PHISH COVENTRY PRESS ARCHIVE Town Braces for Final Phish Jam August 8, 2004 - Valley News (NH) By Jodie Tillman Coventry, Vt. -- Phish is, like, a pretty mellow band, so farmer Mike Rogers figured he would channel that vibe in his sales pitch to fans. At his farm, where he hopes to rent camping space to Phish fans without tickets for the band's last-ever concert, “our 3-acre spring-fed pond (Fantizzy Pond) will be a splashin', campers campin,’ everybody jammin,’ I think you get the picture,” says a Web site advertising his property. But as laid-back as that picture sounds, Rogers and others are workin' 'round-the-clock to capitalize on -- and deal with -- what is expected to be Phish's final concert here this weekend. At every level, from farmer to tattoo artist, to state police major to sanitation workers, people are getting ready for the single event that will transform this farm town of 1,000 into the largest city in the state for four days. Crews are building temporary roads, transforming culverts into footpaths and setting up telecommunications systems. Nearby farmers are getting ready to move their animals inside during the show and businesses are stocking up and extending their hours. Two 27-seat buses that usually traverse only the Northeast Kingdom will be making two trips a day to pick up fans in White River Junction, and officials with the company rushed into Town Hall this week, to find a road map. The town clerk's office is fielding phone calls ranging from a California couple hoping to get married at the Coventry show to an overprotective father in South Carolina saying he would call Gov. Jim Douglas to make sure his son got to the show all right. Phish's concert is expected to attract 70,000 ticket holders -- a number that many in town say will overwhelm the town. “They say it's good for the economy,” said dairy farmer George St. Onge, who lives near the concert site. “I'm not sure they understand the magnitude.” “For three or four days,” said assistant town clerk Mona Rounseville, “it's going to be a big parking lot. “We just don't have the infrastructure. You can't get there from here under normal circumstances.” Concerns about the impact of the concert on residents have ranged from road closings to raucous behavior, and state police and concert promoters tried to prepare hundreds of residents who packed a sweltering school gymnasium last week. At the meeting, police and concert officials at times sounded like anthropologists as they talked about the typical Phish fans. “Some of you may know Phish fans,” Dave Werlin, president of promotion company Great Northeast Productions, told a gym full of people fanning themselves with maps of closed roads and hand-outs that said: “Phish fans are extremely friendly. They will listen to you and respectfully respond to any request you make if you are polite and friendly to them.” Coventry has rarely been a destination for pilgrims, particularly the polite rock-fan variety. Off a lonely stretch of interstate highway, the serene village is made up of Town Hall, a small green with a Civil War monument, a hair salon with a “tan here” sign and a church with a clock that doesn't work. Only a few miles away are Newport Airport and a landfill, both of which are located in Coventry. Phish's concert site will be in a farm family's fields, across from the airport property, which is being transformed into parking and a campsite. Workers with a New Jersey-based fencing company last week were busy extending thousands of feet of fencing around the site. Verizon employees, meanwhile, were putting in new phone lines and other wiring that will expand cellular service, said spokeswoman Beth Fastiggi. And this is where everybody -- and everything -- seems to be coming. In addition to the 70,000 fans, crews with more than 1,000 portable toilets and 200 sinks are coming. A security detail is coming, too, and includes nearly 500 law enforcement officers, including more than 120 state troopers, sheriff's deputies, mounted officers and private security hired by concert promoter, Great Northeast Productions, said Vermont State Police Major Jim Dimmick. Coming, too, is a team of sanitation workers from the Department of Health, who will be making sure the food from the nearly 100 food vendors is prepared correctly and that the portable toilets are pumped when needed, said Beth Sisco-Chang, food and lodging program chief. And don't forget the department of liquor control, which is sending 18 employees -- all sworn law enforcement officers with the power to arrest -- to monitor the beer tents and make sure vendors aren't selling to minors and minors aren't trying to buy beer, according to William Goggins, director of law enforcement. As long as everybody's coming to town, some local business people are hoping to cash in on their greatly expanded customer base. When Kathy LeBlanc, owner of Martha's Diner in Coventry, heard that Phish was coming to her hometown, her first thought was “What's Phish?” But, encouraged by friends who knew what Phish was, LeBlanc has invested her money into keeping her diner, which normally serves just breakfast and lunch, open for 24 hours, with an outdoor buffet and to-go meals for hungry concert-goers. She also made up T-shirts -- the design is a group of fish playing musical instruments -- that she is selling at the diner for $15. Of course, fear of running afoul of trademark law forced her to make one small change. The T-shirt's logo reads “Fish in Coventry,” raising a question about the long-standing hipster rule that concertgoers should not wear the T-shirts of the bands they are going to see. What if the band's name is misspelled? “I made sure that I didn't do the ‘ph,' ” she said with a laugh. About five miles away, in Newport, Vt., Mystic Ink Tattoo and Body Piercing is staying open until midnight for the four days, much later than the usual 7 p.m. closing time, said owner Ray Scorpio. “They have to come here,” said Scorpio, who has hired an extra artist for the weekend. Asked what he expected Phish fans to get, he said, “mostly tribal stuff.” And then there is Rogers, the farmer who has started Camp Coventry. If the concert site is like a temporary city, Rogers' property -- about a mile away -- is like a temporary suburb. Despite requests from concert promoters, the band and police that people without tickets stay at home, Rogers is encouraging the ticketless to come up and stay at his place. For campers who make reservations, the cost is $75 a person. Those without reservations must pay $90 at the gate. The profit could be handsome for a weekend's worth of work: Rogers says he expects between 500 and 2,000 people. His mother, Maureen, said they are hiring New York jam bands to play on their property and that one of the bands has agreed to use its system to play the Phish show, which will be broadcast live on satellite radio. “I figured, you know what, they're going to be crashing people's lawns anyway,” said Mike Rogers. One of his neighbors, Elaine Briere, thinks Rogers' plan is only going to make things worse. “We're going to have people who don't have tickets,” she said. “They're going to party.” Many of the concert's closest neighbors were given a chance to leave town at the expense of Phish and Great Northeast Productions, according to interviews with them. But most said they'd rather stay, and keep watch over their properties. Concert promoters have told them they will get stickers for their cars so that they can drive the roads otherwise closed to the public. The closest property owners say they were offered free tickets, though some report they have not received them. The Maxwell dairy farm, which has more than 750 milking cows, owns the land where the concert is to be held. As Maurice Maxwell mowed the lawn near his barn one day last week, concert workers were nearby, erecting a chain-link fence around the field, which promoters and Phish are leasing for the concert. A widespread rumor in town is that Maxwell had been prepping his cows for the concert by playing them Phish music. Maxwell laughed about that, and said the animals would all be moved inside the barn before the concert. “Maybe the cows will milk more” when the concert starts, he said. The Maxwells are not without precedent, of course. In 1969, a dairy farmer named Max Yasgur leased his property to promoters of the historic rock 'n' roll festival in Woodstock, N.Y. If Maurice Maxwell has dreams of being the next Max Yasgur, though, he's not saying it. “No trespassing” signs are posted all around the family's big red barn. Former airport owners Beverly and Cecil Wright returned to the home they recently sold -- and is now being rented out to concert workers -- with their RV to finish packing up. “We didn't know it until we got up here,” said Beverly Wright, who was holding her small dog away from the road with truck traffic hauling materials for concert preparations. The Wrights had planned to park their RV in their former yard for a few weeks up here, before they heard about the concert. Now, they figure they'll just stay. “They told us they'd get us a hotel if we wanted to leave,” she said of the concert promoters, but they decided to stay. “I'm sure we’re going to hear a lot of the music,” she said. Some of those in Coventry sense something historic about the Phish concert. Michelle Tarry, whose family rents a house near the airport, said she did not know the band, but she would probably be going to the show because “It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” At the airport, a tent city of workers had been set up on a field, near the parking area, where temporary roads are being built. Next to construction trucks was parked a wine-colored van imprinted with a kitschy cartoon drawing of a 1950s mother next to the word “Irresponsible.” A smiling young woman with a nose ring and pigtails ducked into the tent area, and one young man working for the promoter declined to answer too many questions about preparations. The element of surprise “is sacred to this band,” he said, solemnly. Two orange Volkswagen vans leaving the tent area made their way up the road, drawing chuckles from St. Onge and Maxwell, who were standing together on Maxwell's property. Across from the concert site live Marguerite and Frances Beaumier, a retired couple of French Canadian descent. Sitting in their white brick house, Frances, 78, pointed out his picture window. “It's going to be a mess,” he said. “It seems we should have some (concert tickets) but we don't.” His wife, who was eating toast and slaw, said a man from the concert promotion company had stopped by and told her he'd pick her up on Friday and take her to the show. Front-row seats, he told her. “He says, ‘You dress up, and I'll be there on Friday,' ” said Marguerite Beaumier, 87. “I'm going to dress up and wait for him. “I like all kinds of music. I don't like the soprano business. Something jazzy. I like it as long as it's peppy.” Article Copyright © 2004 Valley News (NH)