Lure of Phish powerful to the end June 22, 2004 - Times Union (Albany) By Anne Miller Saratoga Springs Party atmosphere reigns as old fans, latecomers and the curious turn out for band's local finale An era ends this weekend as the band Phish plays its last two shows in the Capital Region. It stopped not with tears, nor fireworks, nor much waxing poetic - - although there was a 65-year-old Schenectady man of questionable sobriety who offered to scribble out a few lines of poetry for young ladies -- but with beer, marijuana, nitrous oxide-filled balloons, veggie burgers, day-trippers, first-timers, bootleg traders and a whole lot of people hoping to score one last ticket to one last show. And, of course, two nights' worth of jamming -- at Saratoga Performing Arts Center and on the roadways around it, where traffic congestion is expected to continue today. State Police warned drivers to stay away from Saratoga Springs today if possible. "Phish is Phish," said Koren Hohenforst, 21, of Amsterdam, explaining why she spent her Saturday afternoon lounging in a folding chair in a parking lot near the entrance to SPAC. Peter Caspian, a 22-year-old University at Albany student from Guilderland, tried to explain the allure as well. "I've got to stock up on Phish," he said. Phish the cultural phenomenon began with a couple of college buddies jamming out at the University of Vermont in 1983. By some music-industry standards, the band did not amount to much. Their songs are rarely played on commercial radio. They made only one MTV- style music video. But they also revolutionized the business, embracing the Internet, encouraging fans to trade tapes and playing long, convoluted sets that captivated an audience bored by Top-40 hits. A three-day festival to mark the millennium in the Florida Everglades clogged highways all over the state -- and remains, according to many fans, the pinnacle of the band's career. In August, Phish will end its 21-year run at an airport in northern Vermont closed for the occasion. It's one of the few places in the state large enough to house all those fans, and for those two days, the Newport State Airport is expected to become Vermont's largest city. And, just like the SPAC shows, it's already sold out. By 2 p.m. Saturday, the SPAC parking lots were already filling up. In addition to ticket holders, hundreds or thousands more showed up, hoping to score a ticket or just take in the scene. By 6 p.m., SPAC's lots were filled to capacity, the Northway was backed up to Exit 12, and traffic on Route 9 for miles around the park had slowed to a near standstill as cars filled every lane and the paved shoulder. Saratoga Springs police said Saturday they would ticket any cars parked in no-parking zones along Route 9. But, said Sgt. Linda Quattrini, "We don't have plans to tow cars unless they're interfering with traffic." State police put up electric sign boards, which were to be up through today, advising people to steer clear of the area from 1-8 p.m. Fans tried to describe the phenomenon, similar to the traveling city that followed the Grateful Dead. For many, the shows are an oasis. Gina Boccelli, for example, woke up at 6 a.m. to drive to the show from Philadelphia with three friends. She left her cellphone at home. By Saturday afternoon, the 21-year-old college student and radio station intern had tossed a tie-dyed blanket on the hood of the car and was reading J.D. Salinger's "Franny and Zooey." She planned to leave after the show and be back home by Sunday morning. Like others in the parking lot, she was spurred by the announcement of the band's breakup to finally attend one of their concerts. "I've been wanting to go," she said. "I'm trying to stake my claim before they go." Then there were veterans like Tom Diamante, 46, from Schenectady, who recounted past Phish shows and concerts by bands from further back, such as Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd. The people are just as friendly now as they were in the 1970s, he said, but the biggest change is the commercialism of the music and the price of the tickets. He was hoping for a "miracle" ticket -- as in free. "I can't get into the show unless someone gives me the opportunity," he said. That wasn't a problem for a group of old friends from Scotia, all of whom had tickets -- plus a collapsible gas grill and a cooler full of Thai food, marinated chicken skewers and veggie burgers. Caitlin Legere, 21, liked that this was one of the last shows. "I'm a fan of the end, just because they've done their job," she said. "There's plenty of time for somebody else to come up." But she and her friends agreed that no band is ready to jump into Phish's footsteps. Sitting on a cooler full of beer, Nate Glass, 26, a veteran of so many Phish shows that he has lost count, attempted to summarize the whole Phish scene in a sentence: "It's nothing but positivity and rock 'n' roll." Article Copyright © 2004 The New York Times