When I slept until 8am on July 30th, 2023 I felt I was making progress on the ninety-minute time difference between Newfoundland and New York City. NYC may be “the city that never sleeps” but what would I know about it? I’d be lucky if I could keep my eyes open past midnight at least once on this weeklong Phish excursion.

I tiptoed out of the room and went downstairs to the hotel’s free buffet for a small and rather lame breakfast washed down with much too much mediocre coffee. I killed the rest of the morning on the sidewalk outside the hotel just watching the big city in action, and there was plenty to see. Though Springhill Suites was on one of Manhattan’s smaller side streets (37th) rather than one of the bigger and busier avenues there was still plenty of bustle going on.

The first thing I saw was small squad of beat policemen gathered in an alcove across the street from where I was leaning. They were patrolling through the multiple lanes of one-way traffic on my street that were continually being brought to a standstill by the traffic light at 5th and 37th. It looked to me like the cops were checking for stickers on windshields, but I couldn’t be sure. Regardless, every few minutes one of the cops would direct one of the cars to pull over, where another cop would be waiting to write the the poor driver a ticket.

I watched them do this for a full hour, ducking inside only to refill my lousy coffee cup.

After the cops had left an ambulance came down the street with its siren wailing and soon found itself stuck in traffic right in front of the hotel. It was odd to hear a screaming siren and see the emergency go universally unheeded by the other drivers who sat in their cars staring straight ahead and not giving an inch. The analogy to the countless homeless people populating the surrounding sidewalks was not lost on me.

It’s astounding just how many desperate people there are roaming the streets with their hands open to the frantic Manhattan hive hoping someone will stoop down and save their day. But there doesn’t seem to be nearly enough people who are willing to give. Living in a city this large must diminish a person’s empathy. Even after just a few days of saying “I’m sorry brother” “I’m sorry, good luck” “Sorry my friend,” I was already able to stop feeling horrible for not helping people after just a minute or two, instead of letting it haunt me for the whole day. I’m sure after a few months I wouldn’t even notice them, like most of the people I saw walking by outside.

Funny, while the police where engaging in their sting people were smoking big fat stinky joints on the street all around them with complete impunity. The city had recently legalized recreational marijuana and while there were only two stores in all of New York City that were legally allowed to sell the stuff it seemed like every second shop in Manhattan had signs in their windows offering 3-for-1 deals on pre-rolls.

And not only that, the city had decided that smoking weed was legal anywhere that one could smoke tobacco, so people stood on the sidewalks smoking pot all the time.

I should know, I hung out there a lot.

Once m’lady got up and around we headed out to meet some friends for lunch and then went to a matinee showing of a Broadway show written by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim called Here Lies Love.

But that’s another story.

Getting to this story - which ostensibly regards the third night of Phish’s seven-show run at Madison Square Garden - we were seated behind the stage. I’ve been behind the stage at several Phish shows and while it isn’t my first choice it isn’t my last either. To be honest, there’s a lot to be said about sitting back there. Especially Kuroda’s light show. Sure, it’s way, way better to see it from a vantage-point somewhere near the light board (like we were on night one), but CK5 lights up the audience more than any other lighting director in the business, constantly shining colourful bursts of light onto the crowd giving the band - and those of us lucky enough to be sitting behind the stage - an arena full of ever-changing eye candy to gape at throughout the show.

In fact, it seemed to me that Chris was lighting up the crowd with even more gusto than usual for this show, though it could obviously have just been my perspective. But it was a much more song-oriented concert than the previous two as well, with an awesome My Friend, My Friend near the top of the first set and Tube>Golgi closing it. Somewhere in there they almost played Llama twice in a row when Trey comically restarted the song as soon as they had finished it.

At setbreak I marvelled from my backstage perch at all the wonderful rigging it takes to pull of a Phish show, especially Kuroda’s hanging lights that rise up and down at the flick of a switch. It was reminiscent of my experience at Here Lies Love that afternoon, where m’lady and I had to weave through a uniquely interactive open-concept backstage area with the obligatory hanging ropes, pulleys, and stage props in order to get to-and-from our seats. Plus I had a bird’s-eye view of Fishman’s drum kit! Though not quite Neil Peart-ish in stature it’s getting there, and with his Marimba Lumina and all the other gadgets and toys, well, for a geeky gear-oriented fan like myself it was pretty neat to be back there.

The second set was again pretty songy and pretty rock and roll too, and it stayed that way right into the Suzy Greenberg encore, which single-handedly squashed an encore alphabet theme conspiracy that had been floating around the geekier message boards.

I had heard lots of chicka-chicka wah-wah pedal coming from Trey all night. So much that during the first set I randomly leaned into the stranger next to me and said into his ear, “I think I hear Jimi Hendrix coming!” After he looked at me like I was a cracked-out alien hobo I stood there silently feeling stupid for the next hour-and-a-half.

When I was finally redeemed as Phish closed the concert with Hendrix’s Izabella (which I had heard them play in the same room six years earlier) I turned to dude to receive my well-deserved high-five and he was…gone!

I did, however, notice that our friend Terry was seated just behind us in the Madison Club section (where we would be sitting for our final night), and m’lady and I went up to say hello as soon as the show ended.

I really like Terry and hadn’t seen him in a long time so I was shocked to hear myself say “no thanks” when he suggested we come back to his hotel for a nightcap or two. But I did. And here we were mere minutes from the clock ticking us into m’lady’s birthday. For shame!

The city that never sleeps, huh? Well, this lame-ass sure does.

https://toddmanout.com/