12/01/95 – Hersheypark Arena, Hershey, PA

And here we go with a big one right out of the gate. I mean, what’s a better tour opener than Buried Alive to launch into peak firehose, machinegun-era Phish?

Friday, 12/01/1995 – Hersheypark Arena, Hershey, PA

There are a lot of highlights in this one — and I don’t want to lead the witness — but make sure to pay attention to the Mike’s > Weekapaug. It’s the first time they played the two directly into each other without a bridge song in between and damn if they don’t pull it off. You can hear them laughing during the transition because they were so focused on the segue that they forgot to modulate into the correct key for Weekapaug. We get a make-up later in the tour, but it doesn’t quite capture the high-energy, seat-of-their-pants vibe here.

As a quick aside on the venue, I was not at this show but saw them at Hersheypark the following summer. It was probably the most surreal lot scene I have ever witnessed — a bunch of gacked out wooks freaking out in an amusement park before the show and then scaring the absolute bejeezus out of normie families walking to their cars. Straight America had no idea what a Phish was yet, so they were not ready for the neo-hippie invasion of The Land of Chocolate.