Northern Wish

Clearly the Pokey Lafarge band made a big impression as the crowd at the small Sun Stage for their set with Akron/ Family was huge yesterday afternoon. I spoke with Adam (guitar) for a while yesterday and he was very thankful for the kind folks in Ottawa and their a/v wizardy.

From the first set of the day that saw Young Benjamins and Wilderness of Manitoba covering Beirut (flawlessly) then Ruth Moody dropping some Springsteen- much to the delight of both myself and Travis Good (who was in my booth ordering a custom belt buckle for his wife!) to Lee Ranaldo and the Dust rocking Talking Heads, winding through an uneven set by Hayden that was more than saved by a killer Powderfinger with Andrew Whiteman, I wandered over to see Pokey LaFarge with Akron/Family covering the Carter Family then The Sadies w Shadowy Men (and some of Arcade Fire) covering an entire Alice Cooper album, and lastly Whitehorse covering both Springsteen (I'm on Fire) and JJ Cale (Crazy Mama)- this was the day of the cover. And it was 'Good'.

The "secret set" at Hillside was announced as The Sadies with Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet. It turned out to be those bands plus a smattering of guests including Arcade Fire members Colin Stetson, Richard Reed Perry and Sarah Newfeld doing a full version of Alice Coopers "Love it to Death" album. In full Alice makeup!

I now love the clarinet. The music made me feel like I was walking around at a music festival that Nucky Thompson was throwing on the boardwalk in Atlantic City.

His band spent about an hour in our booth checking out buckles to take home and said they'd be back today.

If you've never heard or seen Petunia from New Brunswick who tours somewhat infrequently and liked Pokey, check him. Same kind of vibe, but without the huge touring band.

Seeing them this afternoon- thanks for the edumacation before they hit the stage.

What a great night of music. Even New Riders wish of Diamond Rings and World Party not conflicting came to pass when a power outage hit the Island Stage.

I nominate World Party for least appropriate band title. I was expecting world or party music- not good old fashioned country/ rock n roll songs.

Bonnie Prince Billy w Dawn McCarthy doing Gram Parsons' Love Hurts, Carter Family style around one mic, was a highlight.

Lots of nice looking sessions/ workshops today including a couple by my most anticipated set of the weekend: Akron Family. Now if I can only get through the morning Drum n Dance 11am set, I will be all set for the day.

Quote of the night: "You only brought $200 for tonight?! Have you met you?"

In

Cool. Thanks!

Home County Music Festival in London was spared the worst. No music was delayed or cancelled. Although I couldn't tell you one artist that I didn't miss.

The Sadies are up next!! At 5pm on a side stage. Who programs this stuff?!

Sorry if I missed it but does anyone have a link to get a refund for lottery acquired tickets? Can't seem to locate it.

They will refund you approx. $96 per pair- which is less shipping and fees. Would you rather just sell them directly to me?

Hahaha. Maybe they sold enough of the seats to open it up? There really weren't that many left even in the 400s earlier.

This is an assumption, but I suspect that all of the pavilion tickets will be distributed in the same manner as the Stones $85 tix- without the mysterious envelope. An hour before show time they print every unsold ticket save maybe 50, they are distributed to the people checking tickets at the gate and if you pass them a lawn ticket, they will issue you one for the pavilion.

My words really hit home DB?

"It's so nice, I wanna hear the same song twice,

it's so nice i wanna hear the same song twice"

Pine Knob Review:

MMJ: early, loud and expectedly rocking

WILCO: surprisingly rocky, better than expected, stole the show IMO. Highlight: Tomorrow Never Knows with MMJ and Richard Thompson. EPIC.

DYLAN:

Dylans band was tight, Dylan was a fucking disaster. Its like he is playing some kind of game that requires him to hide the songs he is playing from the crowd that paid to see him play. I have his music etched on my brain and didn't recognize Its a Hard Rain until the chorus- same with my girl who didn't recognize her favorite song (Tangled) until the line before the first chorus. Changing up songs to keep them interesting to an artist is one thing, but to totally deconstruct classic songs with beautiful melodies and turn them into third rate bar band blues is a travesty.

FYI: We went to the Union Woodhouse in Clarkston for BBQ pre show and it was the best meal I have eaten all year. If you go to this venue look it up, you will thank me later.

So the next Phish show, if there ever will be another, in Toronto will be at Echo Beach? Perfect!

I just checked for the next scheduled show at the Molson Amp which happens to be Train (w Franti and Spearhead?!) tomorrow night. Lawns are for sale.

This appears to be related to demand.

This makes me wonder if those walk up sales were really that strong- or if most people can't make the 22nd and took the refund.

In my group its about 50/50 for those returning vs. those who can't.

I took the refund.

When I pulled up two dead center second row tickets it was hard to pass up. Thanks for the tip Basher!

That will be a killer show, but there is no way I can commit to what I will be doing on a Wednesday 6 months from now. I hate this trend of hyper advance sales.

They will just add a $1 Lawsuit Convenience Charge to all of our tickets to pay it all down.

Its interesting that pre show the stubhub inventory numbered around 1100 tickets- and there are only 214 today.

Also all of the sweet pits and 100s that were available the days before the show are no longer available on TM.

I for one, gladly took the refund on my lawn tickets. I will make a game day call on whether I am going to take more time off of work and spend more $.

That said, I think the show in Toronto will be heat. I am calling a Harpua with a story about Jimmy trying to get to a show in waterlogged Toronto into a Canadian song possibly Rush or maybe Neil Young.

That Star article is written by one of our own. I've been to a few festivals out East (Shoreline 05 and Evolve 06) with Andrew.

I think the one point he missed is that Phish fans only blamed the city after CK5 tweeted this:

@phish had to cancel tonight's show as per the orders of city hall. Power outages and weather. Sorry gang, we were ready to go. #wewereready

A day late, a dollar short.

They should have made the call early in the day if not the night before. A lot of people wasted a lot of money and time for them to not make up their minds until the last possible moment.

Things heard on lot:

"We're going to go back to Buffalo sometime tonight- but my whole crew dosed right before the announcement."

I also just realized that they dropped all of the good seats once we were inside the 1 week window when you can no longer upgrade through ticketmaster.

Another lovely practice.

I know it comes off as a bit whiny, but I don't fucking care. Copy and paste all you wants folks.

I found bettys email, a few at phish.com and 3 for Red Light. I doubt it gets a response but if just one person reads it and talks about it at the water cooler then great.

Hi Betty, I know you will be getting lots of mail so I will keep it short. What the heck happened with the ticketing for Toronto? At both PTBM and regular onsale time the best tickets that were being found by most (I will admit that one friend did receive Pits from the lottery) were 400 level at best.

Immediately following the onsale there was an onslaught of 200s to StubHub.

We all tried really hard to get good tix for the first show back in TO since 2000 (I was there and at 99 too); and then to watch Ticketmaster drop 300s and Pits over the weekend and then all of the remaining 200s yesterday.

I won't swear- or stomp on my soapbox- but I will just say that I am supremely dissapointed. I read that Phish got a $1 mill dollar bonus to play only LNation venues last summer. I would expect that will have to stay in place as fewer and fewer fans want to buy bad seats at the onsale- and will rather wait for prices to fall drastically on the secondary market due to the backhanded tactics. Would Phish really rather have Live Nations money, than from their own fans? Perhaps that is one of the reasons they are no longer a band that sells out shows, but sells out its fans.

Lets be honest here the band or management is clearly playing with the on sales to ensure that the worst seats are eaten up by real fans, and then maybe you get some casual interlopers to buy the good seats near the show. Somehow this seems like a better way to sell more tickets to someone like Coran.

This is not acceptable and Phish fans won't stand for it. I will never ever buy tickets to a Phish event in advance again.

I hope the lid gets blown off of this situation like all of those manhole covers during the massive storm last night.

Even though I love the band -this will be my 63rd show- all travelling far and wide from Canada (even during the days of 52% currency exchange)- this is the first time I feel like they don't love us.

Too bad, so sad.