bad Times anchoring down the encore, the last entry on another night for the books.

As I wrap this up it looks like they're cloking in another one in at the garden with an exploratory Bowie to open Set II after a pretty big Fluff>Gin combo to open, and a fiery mid first-set Slave. 12/29, ladies and gentleman. Fall down on one knee, still prayin at the Garden, a quarter century on.