On July 5th, 2019 m’lady and I pulled in to Boston after spending a splendid three nights in that wonderful little upstate town of Saratoga Springs. We were in town (well, both towns really) for another couple of Phish concerts (of course) and were happy to be staying with some of our bestest American friends ever, Joe and Dee. They were the mostest of hostest and went all the way out of their way to make sure we had a great time, and of course we did. Heck, J&D made life so darn agreeable that I even agreed on sushi for dinner and I gotta admit, I enjoyed it.

When we got to the lot outside of Fenway Park m’lady did a walkabout trying to sell her brand new, hot-off-the-presses Kasvot Växt/Häagen-Dasz t-shirts (I won’t even bother…it’s a Phish thing) but she didn’t do very well. She didn’t do as poorly as one fellah we saw who somehow drew the attention of about thirty police officers who mounted a frantic chase through the makeshift marketplace, eventually taking him down and dragging the poor sap off to some misdoer’s stalag. Bet he has some story to tell.

My story is probably much less dramatic but I’m sure it’s a whole lot happier. It was my first time inside one of America’s most famous ballparks. We would be sitting with Joe and Dee the next night but for now we bid them farewell until the end of the show and headed in the direction of our seats along the first base line. Traversing the labyrinthic bowels of the classic building one could feel history bleeding from every riveted girder. The foyers and hallways held little rhyme or reason – unlike more modern stadiums with their cookie-cutter concessions around every bend – except to offer a plethora of food and beverage items in an Escher-esque cacophony of railings, stairways, ramps, and escalators. We filled our boots and made it to our seats ten rows up from the field.

This was the 25th anniversary of my first ever Phish concert (July 5th, 1994 in Ottawa) and here I was 114 Phish shows later still not knowing the names of the damn songs. Okay, in my (very weak and meagre) defence there were little-to-none of my favourites played in the evening’s pair of sets (except maybe Character Zero, but I mostly like that one because it makes m’lady cringe*) but just like that first show a quarter-century before I didn’t need to know the songs to have a great time.

A funny memory of this concert: just below our seats was a field-level bar that was very, very busy all night. It was set up to serve the floor – our section was along the back of the makeshift bar – but even still I noticed several people ordering drinks from our side and getting served with no lineup at all. It was unspeakably more convenient than going up to the concession area behind us for a drink and I almost went down there, until I noticed that every back-door order came with what looked like a very, very hefty tip. Okay, let’s call it a bribe, for that’s what it was. It went on all night and those bartenders made a killing.

At the end of the show m’lady accidentally left her USA-only cell phone** under her seat and by the time we found Dee and Joe and discovered it missing we were already well on our way back to their place, so it remains lost to this day. But that didn’t stop us from getting together with friends! Get this: We ran into a our good friends Steve and Rosie from back home in Ottawa right in front of Joe and Dee’s building! They had been walking from the show back to their hotel (which turned out being just a block from D&J’s apartment), they recognized m’lady and I from across the street and joined us for hugs and a nightcap. I love serendipity.

And that’s one of the main reasons I don’t like cellphones. They are serendipity killers. “Huh?” you might be thinking (as you quickly check your messages). “What are you talking about?”

Don’t even get me started.

*It sounds like I’m liking the song just to spite her, but nothing could be further from the case. Though I initially didn’t care much for Character Zero either I once found myself air-guitaring along to it at a concert and I instantly came to appreciate the song’s blatant rock & roll nature. So, in an effort to spread my hard-won enjoyment of the song to the woman I love I have played up my enthusiasm for it (and my air-guitaring) to the point that I have convinced myself to count it as one of my favourites. Hobby-Phishing can get complicated.

**Being anti-phoney I cringe at the mere thought of m’lady owning a cell phone, even if it is just for when she travels south of the border. But then, I have an archaic cellphone of my own that I use when I’m in Africa, so I bite my tongue. Hard.

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