The Phish concert at the Asheville Civic Center is a little more than three weeks away, and I’m wondering what Ashvegas is doing to prepare for it.
The June 9 concert is one stop along the way of this year’s reunion tour for the incredibly popular jam band. Phish will leave Asheville to play a Knoxville concert, then hit Bonnarroo.
Here’s what I’m thinking: school will be out, summer will have unofficially started and people will be ready to party. And from what I can tell, Phish fans like nothing better than to party.
The Civic Center only sold something on the order of about 7,000 tickets, but there could be another several thousand just tagging along for the party. Could Asheville see an invasion of 10,000 or more fluffheads?
Back in March, Phish and followers played Hampton Coliseum in Virgina. Here’s the top of the story:
Police arrested almost 200 people – most of them on narcotics charges – over the three days the jam band Phish performed at Hampton Coliseum this weekend.
There were 81 felony arrests resulting in 119 charges and 113 misdemeanor arrests resulting in 126 charges, according to the Hampton Police Division. Police also issued 46 criminal summonses.
The arrests amounted to a “very, very small percentage” of the estimated 50,000 people who were in and around the Coliseum over the course of the weekend, said police spokeswoman Cpl. Allison Quiñones.
Will Asheville see a similar influx of morphine lollipops, black tar opium and LSD? Is Ashvegas ready? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
10 Comments
Wow! What a great show! I’m proud of Asheville for handling this event as well as any town could. Not too surprised to see the haters coming out of the woodwork, tho. If there’s one thing the boys do better than jam, it’s stir up the haters. Welcome back!
Morphine Lollypops??? how out of touch are you??? maybe a little less time behind the screen and more time on the scene…
with our country as a whole in a down turn lets embrace what’s real and a little less time feeding fear… if it brings 40,000 plus Americans together in a time were our national media channels and lesser known media channels (like your blog) are try to scare the very soul out of folks and making claims that the sun will never rise again, so don’t bother getting out of bed for fear that you will see a real community experience… than what’s the problem??? try your looking glass! oh and the practice the spelling of LOLLYPOP! WOW~! Asheville might needs this!!! I am tired of the surrounding negativity of 95% of the fools posting on here. Keep believing in the TIGER WOODS bill boards and destroying this town! Go F*** your s*lf with that lollypop and learn to spell it while your at it, why dont you! luv you guys…. 😉
I think Asheville Dweller should go to the show. I’d also be interested (although not that much) in what he/she listens too. Perhaps if you’re not brave enough to step into the Civic Center maybe you could take a minute and talk to the fans that have sold out your hotel rooms and bought groceries from your stores and find out what there about.
I for one love Phish and will be at the show and don’t understand why the city of Asheville wouldn’t embrace this 1 day economic boost like every other town/cities that I’ve seen Phish, what the hell is everybody so scared of. I was at Hampton, VA for the three shows there were no problems at all. The Asheville police need to worry about traffic, parking and keeping the peace not morphine lollipops.
A Phish show without drugs is like playing the superbowl without a football. If the folks show up un drugged they are going to relize the music sucks.
Also, they’re called Phish-heads. And I expect at least as many people to show up without a ticket as have a ticket.
Hey Ash, I read that entire story you linked and I find it unfair to suggest this audience is going to bring morphine lollipops & black tar opium. I didn’t see either of those mentioned in the story. I did see that ELEVEN law enforcement agencies were on the case for those three days and they declared that there were no major problems.
Yes, there are drugs in this scene but I think suggesting hard drugs are prevalent is an exaggeration. I’ve attended no less than sixty Phish shows and I’ve never seen or heard of that stuff. As a matter of fact, your post is the first place I’ve seen "morphine" and "lollipop" in the same sentence.
I can only hope the local law enforcement is out in force, enforcing our drug laws.
Either that or maybe a last minute cancelation of the wretched overated band.
Oh God. Downtown is going to be a disaster.
I remember a few years back maybe more, it was either Wide Spread Panic or Phish, but the fools were selling drugs out of there van with all the doors open. Yes, right next to my car where I pay to park. They as usual did not pay and the parking lot got overrun. Me and my fellow employees could not get out of the parking lot due to all the trustafarians camped out behind our cars. The city needs to control this. We do not need a concert like this held so close to downtown. I think the AGRI Center is much better suited for such large crowds.