  After 21 years, urlLink Phish called it quits yesterday . And I—not the biggest Phish fan by any stretch—saw the whole thing.
No, I didn't trek to Coventry, Vermont to deal with insane lines and rain and mud. Nor was I one of the thousands who parked on the side of the road, finding an 12-mile walk a less bad option than waiting in line. Nope. I just drove to Sacramento (Bay Area theaters sold out almost a week ago) and watched the whole thing unfold via satellite on the silver screen. So, how did it all end? Gracefully. No trampolines or meatsticks. No back-to-the-camera shenanigans.
After three sets—nay, 21 years—they ended right where they started, with "The Curtain With. " After Trey explained Curtain's background—written in a Thoreau-ish '83 summer with only Marley by his side—the band began it in the wrong key, as Trey, with the evening's last words, explained half-way through. They dropped a half-step to E flat, played the reprise and, one-by-one, stopped playing until the only sound left was a short loop through Trey's delay pedals.
Trey bent over to switch off the pedal—and as it were, 21 years of music. He remained bent for a long bow, hugged a stoic Mike, and tearfully walked off stage. Heisenberg taught that observation alters. I wonder if last night disproved that, however. The sold-out theater was decorated with all things concert: the dreaded hair, the funk, the glow stick wars, the nalgenes, the hippie skirts, the heady dudes, the beach balls, the drugs, the dancing in the aisles and by the screen. Everything but the band. Still the audience clapped and cheered, hooted and hollered, and even offered a standing ovation at the end. Knowing that the band can't see or hear you makes you think about whether you clap for you, or for them, or for the people around you.
You don't clap at the end of a song when you watch a DVD on your couch. You don't encourage Trey during a DVD jam. You just watch. But there is something about a "simulcast," about watching contemporaneously and with a thousand others, about habit. And so you clap. In truth, the quartet knew all to well that they were being watched. They played not only to the tens of thousands at the festival and the thousands of others in the theaters.
They played to the larger audience of history. Posterity watched and posterity altered. Personal highlights: Weekapuag, a Velvet Sea a choked up Page had to re-start three times, Trey's speech after ("we thought we'd break all the rules; and here we are 18, no 21, years later, and we're the ones who have learned so much"; "having these three guys next to you through the ups and downs we all go through..."; etc. ); and the "blow off some steam" jam that followed, complete with the set-ending cathartic Trey feedback solo. With that, this phaux phan will leave the rest of the pontiphicating to the phamily of phisheads much more phamiliar with the Phish phenomenon.
Set 1 : Mike's Song > I am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, Anything But Me, Reba, Carini > Chalkdust Torture > Possum, Wolfman's Brother* > jam (with Mike's and Trey's Mom jam dancing) > Wolfman's Brother > Taste Set 2 : Down With Disease> Wading in the Velvet Sea, tearful Trey speech, Glide, Split Open and Melt > jam > Ghost Set 3 : Fast Enough for You, Seven Below > Simple > Piper > tribute to Bruno and Dickie Scotland > Wilson > Slave to the Traffic Light Encore : Trey speech, The Curtain With 
