Does Phish Screw the West Coast on Purpose?

Actually, quit crying.

The band doesn’t want a bunch of LA area hipsters showing up to the concert with their anorexic girlfriends and tight jeans. Maybe they are afraid of YOU wannabes turing their scene into what you did to YOUR bands… Sublime, Slightly Stoopid, and RHCP. Who goes to those shows now? Teenie Boppers! And posers in skate threads that have never been on a board. (The worst..)

Keep your Laguna Beach taints away from our band. You can’t keep up with the Kardashians at a Phish show, so don’t bother.

Fact: Festival 8 is the only Phish Fest to take place during the school year. The rest were during summer or during winter break. I know I picked class over Phish a few times.

Fact: Minus Big Cypress, Fest 8 was the only Phish fest to not occur during a tour.

Fact: Festival 8 was the first Phish fest to take place during the worse economy of our lives.

So sure, you can cry over 40,000 folks hitting Fest 8, but I challenge you to find any other band who could get 40,000+ folks to Indio for three days of peace, love and clean porta-potties without 79 other bands on the bill.

I’m just taken aback by a lot of the animosity coming from (a portion of) East Coast fans in response to West Coast complaints about the schedule. In all seriousness, if the roles were reversed, I just don’t see my reaction being such a negative one. I think I’d sympathize more than anything – because we all like this band so much. We have that in common.

I’d love to see a comment like, “I’m lucky enough to see the band a dozen times a year without driving more than 5 hours. Hopefully they visit the West a bit more in the future.”

Let’s all remember that we’re all phans here. I can’t believe what I’m seeing with this East and West coast hate going on. What is this- a conversation about 2Pac and Biggy? C’mon people. The point of this post was about how negative the PT boards can be, and it’s true, they can be (they can also be a joy to read, though). Let’s keep this board positive and enjoy the band(s) we love, and cherish the times we get to actually see them.

The way I look at all this- some people are fortunate/lucky enough to get to see a lot of shows. Some aren’t, for whatever the reason may be. Don’t hate on the people that are lucky enough to have their parents fly them somewhere to see a run of shows- I sure wish I had someone that would do that for me. When it comes down to it, though, the East coast just gets more jamband shows in general. There are tons of people, there are tons of colleges, and cities are close together/pretty easy to bounce around to.

Boogie on.

ps…I love how the Midwesterners are left out of all of this ;)

Ha ha ha! See, it’s not just that forum trolls are negative; it’s that bloggers themselves and even (er, ESPECIALLY) “professional” writers have discovered that the only way they can appear credible nowadays is to be smarmy and negative. I.e., by saying things like, “Sigh. Move to the East Coast, please.” You don’t want to appear fluffy, right? It’s a competition, and you can’t win a competition by being compassionate. It’s stupid to presume that the members of Phish have a clue about any of this, or that they care about any of it. Stupid to DEMAND things. But a bummer that people would rather mouth off than just be grateful and have a little sympathy for folks who aren’t as fortunate on the Phish thing. Way to go.