My roadtrip to see Phish in Pittsburgh was the final concert I'll see in this decade. 2019 was a good year for me. In May I quit smoking cigarettes. Later in August I got my career going and became a substitute teacher. I cleared my schedule out for a couple days to head east for Phish. I'm grateful that we still have Phish. Pittsburgh is not an easy city to navigate in the best of weather. Our family has history in that city and it was good to finally see a show in the city limits. I woke before dawn and drove by myself to Pennsylvania. For lunch I had Sbarro Pizza. It started to snow as I reached eastern Ohio but fortunately didn't really accumulate. I parked in the garage and the employee at the gate was impressed that I'd driven by myself from Illinois. I saw some familiar folks in the parking lot. It was cold and dark. You could smell the fajitas and grilled cheese being prepared in the lot as the snow lightly fell. You had to walk down steps to get to the arena from that side. The aspect of the Petersen Events Center that I liked is that it doesn't have a hockey rink. This makes the arena more compact. I met some good people in my row of the upper deck. At some point they played the Whitney album "Forever Turned Around" that I'd heard before the Eau Claire Trey solo acoustic show. I bought the Pollack Pittsburgh shirt.
It sounded like Trey was playing with an extra bit of energy on this occasion. He shredded out about every song in the first set. This was some quality arena rock. It had been ages since I'd heard Cars, Trucks, Buses which is perfect for any roadtrip. Water in the Sky was a nod to the snow falling. Everything from Funky Bitch onward crushed in the first set. Wolfman's was another strong version. Halley's actually included a Sand/Tube-like jam. Circus Comes to Town is a cover that really worked in that slot. Victim from Gordo's OGOGO album was totally unexpected but was a welcome addition to the Phish repertoire. Antelope rounded out a fun, high energy set of Phish arena rock.
Cavern to open set two was out of the ordinary. Research shows that's only the third time they've done that. Runaway Jim was the highlight of the show for me. The "cruise across the country in my old sedan" part got to me. The improvisation was a superb example of full band interplay. Slowly this morphed into Ghosts of the Forest. That segueway is the type of Phish I love. ASIHTOS led into a Prince Caspian that was played at too fast of a tempo. That was about my only complaint of the night. Fuego got things going again. YEM was well received by the crowd. This was an above average rendition. CK5 was showing what he can do during the vocal jam. Mesmerizing stuff. It appeared that would end the set when Trey unexpectedly picked up his guitar and ripped into Led Zeppelin's "Good Times Bad Times". The crowd reaction was amazing.
Humor has long been a part of the Phish equation. It was good for the soul to see the greasy little troll do his thing during the encore. Terrapin reminds me of the Moby Dick show at Deer Creek so many moons ago. Fishman jumped on top of the piano during his antics. Julius sent us off into the cold winter night. I thought of the steps outside the arena during the lyrics. This shredding arena rock was a fitting end to a fun evening on the Pitt campus. After the show I drove a little ways out of the city to Beaver Falls, PA and stayed at the Super 8. The next day I drove home in time to watch the Bears game. This was my 163rd Phish show.
