So I should start by saying I was never a big Phish phan. I could appreciate what they did musically, but I was much more of a Grateful Dead fan when it came to jam band music. But when a show was announced in Asheville, walking distance from my house, I figured I might as well check them out and mark them off the list of bands I had seen.
Usually, when bands would perform at the Asheville Civic Center (now renamed the US Cellular Center), I would go and buy tickets at the box office and avoid the TicketMaster service fees. But alas, all the Phish phreaks started camping out days in advance at the box office, and I for one had a life at that point and could not just check out and go sleep on the sidewalk for two or three days. So I decided to take my chances on the TicketMaster website and pay the fees.
Well, that was an epic fail. Tickets were gone within 5 minutes and I was “conveniently” redirected to TicketMaster’s partner site where scalper tickets were already being offered for $500. I was a little disappointed, since I had never seen Phish before and wanted to see what the fuss was all about, but figured it was not that big a deal, since I was not that into their music.
Then, out of the blue, my good friend Seth contacted me and said his friend had a couple extra tickets and wanted to know if I was interested in going with him. I said “Hell yeah!” So we got the tickets for face value (about $50) and went to the show. I have to admit, it was really fun. We danced, the music was good (much better live than on recordings I had heard), and it was just a really good time. And as a bonus, I got a really cool looking ticket stub to add to the collection.
Thanks for stopping by, and thanks again Seth for hooking me up!
The Stub Collection 