It started late this morning with the arrival of a few past-their-prime camper vans and rusty station wagons with Vermont and Maine license plates. By lunchtime, one couldn’t help but notice all the ponytails, facial hair, and worn-out t-shirts. This afternoon, the people in front of me at the CVS checkout line were buying a healthy quantity of Cheetos and Visine. There can be only one explanation: Phish is playing at Fenway Park.

Yes, indeed. I thought the Dave Mathews Band traffic was off enough until today….. Of course yesterday there was a guy selling jello shots outside Fenway Park for said DMB concert. I wonder what they’re selling today. I’m safely at home in my apartment as of 10 minutes ago, and I’m not going back out until tomorrow!
Much worse than Jell-O shots, alas – coming out of the show I saw a dozen assholes with nitrous tanks selling balloons to the idiots on Brookline St. The show was excellent, not up to Phish’s 1997-8 standards but better than whatever else our benighted un-rock’n'roll millennium has to offer; but the scene was disgusting.
Ha. Well, for the Dave Matthews concerts, actual marijuana dealers (the kind who loiter on street corners with big coats in warm weather) swarmed the neighborhood. Doesn’t get classier than that.
For the record, I dispute the suggestion that the waning popularity of jam bands means the music scene is benighted…