I wrote this up for a wonderful friend, but decided to share it with everyone, as I feel so strongly about the sheer immensity of Cypress:

I just attended what I'm sure I'll always consider to be the most incredible concert experience of my life. The Big Cypress New Year's festival completely blew me away on every level. The entire event exceeded my expectations beyond any measure; the emotional high was nearly indescribable.

For the whole weekend, the band unreservedly poured their hearts out to the audience. The passion with which they played, their concentration, and their oneness with the crowd was astounding.

The entire weekend's sets were so overwhelmingly outstanding I know that no matter how much I write, I won't be able to fully describe it. I won't even bother with a setlist review, because so many other people have written better ones. But suffice it to say that song after song left me standing there, jaw hung open, in utter amazement of what I was experiencing. The Mike's Song from day 1 was a massive highlight for me. [To borrow, in part, from another poster- thank you, friend!]: it was enormous, transcendental, monstrous, terrifying, and awe-inspiring. Trey started leaning on one note as Mike and Fish laid down a vicious groove beneath him, and Page chorded away ominously. This built to a total frenzy, at which point Kuroda unleashed more smoke than I have ever seen pour from a Phish stage. He then proceeded to throw up this evil, shaking, red & white light display that looked like some kind of Picasso-meets-Shogun-on-acid landscape. The ever-increasingly sick jam accelerated into a deafening crescendo until I swear I thought aliens were going to appear from the sky and say, "Okay, alright, already, we're here! What do you want???" Let me say it again: Mammoth Jam. If that was the only song I saw all weekend, I would have gone home happy.

But there was SO much more!

After the first night's show, I was completely pumped up, so after hanging with my friends at their RV for a while, I headed out to explore the vast campgrounds. The place was enormous! Laid out more like Oswego than the other shows (i.e. sort of wrapping around the concert field rather than the Ball/Went/LW's infinitely long runways), there was plenty going on everywhere. Since fireworks are legal in FL, the entire sky was lit up for hours with explosion after explosion. Beautiful. I ended up in the outer concert area (like at Oswego were the marshmallow sticks were) and stumbled into a grove of spanish moss-draped cypress trees, where Phish, Inc set up a few banks of slowly flashing deep red lights. Nothing else. This enchanted forest was stunning- nearly dark except for these lights and populated with what must have been (no exaggeration, I swear) 100 drummers. Not in a circle, since it was so dark and filled with trees, just masses of drummers clumped together. So dark you could barely see more than 10 feet ahead. The entire grove, filled with undulating bodies, thundered with an ever-so-deep thumping. It was beyond description. I stood there, eyes closed, and bathed in the primal beats for I think at least 2 hours. Another guy and I positioned ourselves right behind someone who was standing while beating his drum, so that the open end pointed right at us. The vibration was immense; we took turns for an hour simply slowly passing our hands near the base, and each time one of us did we looked at the other with the biggest, happiest smile on our face, chills running down our spines.

After a while, I moved on to a moe-like (but IMO raw-er and better) guitar band called Cousin Fungus Wow! I don't know anything about them, but I'm definitely going to learn. They were outstanding. Unfortunately, C.F. ended around 3am (I told you I wasn't tired!) so I wandered around some more and came across an impromptu rave. I never saw a DJ mix on a turntable before, and I was completely mesmerized. Those guys really bust their ass. There was a great crowd there (50-75), considering it must have been at least 4am, and I found myself sucked into their incredibly deep, funky beats. Finally, about 5:30, totally drained and clearing up, I trudged back to camp. The roads were *still* filled with people when I laid down. Luckily, I had earplugs, and I slept straight through till 2pm (NYE day)!

I woke up feeling incredibly refreshed and ready for (please excuse the pun) the party of the millennium. As I walked over to the hand-washing station to clean up, there was an eerie, ever-so-nearly bursting tension in the air. Everyone was pretty quiet yet on the verge of exploding with excitement. Since I was camped quite a distance from my friends' RV, and since the 250 mile drive from Tampa took SEVENTEEN hours, I was in no mood to move my belongings near them. So I hung out with my neighbors, a couple of really nice girls from Augusta. We had a good time chilling out as I amazed them with wild tales of the tourcam and tourphone. :) (Oh, which, by the way, phones were virtually useless. Cellphone calls barely went through once every 50 redials, and the ATM's which also worked via cellphone, were down most if the time).

We headed into the afternoon set and rocked all afternoon. It lasted 1h 45m and was thoroughly solid, though you could tell they were holding back a little, saving their energy for the upcoming marathon. The set ended, and I returned to my tent, collected myself for a few minutes, then proceeded to the etree.org RV for an incredible party with a huge number of internet friends. Sick sick sick sick sick time! I've known these people for a couple of years but hadn't met many of them in person till then. We partied until about 11, then headed into the venue for the NYE set. No security, just guards high-fiving people as we walked in. Again, I won't go into a setlist review (but you *did* read about it, didn't you?). It started at 11:30 with Father Time bicycling on stage and running out of energy, exhausted, around 11:50. The band entered from the rear of the concert grounds on an elevated swamp/fan boat which exploded into the '95 hotdog, and then them feeding Father Time a meatstick, rejuvenating him, so he pedaled right into midnight Meatstick hula girls waited on stage to greet the band as they climbed out of the hotdog and took their positions. It was great.

The NYE set was beyond description. They simply played and played and played. Played their hearts out for 7.5 hours straight. The funny thing is I'm not even sure if the tape will come out that great- they played for such a LONG time and were making mistakes towards the end. But it totally wasn't about perfect playing by then. It was about the empathy, the emotional bond between them and us. The way the crowd supported them, believed in them, and cheered them on. How they selflessly gave of themselves- pouring their hearts out through the music and fighting what must have been immense fatigue. With each new song I repeatedly shook my head in utter disbelief over what I was witnessing. I was truly part of the greatest, largest, yet most intimate show I ever experienced.

I think one of the coolest things about it all is that they DIDN'T go for the Meatstick world record. They had more than enough people and the situation was perfectly poised to get it, but they declined. Instead, they simply jammed with every bit of energy and emotion they had and left it at that. The fact that they turned it down, that they instead opted to bond with the crowd rather than use us to achieve something, meant more to me than I can possibly describe.

Another cool thing: we were on TV. I'm sure you know about ABC's New Year's coverage, part of which included Phish. But that's not what I'm taking about. Yeah, yeah, cheesecake was novel for good for a laugh... What really was cool was after it was over and Trey stepped up to the mic and said "Ok, it's just us again." I can't even begin to describe the feeling and chill that ran down my spine. From the crowd's the reaction, I wasn't the only one. It was time to get down to business.

At the end of the concert, as the sun was rising into a breathtakingly pink & orange dawn, Trey stood up to the mike and repeatedly thanked the crowd for making this possible and giving the band so much support and love. He described the genuine connection the 4 of them felt with us- it was an incredibly touching speech. A LOT of people, and I'm completely unashamed to say I was one, cried from the sheer emotion it. Simply overwhelming. Exhausted, ecstatic, stunned tears streaming down my and so many others' cheeks, all of us complete strangers hugging each other, desperately trying to comprehend what we just witnessed: Phish's greatest show ever. During the show, I could've sworn I saw Trey, Page, & Jon get choked up at various points (not Mike- he's a robot), and now it was my turn. It was so cleansing. So pure. So right.

The concert ended very quietly, with Meatstick fading into silence and them simply walking off stage. No encore. Beautiful. There was a full minute of the crowd just standing there staring, mostly quiet, in utter disbelief over the night. Then the Beatle's "Here Comes the Sun" started playing over the PA and the crowd turned to leave, seeing the beautiful sunrise the band was enjoying. Again, more tears all around.

Walking back to camp was eerie. 85,000 people and nearly complete silence. Everyone was so happy yet so drained, hardly a word was spoken except for a very low mostly monosyllabic murmur. I took the long(er) way back to my camp and found my neighbors already asleep, totally exhausted. I hung out for a while, still with campground in near silence, and soaked in the last few minutes of this miracle. I then slowly packed up and left. I could have slept, but I figured I accomplished/witnessed more than what I could have ever have hoped, so I just took off with the memories still fresh and raging in my mind. Traffic was a little rough, but nowhere nearly as bad as coming in. I made it back to Tampa, caught the last flight back to Providence that night (vs my reservations for 2 days later. Woohoo!), and drove home.

Then slept for 36 hours.

Well, that's it. There was so much more, but like I said, no amount of words can describe it. Hope I was able to give you a tiny glimpse of what an incredible experience it was.

p.s. And if you tell anyone I cried, you're dead.

peace, mike