Randy Ray, one of my new blog friends, recently conducted an excellent interview with Phish’s longtime road manager (and Trey’s best friend), Brad Sands. Read the full writeup here.
There’s really a lot of good discussion on what made Phish tick as the years went on, how the buildup and climaxes felt to them, and what Brad and the band are doing now–it’s a great read…
Let’s talk about venues. I had a long road trip with my pregnant wife to see Phish at Alpine Valley in July 2003—our last great adventure before our son was born.
Alpine Valley is my favorite outdoor concert venue. I know a lot of people like Red Rocks and the Gorge; I just have a preference to Alpine Valley. There’s just no feeling when you walk out there—it’s this old school amphitheatre with 35,000 people and they are literally right on top of you. You walk out on that stage, the sun’s still out, there’s this roar and it is just an incredible feeling. Backstage—it’s very old school. Red Rocks is beautiful and amazing but, you know, realistically it doesn’t sound that good and its kind of a pain to get up there, walking up and down. (laughter) The Gorge is great, too—for its own reasons, I love that place, too, but I’ve always liked Alpine Valley.
Yeah, I was there both nights, too. The Leo-Trio was sick…