Posted by @terrapin9614 in the SBIX Essay Contest.

"Colonel Forbin, stared up at the mountain..."

I'm freaking out.

My 85th show, and I'm finally getting my first "Forbin's." But there's no one to share the experience with. I'm walking back from the front of the crowd, back to my wife, my best friends, my entire Super Ball crew...but where they are, I have no idea.

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Posted by @douvy in the SBIX Essay Contest.

Phish has shown me the essence of what I was searching for in music for a long time, and when you get four guys together that really understand how to respond to one another and work towards the chemistry of exceptional improvisation, the experience related is for everyone all at once, and it fills the air and grasps your attention like something beyond us all; a force to be reckoned with.

This weekend each band member infused selflessness into their playing by listening to everyone and everything but themselves to manifest their creativity. The band was able to focus on what the others were doing, and through this, Phish --and everything a part of it, the instruments, the energy the crowd, everything --were able to let the music transcend beyond them. From the opening note of Possum to the closing explosion of First Tube, a mega-blissful experience occurred where judgment of the music being played seemed to be absent on both sides of the music, from the musicians and the audience. And fittingly so, I find it unnecessary to personally judge any part of the weekend from a musical perspective. As a result of this absence of judgment, everyone’s interpretation of Superball was in its purest and most spontaneous form.

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