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Tuesday, 12/31/2002
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
Set 1: Piper[1], Guyute, NICU, Horn, Wilson[2], Mound, The Squirming Coil, David Bowie[3]
Set 2: Waves[4] > The Divided Sky, Lawn Boy, Carini, Rift, Harry Hood, Character Zero
Set 3: Sample in a Jar, Seven Below[4] -> Auld Lang Syne > Runaway Jim[5] -> Time Loves a Hero, Taste, Strange Design, Walls of the Cave[4]
Encore: Wading in the Velvet Sea
[1] Low Rider tease.
[2] Castaway intro and "Tom Hanks" guest appearance.
[3] DEG tease.
[4] Debut.
[5] What's the Use? tease.
Notes: Phish returned from their hiatus with their first public show since October 7, 2000. The pre-show music alluded to the end of the hiatus with such songs as the theme from Welcome Back Kotter, Feels Like the First Time, Back in the Saddle Again, Reunited, and The Boys are Back in Town. The final selection was Foreplay/Long Time, during which time the band took the stage. Piper included a Low Rider tease. Prior to Wilson, a scene from the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away was played in the arena (referring to Hanks’ character searching for his volleyball/companion named Wilson). Trey subsequently introduced Hanks to sing the final lyric. Major news media reported the Hanks appearance, but the guest singer was actually Page’s brother, Steve McConnell. Mound was played for the first time since November 19, 1996 (276 shows). Bowie included a DEG tease. This show included the debuts of Waves, Seven Below and Walls of the Cave. Appropriately, Seven Below began about seven minutes before midnight. During the song, the crew lowered a disco ball from the scoreboard and created a “snowfall” on stage. Dancers dressed in white as snow creatures took the stage and circled the band before dispersing into the crowd. Some of the dancers ascended ladders and donned stilts to become snow angels. At midnight, white balloons and confetti were dropped on the crowd. A dwarf remained on each front corner of the stage, popping balloons, while the snow angels continued to dance. The transition between Jim and Time Loves a Hero (first since August 11, 1998, or 151 shows) included a What’s the Use tease. The evening was capped with perfect post-show music: Let’s Stay Together.
This show was part of the "2002/2003 Inverted NYE Run."
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145 Phish.netters attended.
(Published in the second edition of The Phish Companion...)
It all started one year earlier. Actually, Super Bowl Sunday 2002. I started hearing voices and having symptoms of schizophrenia. I spent two weeks in the hospital and after they finally got the medication right they let me out. I lived fine for about six months.
Right around the time the tickets for Madison Square Garden went on sale, I stopped taking the medication. I was really lucky to get tickets over the phone the day they went on sale. A few weeks later I ended up in the hospital again when the voices and symptoms just took control again. I was in the hospital for six weeks and got out on Dec 10th, the week Phish was on Saturday Night Live with Al Gore.
I was completely broke from not working for the previous six weeks. I had been sober for two months and I really, really wanted to make it to MSG. For Christmas, my parents gave me $250 and a ticket to a Big Wu show in Minneapolis on the 27th. During the setbreak of the Big Wu show, my friend called me on my cell phone and told me that he didn’t want to go to New Year’s anymore and that he gave his ticket away to a friend. So I had no ride.
I got home from the Big Wu show and almost started crying. I turned on “Strange Design”, a song that has helped me deal with schizophrenia all along. But instead of crying I started laughing. I was sitting on two tickets for the first Phish show in two and a half years, and all I wanted to do was bring a few companions on this ride.
A little later my friend Jason called me and he was more then happy to be my companion along with his girl. We left for Chicago the next day, picked up Annie, and headed out to New York. We got outside of MSG and it was very crowded. Everyone was looking for a ticket. I split up with Jason and Annie right when the doors opened. Annie didn't have a ticket and Jason was going to help her find one.
I got inside and sat down and just loved the pre-show music. Every song just made me feel so good. Some of the songs I remember were the Welcome Back Kotter theme song, “It Feels Like the First Time”, and “The Boys Are Back in Town”.
It was getting closer to show time and I was still by myself. I figured I was a big boy and I could handle being by myself for this show. But right as the lights turned out, I saw Jason about fifty feet away. I ran over to him and gave him a huge hug. Right then, the band walked onstage and the crowd noise was so overwhelming that you couldn’t hear what the band was playing, or if they even were playing.
The crowd noise died down and it was “Piper”. The song was just building and building and right around when Phish starts singing the lyrics to “Piper” I just started balling. After all I went through since the last time I was at a Phish concert, they were finally back and I was free from being in the hospital and free from schizophrenia.
I spent the entire show completely sober and danced the entire show. The biggest treat for me was when they played “Strange Design”, the song that was the key to my recovery. I’ve never had a show I attended be so important.
As I sit in the car with my sister on our way back from dinner, she turns to me and asks "Hey Justin, do you want to hear something really cool?” I then say (In a very excited voice) "YES". She then puts Slip, Stitch, and Pass in the CD player and she starts going through the CD. I then turn to her and say, in a frustrated tone, "Phish again?" and she just nods her head and turns it up. I think to myself, "how come she likes this group so much, is it because her boyfriend loves it also? Sure they're all right, but how come she loves them?"
But as I sat there, I heard something that changed me forever. “Mike's Song” had come on. The opening to that song brought me into Phish. After that night I kept on asking my sister if she had any more "cool" songs like that. She gave me about 3 three CDs and I listened to them all. I had been sucked into this beautiful jam-filled machine. It was amazing. In fact, I loved it so much that I picked up a guitar and began to take some lessons and try to do what Trey did.
After listening to all the CDs my sister had, I needed more. Unfortunately at this time I was about 12 or 13 so I was "too young" to go to a concert (my mom's words, not mine). So I waited and waited till I was finally old enough to go to my first Phish show. By the time I reached this age, Phish had just started their Hiatus. Just my luck.
The day I heard Phish was returning, I froze and said to myself very quietly, "I'm going". So a few weeks later and a couple hundred dollars well spent, I was off to see Phish. Since it was my first Phish concert I didn't know what to expect. I was so excited, and the fact that it was New Year’s added to the excitement. When the lights went down and the crowd went up, I stood and screamed as loud as possible. They came on stage and played a concert that I will never forget. I heard many things about them being rusty that night and they might have been, but they were perfect for me. The set list was strong, the jams were outrageous, and they looked extremely happy to be on stage. My personal favorite had to be “Guyute”, only because I love the middle of the song. It just brings me up.
The energy was definitely flowing that night. From “Piper” to “Wading In The Velvet Sea”, they played like the true kings they are. And the fact I could share it with the person who got me into this amazing phenomenon (my sister, plus her boyfriend) added to the experience. I also noticed that there were a few celebrities in the audience. During “Runaway Jim” I shook hands with Saturday Night Live's Al Franken, and during one of the set breaks I saw actor Fred Savage.
I am now 17 and I have been to about five shows all together. Each one is better than the last. But nothing compares to Madison Square Garden, December 31, 2002. This show has truly changed my life and I will always remember it.
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