Last Tuesday, Vermont’s phavorite jam band, Phish, announced that they would play a special benefit concert for victims of Tropical Storm Irene. Unsurprisingly, the quartet’s announcement created tremors of excitement around Vermont and across the whole of Phish phandom. No sooner had word gotten out about the phoursome’s show then dedicated Phish phollowers the country over grabbed some hula hoops, a couple djembe drums, a few pallets of Cheetos and their best water bongs, hopped in their vanagons and hightailed it to Vermont.
They came phrom all over — New Jersey, Connecticut, New Jersey, Colorado, New Jersey — in the hope of nabbing one of the hottest tickets in town. The devoted called in sick to work so they could camp out on the sidewalk, despite the fact that the FlynnCenter box office asked them not to queue until Saturday when the tickets went on sale. When the box office opened at 10 a.m., the weary waiters rubbed the weed smoke phrom their eyes, threw off their drug rugs and stepped up to take their place in history — the show, after all, will be Phish’s phirst in its home state since 2004’s epic concert in Coventry, a big, sloppy mess if ever there was one.
By late Saturday, the show’s 10,000 tickets were sold out. All the die-hards walked away from the box office with a $75 ticket in hand (all the proceeds go to the band’s Waterwheel Foundation and the Vermont Community Foundation, which will dole out the money to appropriate phlood relief efforts). But here’s what I want to know — what are all the out-of-state phans doing until Wednesday’s show at the Champlain Valley Exposition, besides making daisy chains, crafting hemp dog leashes, swapping bootlegs and hosting sing-alongs in City Hall Park? Here’s what they should be doing — volunteering.
I submit that if you’re coming to Vermont just phor the show, you need to phind yourself some gloves and a mask and pitch in. More than 700 residences were destroyed or significantly damaged when Irene rolled through. Sorry to harsh your mellow, but hundreds of people are homeless and without work and could really use a helping hand.
Phans might say that they’re already helping out by purchasing a ticket and dropping some cash on limited edition merch. I dig that, Moonbeam Sunflower. But before the money starts rolling in, there’s work that needs doing. And if you could phigure out a way to get your patchworked, Birkenstocked self all the way here, you can sure as hell phigure out a way to provide some assistance.
Not sure what you can do? Phair enough. Here are some ideas:
— You could phill your camper van with personal hygiene products, phirst aid items, cleaning and school supplies and food and take it to South Royalton. For a full list of this community’s needs, click here.
— How about taking down some walls and pulling up some flooring for the Kadrik family in Waterbury?
— Perhaps you could help muck out the Hancock Town Hall basement.
— Maybe you could help phix the phence at Turner Farm on Route 100 in the Mad River Valley.
There are many more projects that you could help with. Your best bet to phind volunteer opportunities is VTResponse. If you are willing and able, they will gladly set you up with something to do. Not able to swing a hammer, carry a bucket or throw things in a dumpster? Consider writing a check the American Red Cross of Vermont and the New Hampshire Valley, the United Way of Chittenden County, the Vermont Foodbank or any number of towns accepting financial donations. Remember to earmark your contribution for flood relief.
Vermont has been good to you, no? We gave you Phish and Ben & Jerry’s and phlannel and weed. That’s right — we invented phlannel. And weed. We might have even invented patchouli, white-people dreadlocks and barefoot dancing. So consider giving back. Then when you go back to New Jersey, you can tell all your phriends how you helped save Vermont. So heady, brah.
This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2011.
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What if I bring a vanagon full of Cheetos, Birkenstocks and drug rugs for the flood victims? Will that be more helpful?
I lived in South Royalton back in the day from about 1980 – 1983 and that is a fabulous town, I remember the town park with the gazebo and all the shops situated around the park, I remember the train station where I got out of my Mom’s car to catch a night train ride and lost my favorite teddy bear immediately after I got out of the car! The energy of the night took away my teddy! I remember the nursery school I attended, where I licked a pole during winter time and my tongue got stuck to the pole, and Ellie (the nursery school teacher) knew what to do to unstuck it, I remember building the largest most glorious snow castles, I remember the ducks and chickens we had, and the small garden we kept up, I remember the scary barn me and my brother used to get lost in, I remember falling out of our tree house and landing on my back and crying, and my Mom consoling me, I remember pulling a bunch of items to the front of our house by the road, attempting to have a garage sale (but my Mom made me take all the stuff back inside) I remember a lightning storm occurred, and a great big tall tree in front of our house was struck, and many many futuristic service vehicles with their lights shining bright in the dark night solving the situation, I remember a lot about South Royalton, and I only lived there for about 3 years! As an older man now who is 34 I have seen Phish almost 200 times, and I have visited Vermont an uncountable amount of times since then. Help Vermont, Save Vermont, Enjoy Vermont.
I am appalled by the shocking truth on this page; of course, it isn’t in this obviously prejudiced piece of journalism, if such a neutral word can be attached to such trash, but in the comments of the readers. Ms. Ober, you sincerely need to research your topics before you write about them. If you had done so, you would’ve found that Phish’s fan-base are very gentle, kind people (for the most part, but every group of people in the world have bad apples).In Bethel, there was to be three Phish shows and camping for attendees. However, a dispute between the venue and the town made the fans homeless for a weekend; while many people were frustrated, they were polite to the point that the sheriff in Bethel personally commended them, even commenting on how helpful they were in picking up trash after the event was over. They’re kind tendencies were also made known after the most recent Phish shows in Denver.It’s also been shown that Phish fans aren’t ignorant or burnt out as you think by the comments on this page. Not one of these comments that I’ve seen is unjustified or derogatory. Also, I’m nearly 20 years old (and Floridian, not from New Jersey, might I add) and I’ve never once imbibed in alcohol or taken extracurricular drugs. You’re simply drawing conclusions because the media, not just you, spin tales about the fan-base and you don’t enjoy their music. Why not generalize about people in total? This isn’t targeting New Yorkers, wealthy people, or people of a different sex/race/religious following/etc. Why target people because they enjoy a different music? If you want to publish articles about “people not donating/helping enough”, go ahead; but leave your prejudiced/hate-mongoring at the door.
I’ve been saying it for weeks now and this post only piles on the evidence. Seven Days editor-owners have permitted such poor, juvenile writing from both Lauren Ober and Dan Bolles to represent their paper, thus turning off their readership. It’s unnecessary and completely avoidable. The owners are devaluing their asset by allowing such amateurish journalism to see light of day. These past few months, the urge to grab the paper on Wednesday has completely disappeared. Instead, I seek out a few things from the online site that are well-written. I blame the pervasive Ober-ish Bolle-ish style that has tainted you once good name. Seven Days – redeem yourself!
Phish’s benefit is going to contribute much aid that the relief effort would otherwise not receive and all this wanna be reporter can do is trash them and their fans. What a way to motivate fans to assist the effort by demeaning them and then ask for their help? If you people to help all you have to do is ask nicely and Phish fans would give the shirt off their back.
What a “phucking” awful article.The attitude you display even makes this VT local want to not lend a helping hand.Nice life.
Unofficial Article Setlist:Band is doing a benefit concert to raise money for victims >Fans support cause by buying ticketsAuthor decides fans of band are obligated to contribute beyond buying ticket >Insult band and its fans as much as possible >Conjure up negative hippie stereotypes to appease hipster readers >Replace F with PH >Say weed and Ben and Jerrys over and over again >PH reprise E: Author is pwned by comments
While Ms Ober’s hipster-contrived wit could, under different circumstances, come off as humorous, this isn’t the time or place for jokes. One word: phired
I hardly ever make comments on articles, but this one is so offensive, so sloppy and so hacky, I’m making an exception.Pretty much everything there is to be said already has been written here, so I’ll just add one more thing: Even though you’re getting thousands of hits on this blog post, that is only happening because people thoroughly dislike your work. And your next blog post will go ignored just like all the others before this.
Wow, she sounds awful bitter to me. I have a feeling if Nickel Back was holding a benefit concert in Essex she may have been camping out for tickets instead of sitting across the street eating a bagel and writing such a “PHantastic”, motivating, article on how to recruit out of town volunteers. performing a small amount research and interviews and this blog would have been completely different. I have to admit I grew up in Vermont but don’t live there now, I listen to the band and I still love cheetos and water bongs sometimes even at the same time (sorry if that validates this poor, irritating article. and enough with the “PH” already!!