Saturday, August 14, 2004

PHISH STUCK IN THE MUD: The farewell concert weekend for Phish has turned into a bit of a nightmare all round. Heavy rain turned the carparks at the Vermont venue into mudbath, and police decided to close access to the site. Their chosen method was closing down Interstate 91, which unfortunately didn't encourage people to think "Well, I shall miss the gig, claim my refund and now i shall turn round and go home." Instead - as a child of three would have predicted - the Phish fans abandoned their cars, choking off the road and created a massive blockade on top of the weather problems. The traffic jam stretched for fifteen miles; other roads in the area choked up; the cars which had made it to the Newport State Airport festival site sunk deeper and deeper into the mud soup. The traffic choked off normal life in the area - a performance of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum has been postponed for a week due to the unfunny thing happening on the road to the airport - the theatre company knew it couldn't guarantee audience or actors turning up on time, and have had to take a six thousand bucks hit. Ill-prepared for bad weather, medical staff onsite have dealt with four cases of hypothermia; they also had to cope with people trying to walk twelve miles along the highway being unprepared for the task, resulting in falls down hills and into rivers. Luckily, they'd set up a MASH style unit for this sort of eventuality. All this for Phish. Thank God they're calling it a day - if they ever played again, it would probably result in a small country being destroyed.

Three Colorado fans were killed on their way to the concert when their car hit a pickup on Route 15.


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