The work of Chris Kuroda

by Yome NetSan 9. December 2014

Here are two videos showcasing the awesome work of Chris Kuroda, Phish's lighting designer. Of course, full credits goes to the band, Chris and the original tapers.

 

Phish Lighting : A look at the Pre-visualization of a song

The first one aired at setbreak, during the November 2nd webcast. I'm very surprised it hadn't surfaced before tonight like the 11/1 setbreak video about the relation of Ben & Jerry's and the Whaterwheel Foundation.

 

Chris Kuroda destroying Tweezer Reprise Chula Vista 10/25/14

The second one is a simple picture-in-picture I made from a video of Chris Kuroda at work and a view of the stage. It was during Tweezer Reprise at Chula Vista this fall (10/25/14).

 

Dancing and raging, my first Phish show

by Yome NetSan 27. November 2013

Tuesday, October 29th, 2013 - 8:05 PM - Reading, PA

Lights switched off.
Speakers muted.
People screaming.
Phish coming on stage for the first time in Reading, PA.
Phish coming on stage for the first time in front of my eyes.

 

First Set

My first Phish song caught me by surprise.

When I thought about what would be my dream setlist, I came up with too many songs to fit in a regular show, even in a two days/three sets festival, actually ! And yet, I didn't thing about this one, even though I had a kind of obsession for it several years ago.
Cars, trucks, buses.
What a fit choice after the countless hours of travels I had that day !
What a way to start a week of concerts I've been waiting for so long !

The rest of the set was like a dream too, like the dream I had so many times but better : Stealing Time from the Fault Plan (one of my favorite, maybe a little more favorite than my other favorties), Divided Sky (the pause seemed endless, I felt suspended on air), Sparkle (I used to sing this one a lot when I played the guitar), that Split Open and Melt jam...

Like I had expected, the glance of the band coming on stage haven't driven me nuts. I was over-happy and bouncing of course, but I've watched so many videos, dvds or webcasts along the years, that I have had no real shock when the show started. I felt like I was in my element, like I've always meant to be here. I made eye contact with everyone around me, smiling and sharing high-fives. I've always loved watching people at concerts, sometimes more than looking at the stage actually. Everybody was so cheerful, so happy, so nice, so welcoming. I've never felt this at any other concert in my life. It was the first time but I felt at home, in my family.

My Phish family, at long last.

Continue reading...

Flying and driving, two Europeans in America

by Yome NetSan 20. November 2013

This is my first article relating my trip to the USA to see Phish for the first time. It took me longer than I wanted to finish it and I hope the following ones will come quicker. I'll try to be as complete as possible and will throw every good (or at least not too bad) pictures I took during travels and concerts. I won't write extensively about the music itself as I'm not good at it and you had already listened to the shows anyway. Moreover, I haven't listened back to the shows I've been yet so it will be about my first impression as I was there.
Let's start where I left this tuesday morning, on my way to the airport...

 

Tuesday, October 29th, 2013 - 6h50

My first flight was short, just a hop to Brussels. While the clouds glide below me, I wrote two cards for the person who helped me buy my tickets and the band, in the hope to find a way to give them along with the gifts I prepared before leaving.

I was the first time I went to Belgium and the hour and a half long stopover gave me plenty of time to visit... the airport, on my way to Gate B01. I took 2 minutes to pay me a coffee and I was soon joined by Gilles. After writing with him since August, it was great to finally meet him in person. Immediatly, we began to talk, naturally, continuing our perpetual ever-going email conversation, just if we knew each other for years. We actually talked so much that the US Airlines staff were already calling our names when we realized we were late for boarding ! And it was not a flight to miss !

The plane was half empty so we easily managed to sit next to each other, with a free seat for our stuffs ! The 8 hours flight went very smoothy between talking Phish and sleeping. One of our worries was the customs. But we were among the firsts in the line and it went fast. I spent less than two minutes in front of the officer before hearing "Welcome in the USA".

Continue reading...

Firsts and counting

by Yome NetSan 6. November 2013

I have too much to write about, I want to take my time to do it right. So I'll start slow...

 

Firsts

First time I speak in french with another Phish fan (Gilles from Switzerland)
First travel by plane with a stopover
First time Phish played in Reading
First time I wore a costume for many years
First time I went to Belgium
First jammed Twenty Years Later
First time the 12 songs of set 2 on Halloween night were played
First time I attend shows of a same band so close to each other
My first Phish Show

 

 

 

Counting

8228 miles by plane
5953 days between the first time I heard Phish and my first show
1279 pictures taken
94 Songs
20 pills for the pain in my back
19 hours and 20 minutes of flight
16 years of waiting
13 hours, 12 minutes and 14 seconds of music
12 new songs
10 video game items bought
9 Sets
9 pizza slices
8 Phish items bought
6 LPs bought
4 Phish shows
4 repeats
4 donuts
4 dancers + 1 Wombat
3D Imax Gravity
3 Game Boy games bought
3 continents in less than 48 hours
3 hamburgers only
2 hotels
2 beers only
2 Greyhound buses
2 T-Shirts bought
1 surprise meet
0.12$ left in my wallet
1 unforgettable experience

 

 

 

Can I go to Reading by bus ?!

by Yome NetSan 12. August 2013

I live near Lyon, France. And it looks like there's a direct bus from Lyon Station to downtown Reading, PA !
It's Route 22 from Batrabus.
Very convenient ;)

What dreams are made of

by Yome NetSan 11. August 2013

After the worst nightmare, I had the craziest dream come true.

Yesterday, after being laught at at work because of my lack of luck, I e-mailed TicketMaster to see if we can work something out for my Reading order. I asked for either a (partial) refund, a transfert to someone else's account, the ability to ship the ticket to someone in the US or for someone else to come retrieve it at the venue. The answer came later that day : the only option would be a refund of the face price and the "will call" option but only if the venue accept it. They made the request and I'll have to wait for the answer.

Meanwhile, I tried to find tickets for the Atlantic City run. I made a thread on phish.net. Another thread amoung all the other "ISO AC" threads from fans left over by the TicketMaster website. I add myself in a spreadsheet gathering all the fans who need tickets. I had a private message from a nice fan who has contact me before the public sale and who might has an extra for Halloween night. My new friend from Geneva also failed on TM for Halloween but bought his 3-day pass on Stubhub. I finaly wrote an e-mail which was like a big gamble, with very low hope it might give any positive result.

About 25 minutes later I got this answer :

I'll get you access to purchase a 3 day pass for AC. No worries. I'll set that up later today.

Thanks for staying with Phish over the years.

Wait a minute... WHAT ?!

I guess I'm the luckiest man in the world right now. Later that evening, I received another e-mail this a link to my dream.

In a time span of 24 hours, I went through all the emotional phases : stress, happyness, more stress, sadness, frustration, more happyness !

I don't know yet if my first show will be Reading or Halloween but I'll see my first Phish show in october 2013 !!

Worst than my worst nightmare

by Yome NetSan 8. August 2013

I knew it wouldn't be easy. After losing the lottery, I was getting ready for the public sale this thursday. I read a lot of pieces of advice from several forums and a good link given by Holger.

My TicketMaster account was ready with all the informations saved. I stayed at work later to be before a computer by 18 PM.

To "train" myself with the process, I logged at 17PM and tried to score a ticket for Reading, the show right before Halloween, on the 29th.
Last week, I toyed with the idea of going to this show too on my way to Atlantic City but the timing wasn't right with my Morocco trip and the flights to the USA.
After 10 minutes of "High demand! No match!" I'm finally offered 100 section seats, most of them behind the stage ! I'm still hiting the "search" button until I found General Admission floor tickets 15 minutes later. That's a good thing I tried before the Atlantic Run. I realized that I can have others tickets than the first offered.
I follow the process to see what's next, if I can get to the end and so on. And so I clicked one more time... and found myself too far than I thought.

I just bought my first Phish ticket.

But I'll have to go myself to the venue on the day of the show with my ID and the credit card to get it ! As an international buyer, I can't have the ticket printed or shipped to France ! And then I realize that I have a non-refundable ticket to a show I can't attend and I can't sell it because I can't go to the venue to retrieve it !

And then 18 PM arrive.

I click on the link for the 3-days pass, enter the quantity (just 1, I'm not greedy), select GA Floor and hit "Find Tickets".

And I waited...
And I waited...

20 minutes later, the "countdown" has already showed me "Please wait 15 minutes", "14 minutes", back to "15 minutes", "7", "4", "15", "3"... That's rather random if you ask me !

40 minutes later, after trying on the computer and on my phone at the same time (with the mobile site, not the application because it can't be installed on a french phone !)

A few minutes later, the Twitter account announced that the run was SOLD OUT.

 

 

 

How bittersweet. I paid a ticket that I won't ever see and didn't get the ones I wanted.

My options now are trying to get the AC tickets from extras. But let's see on Stubhub, the prices are insane.
I might find a fellow fan on phish.net but I'm not the only one who wants tickets.
I can do like this japanese fan who'll fly to the show and plan on finding tickets at the venue. I can't take that risk.
I can go to the Reading show only but that would be far too expensive for only one show.

I guess I fail at Phish.

No luck...

by Yome NetSan 7. August 2013

After spending all of yesterday checking my bank account every 10 minutes, I finally got the bad news with an email this morning : I didn't won the lottery. So I don't have tickets yet. My next move will be the public sale on thursday 12AM EST at TicketMaster. That's 18PM in France, a time when i'm usualy at the station, waiting for my train after my day job... I'll have to stay late at work or come back home very early.

Meanwhile, I got e-mails from two french speaking fans in less than 24 hours thanks to my website ! The first one is a french guy living in Toronto and the second is living in Geneva, Switzerland. Maybe will work things out to have their Phish-related stories on the blog and get tickets for Atlantic City...

From Berlin to Chicago : 3 wet nights of Phish

by Holger 31. July 2013

Will 2013 be finally THE year ?

by Yome NetSan 29. July 2013

When the fall tour 2013 has been announced last week, I read the news like any Phish tour announcement for sixteen years. Where will they play ? How many shows ? Basic stuffs. But when I saw that they'll play 3 days at Atlantic City from October 31th to November 2nd, I got pretty hyped : Halloween + 30th anniversary show during the same run ?! I HAVE TO GO !

Ok, I realized a few minutes later that their birthday was on December 2nd, not November 2nd...

Nevertheless, my brain was already on fire. The run will be at the very end of the Toussaint holidays in France. I already planned a family trip to Morocco but it won't last the 2 weeks. With one flight to the U.S.A., I could attend 3 shows, including a pretty rare Halloween 3-setter ! I talked about it to my wife and her answer was both encouraging and full of common sense : "How much would it cost ?"

Yes, the main concern will be the money, as it has always been.

The following day, I checked several websites for flights booking to have an idea of the grand total.
First surprise : Atlantic City International airport can't be reached from Europe. So I search for Philadelphia from Lyon, Paris or even Geneva. I found several possibilities with or without stopover for a price from 600€ to 700€. I can find cheaper with 2 stopovers but I don't want to spend 24 hours in planes and airports...
A 3 day ticket would be 180$ but I have to add the fee and shipping for a total of 217.10$.
I have also to count 4 hotel nights, a way to go from Philly to Atlantic City (it seems I won't be alone), food and pocket money.

OK so I have to find a 1200€ bill.

I could fight against my habits to buy countless video games or vinyls to finally save this amount until October. The problem is I have to spend most of it (tickets, plane and hotel) at least in august and I don't have it now. So, like many times before, I dug the idea...

 

On Saturday, I received a letter from my company about my annual bonus. Usually it's stuck on a special bank account for 5 years unless I get married, have a baby or buy a house, which is not planned. But for the first time, this year, I have the option to request the full amount to be paid immediately.

 

Wait a minute...

 

This morning, I did something I've been dreaming of for sixteen year : I request tickets for a Phish show on tickets.phish.com

Oh my. I'll go to a Phish show !




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