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Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can support Attendance Bias by going to www.buymeacoffee.com/attendancebias and donating anything you can manage–we are reaching the end of the calendar year and I would love it if we could meet our goal to cover expenses before 2026 rolls around. You can also leave a rating or a review of the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, onto today’s episode:

If you’ve been listening to Attendance Bias for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard me mention the date of my first Phish show: December 29, 1997. There’s been plenty of discussion of the 1997 New Year’s run on here, but with one notable exception: the ‘97 New Year’s run was made up of four shows: 1 show at the Capitol Center in Landover, MD on 12/28, and then the best-known shows–12/29-31 at MSG. For years, I’ve wondered about what went on at that one-off show in Maryland. So you can imagine my excitement when today’s guest, Dan Wagener, reached out to ask if he could come on Attendance Bias to talk about one of the best jams from that underrated night: “Runaway Jim” from 12/28/97.

Was the first night of the 1997 New Year’s run a warm-up show? An underrated gem? A throwaway remnant before the big time shows at MSG? Find out today as we join Dan to talk about the Capitols, mimes, and ghosts in the machine as we break down “Runaway Jim” from December 28, 1997 at USAir Arena in Landover, MD.

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Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Certain Phish shows can be seen as flashpoints for the band’s career–Amy’s Farm in 1991, New Year’s ‘95 at MSG, Big Cypress for sure, the Wingsuit set...many of them have been covered on this podcast. Much more rare is a three or four-night run that can be pointed to as a turning point. And I don’t know if there’s a better-known four-show run that is universally praised and seen as a high-water mark as 1998’s Island Tour. Even at the time, we knew that we were seeing and hearing something special, but its place in Phish history only became clear as the years went by.

However, at the time, not everybody had the best time at the Nassau Coliseum and the Providence Civic Center. Today’s guest, artist Patrick Smith, tells of an unsettling experience during the first set of the first show of the Island Tour–April 2, 1998. Still new to Phish and making some rookie mistakes in 1998, not everything went according to plan for Patrick and his friend, but I’ll let him tell the story, including why we are only covering the first set on today’s episode.

More exciting than the show, though, is the fact that Patrick is an artist, and THE artist who created the iconic four-portrait cover of the Pharmer’s Almanac, Volume 6–a seminal and essential guide to the band that was released in 2000. My copy has disintegrated from overuse over the past 25 years, but all of its information, including the cover that Patrick illustrated has pretty much merged with my Phish DNA and lives forever in my memory.

Keeping things in-house, Patrick learned about Attendance Bias from another special guest who had a crucial part to play in the Island Tour, but again, I’ll let Patrick tell the story.

For now, join Patrick and I to talk about hotel reservations, timing your boomers, and Norman Rockwell as we discuss set 1 of April 2, 1998 at The Nassau Coliseum.

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