Aloha Friday Motivation | Nassau Edition | #271

22 years ago today, a very exuberant bright eyed 22 year old me awoke at first light and left the Hartwick Campus, in Oneonta NY in a truncated caravan, leading two close friends, Jay and Sean, en route to Uniondale, NY, home of the Nassau Coliseum. We navigated the early morning fog cover of the Susquehanna river valley's highway 88 and treked the 4 and 1/2 hours, where we would connect with our fourth buddy, Chad, in hopes of scoring four very coveted tickets to the last northeast show of Phish's first tour in nearly two years. Of the 15 shows they had already played on that abbreviated tour, I had attended 6 and was hell bent on making it 7, before the circus turned due south, heading to South Carolina for the last show of tour; a trek that was not in the cards for me.

Earlier in the week, at the Continental Airlines Arena Show, in East Rutherford, NJ, while basking in the glow of the first set B.B. King sit in, I had befriended a couple of cool cats who were educating themselves at Hofstra University, nearly adjacent to Nassau Coliseum. We had made a serendipitous pact to connect later that week on their campus prior to the Friday night show. Being a firm proponent of word is bond, when we arrived at the venues parking lot, and the cohort had been corralled, I immediately placed a call to my new found friends.

These event predating the mainstream consumption and utilization of social media, the connection was not guaranteed. Recall that the plan was hatched knee deep in the second set of the Monday night show and a lot had transpired since then; the Spectrum and Worcester shows, nearly 1000 miles, a whopping 15 hours of driving, and some mid-week college classes, taboot. But Kismet reined supreme, and with the brain trust (Sean, Jay, Chad and myself) united, we met up with our gracious hosts just before noon.

After a meeting of the minds, we left our hosts. The plan was for the phab four to hit the ATM, access what little cash we had, and toss that pointer finger in the air, searching high and low, down every alley, on top of snow banks (piled to the moon), down Shakedown Street, past the locked entrance to the venue, through vast amounts of scalpers and countless heads, until we possessed the four tickets needed for entrance to the show. Divide and conquer was the theme, and where most pre-concert lot events would be played out as a group, we knew that a Friday night concert, practically on the campus of a college university, would mean a HOT ticket, so we split up, focused on our mission

Disaster struck almost immediately as I waited nearly an hour for the Hofstra commons ATM line to clumsily stumble along. The wait, I discovered as I got near to my turn, was due to a shotty card swipe-style reader. Basically, the ATM was unusable as it could not read anyone's card, though each user attempted a minimum of one hundred angry strikes at the defenseless machine. I cut my losses and crowd sourced some knowledge on where the closest card eating ATM resided. All hands pointed under the freeway back towards the venue. A chilly and brisk 15 minute stroll. I repeated the directions provided by a kind soul over and over in my head as I hustled across campus, under freeway and towards a functioning ATM. Though an hour had been lost, money was secured and now the hard work began.

Between 1PM and 7PM the four of us wandered through the myriad of rows of salt crusted vehicles, asking each and every person we came across if they "had an extra!" At 4p, we secured ticket number 1. It took another hour and half to score tickets 2 and 3. Ticket number 3 was mine and it happened to be a seat on the floor. Technology was advancing at this point and the days of ticket stubs being ripped was giving way to hand-held scanners and the likelihood that any of these tickets was bunk was increased by the heightened hype for this show. I was still gun shy from being ejected from MSG on Thanksgiving eve for having purchased a fake ticket, but that's a story for another time.

6:30 PM rolled around, the doors were open for admission and time was running out. Chad was the last ticket-less member of the four horseman, but each of us was still in full ticket procurement mode. After passing by the same makeshift bar, hard liquor bottles precariously placed on a pick up trucks tail gate, I finally stopped for a quick refreshment. My short story of the ticket-less trek to Uniondale and the hours scouring the lot scored me a free shot of tequila, the only substance imbibed to that point. Then, only minutes later, with no time to spare, I look down at my phone and I had a missed call and voicemail for Chad. I dialed to my messages and in between the raucous yells of the crowd, due to the impending show, and freeway noise, I heard him belt out, "I got it, I got a ticket, let's go, we can go in!" I saved that voicemail for 13 years until it was lost to the era of smartphones.

I wrangled the search parties and we entered the slow jaunt to the entrance. We scouted our locations written on the tickets and I vowed that I would stub each of the others down to the floor one by one. We got to the security check point and the guard had off-loaded the hand held scanner and was kicking it old school, ripping stubs. With our tickets stubbed, we passed the threshold, entered the warmth of the coliseum, and embraced in a celebratory group hug. After holding true to my word, the four of us found ourselves stuffed to the brim on the overcrowded floor of the venue as the lights went down. What transpired next lives on in the annals of Phishtory. While that is worthy of another post, here is an expert opinion from Mr Miner's on enormity 2/28/2003.

Each year, on this date, I send a quick text to the crew in commemoration of the anniversary. Looking back now, 22 years later, that day stands as a testament to what pure determination, friendship, and a little bit of cosmic luck can accomplish. The six-hour quest for tickets in the bitter cold of a Long Island February might have broken lesser spirits, but our unwavering faith in the mission never faltered. That night would go on to become legendary in the Phish community, but for us, the real magic wasn't just in the music - it was in the journey itself. The camaraderie forged in those parking lot trenches, the kindness of strangers, and the sweet victory of walking through those doors together exemplified everything that made the Phish experience so special in those pre-digital days. Some might call it foolish to drive hundreds of miles on the mere hope of scoring tickets, but those are the kinds of beautifully reckless decisions that make the best stories - and the best memories.

Enjoy the entirety of the show here and here is an amazing breakdown of the Nassau Tweezer.