When the Live Phish Series was announced, I was in university and didn't have a lot of money to buy things that's not food. So I told myself I'll never get that collection.
So I watched every batch appearing on Dry Goods, dreaming of the "innovative LP packaging includes sleeves". I browsed furiously the Live Phish web site to find all the funny hidden animations in the covers. I pictured myself holding the showcase organizer and using it like a "bag" to hold my stuff in the university.

Many years have passed and some volumes started to become unavailable in the official Phish web store. It was 2006 and I decided to buy them before it got worst.

So on the 25th may 2006 I placed maybe my biggest order on a website. I got all the volumes still available with sleeves (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18 and 20) and a showcase organizer. The grand total was $347.30 (including $47.60 for shipping and a 10% reduction thank to a coupon I got with the 2003 livephish cds). I received the BIG parcel some weeks later in my office (actualy, I had to go to the post office to get my package because it was a little damage). Hopefully, none of the items was damage (it won't be always the case, we'll see that later) but I face another strange problem. Some of the sleeves in the "innovative LP packaging" had some strange "glue" in them. It was like the plastic cover had melted a little. I had to clean the CDs before listen to them and one booklet had a little crush because of that. But I was so glad I didn't care. I took the train later that day with my Phish organizer with 15 volumes of Live Phish.

My goal from that day is to find the missing volumes. I actually bought #19 on a website and received it before the big batch. Unformtunatly, it wasn't the "innovative LP packaging" but the standard 2CD jewel case (the lump). I bought Volumes 1, 10, 13 on eBay. I found myself with 2 #1 because the first I ordered didn't come with the booklet. I might do a little contest on this site someday to have it won by someone.

I still have to fing #17 (the hole) and #19 with sleeves to have a complete collection. So if you can hook me up...

 The latter Live Phish CDs don't have a big story like the original 20 volumes. I bought them as they were released. I'm not really fond of the cardboard ecolo packaging without any picture but the music is good so...

Oh yes there is a story ! I was about to forget the Island Tour crush !

When it was announced it was difficult not to buy them right away. Indead, one of the CDs contains what maybe is my prefered improv in Phishtory : the Roses are Free jam. Anyway I finally pre-order the full batch and waited it patiently to come. When I finally received the CDs, they were sent from abroad in a regular bubble enveloppe. Needless to say, I got them crushed. 3 of the 4 boxes where heavily damaged, causing some cover sleeves to be torn. None of the CD had a crunch though but I was really disappointed.

So I took some pictures of the crushed cases and wrote a big eMail to Dry Goods customer service. I received an answer less that an hour later asking me which of the 4 cases were damaged so that they could them new ones at once. I answered back, asking if I had to send back the crushed ones and they told me not to.
Less than a week later, I received the 3 shows heavily protected in a bigger box. It was the good old time when Dry Goods wasn't managed by Music Today... But more about that later...

I discovered Phish live with the bonus tracks from Junta. They where cool and funny (Icculus !!) or barly listenable (Union Federal). Anyway, when I found A Live One in the music store of the Pont de la Machine in Geneva (unfortunatly closed now), I made my parents buy it to me for Christmas without a question !

Of course, it was a life-changing experience.

I got Slip Stitch and Pass and Hampton Comes Alive from the same store in a span of maybe 2 years.

I remember listening to A Live One in front of my computer with my brother playing Final Fantasy VII by my side. Taken by the music, I used to "play the keyboard" and getting my brother upset.
I first listened to Slip Stitch and Pass in the train from Geneva to Valence, right after buying it with my birthday money. It stayed in my player for several month.
Hamption Comes Alive was really a great experience also. I listened to it a lot while playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 on my computer.

I bought the other boxset several years later, when they have been respectively released. Each time I could, I pre-ordered the release to grab the bonus CD that came with it. The Left Nuts CD was given with the Walnut Creek DVD.

As a side note, I must admit that I had some let down with some of the releases. While the packaging used to bee very cool (Hampton Comes Alive especially), the recent ones are very cheap-looking (Vegas 96 or At the Roxy). But more important, the sound quality is really bad in At the Roxy. The voices have a reverb effect that too annoying and just ruins the vibe ! Too bad as I was really waiting for this multi-show release.

Nevertheless, I have found memories of listening to it while making levels in Little Big Planet on my PS3. By the way, I have a project for several month to do some Phish-related levels. I could even mix that with a contest to make you win some rare Phish-related CDs, who knows...