Phish at Magnaball, Watkins Glen, NY, Aug. 23

I managed to get up and get out for a 14-mile run on that Sunday morning, outside the concert grounds and through the incredibly hilly surrounding town. It was brutal work, but nothing could shake the great vibe of the weekend.

When I finished, it was another bucket shower and then off to the concert grounds to ride the Ferris wheel, have another cocktail at the M Lounge, enjoy some food, and soak in the atmosphere for one final day.

Phish came out swinging again that night. Although none of the first set performances will make the Phistory books, it was a relentlessly solid and often rocking set that included an incredible "Maze" and the rare "Buffalo Bill".

The second, final set of Magnaball (and my last of the tour), was chock full of big jams ("Down With Disease", "Mike's Song > Fuego > Twist > Weekapaug Groove"), and  beauty, too ("What's the Use", "Dirt"). It also had some wild surprises: it was the third "Use" that month, "Scents and Subtle Sounds" was played for only its third time since its previous performance in Watkins Glen in 2011, and "Martian Monster" sandwiched the set, opening and closing to the crowd's delight.

The "You Enjoy Myself" encore should have come as no shock, but there was still a "wow" factor as the band kicked it up and knocked it out of the park as fireworks blasted to close out this truly epic weekend.

In the end, as we drove home the next morning, it was clear to us that we had witnessed - no, EXPERIENCED - a Phish festival that will forever stand with the best of them. We are lucky that we will always have the memory and the mp3 download to get us through the next several months without Phish.

For me, it was eight shows in four states in two weeks. I could not think of a better summer vacation.

Full set list:
Set 1: Punch You In the Eye, Buffalo Bill, A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing, Limb By Limb, Waiting All Night, Theme From the Bottom, Maze, The Line, Stash, Reba, I Didn't Know, Character Zero

Set 2: Martian Monster Down with Disease, Scents and Subtle Sounds, What's the Use?, Dirt, Mike's Song, Fuego, Twist, Weekapaug Groove, Martian Monster

Encore: You Enjoy Myself

Phish at Magnaball, Watkins Glen, NY, Aug. 22

Saturday morning, I woke up remarkably rested after spending the night outside in my sleeping bag and having the sunrise wake me up.

First stop, 9:30 a.m. yoga at the Studio X tent. After that stretchy hour, I ran six miles throughout the venue, checking out the various campsites, with some folks cheering me on as I passed.

Then it was a bucket-shower (with my battery-operated shower head), a few beers at camp with my buddy, Marshall, and off to the afternoon set which began with a cloud-clearing "Divided Sky". We staked out a good spot in the center but far enough back to avoid the big crowds.

Once again, the set list was a veritable mix tape of new and old Phish tunes and everything in between: the slow groove of "Camel Walk" is one of the band's oldest songs; the try-clapping-to-this "Mound", the ever-danceable "Tube", the super-funky "The Moma Dance", and the rocking "Sample in a Jar" repped the 1990s; the too-infrequently-played "Army of One" and one of my favorites, "Undermind", provided a dose of 2000s; plus the brand new Mike Gordon tune "How Many People Are You?" and Page McConnell's "Halfway to the Moon" kept things current. Plus, the Los Lobos cover "When the Circus Comes" brought back memories of the Great Went. Trey Anastasio's solo band song "Scabbard" and the raucous set closing classic "Run Like an Antelope" provided the highlights. And this was all during daylight.

There is simply not enough praise I can heap onto the second set of this show.

I love when "Wolfman's Brother" is either the set opener or closer. In this case it was the former, with a thick and climactic jam that set the stage for the greatness to come, though there was not much about "Halley's Comet" that would indicate as such. But "46 Days" was unleashed and that usually means the rock energy gets cranked. So much so, in fact, that the subsequent "Backwards Down the Number Line" (which can sometimes fall flat - see Merriweather) kept the good times a-coming. When "Tweezer" came out of the gate, it was ON, and the set took off into the stratosphere.

As "Tweezer" raged on, the jam somehow worked its way back into a "Number Line" groove, with blissful major-key climaxes. Seventeen minutes later, as "Prince Caspian" began, I could hear the echo of my old friend Rob Johnson who, at the Big Cypress festival in 1999, moaned and groaned about the song.

I hope Rob heard this version. There has never been anything like it. Not only did it go on for about a quarter-hour, but it broke free from its I-IV shackles and ventured far, far out. And just as "Tweezer" found itself in a jam befitting the song before it, "Caspian" somehow managed to get into a huge "Tweezer" groove, ebbing and flowing and providing still more climaxes - enough, in fact, to end the set. It was epic.

The third set began joyously with "Meatstick", but why does no one in the crowd do the dance anymore? Don't they know that 16 years ago at Camp Oswego we were trying to break a world record with thousands of people doing it? Now, you can't even find a dozen.

During "Blaze On" I began moving up into the crowd from the nice, peaceful open area in which I had been with Marshall to meet up with some other friends. It was so difficult moving through the throng that I did not get to appreciate what was probably a great jam on this excellent new tune. I found Meredith and John in time for the over-played but crowd favorite "Possum". "Light" (always reliable for a good jam) followed a sing-along "Cities", but I had enough of the thick crowd and moved back to where the view was not great, but the sound was good and the dancing room a-plenty. The latter proved beneficial for the funk of "555" and the "Boogie On Reggae Woman" encore, as well as the rock climaxes of the set-closing "Walls of the Cave" and the show-closing "Tweezer Reprise". All this, plus a beautiful "Wading in the Velvet Sea", made for another excellent set in what was easily a tour-highlight show.

And still, the day was not even done.

Like many others, we suspected that the festival tradition of late Saturday night sets would continue at the enormous 175-foot wide drive-in movie screen on the side of the concert field, so Marshall, Meredith, John and I hung out at the nearby M Lounge tent, which had transformed into an all out disco dance club. We ate, we drank, we danced on the table to Prince (OK, only I did that). At 1 a.m., the band, reportedly behind the screen, began the spaced-out, hour-long, free-form, songless jam while the screen showed trippy, colorful images that included vague but recognizable shots of the band, and the huge letters atop the screen that spelled "Magnaball" flashed and glowed. Though it is tough to beat the superb Tower Jam ("The Great Gag in the Sky") from the It festival, the "Drive--In Jam" came close, both musically and visually.

At around 2 a.m., the four-set show containing five and a half hours of music, and a non-stop day that began (for me) 18 hours earlier, had finally concluded. Sensory overload - in all the right ways - is a hallmark of Phish festivals. This particular Saturday had everything. There was not a moment that was not filled with good times, great music, and friendly faces. It is almost unbelievable that there was still another day to come.

Phish at Magnaball, Watkins Glen, NY, Aug. 21

The sun was rising on Friday morning as we pulled into the entrance of Watkins Glen International raceway with no traffic and no hassle. That is, until they told us the ticket scanners were malfunctioning and we had to wait awhile.

Ah well, nothing to do but crack open a brewski and wait.

Sure, it was 6 a.m., but Marshall and I had been awake for almost 24 hours - he because he had traveled from New Orleans and his flights were delayed arriving in Newark; and I because I worked on Thursday, then ran, then picked Marshall up at the airport after midnight. Somehow, we managed to stay awake throughout the four hour drive upstate. It was beer o'clock for us.

Scanners finally working, we were led to a campsite that was close to the entrance, but 3/5 of a mile from the concert site. We set up our tent, downed another beer, and took an hour nap. We were too excited to get into the festivities.

Inside the concert ground, there was already fun to be had. I checked out the Phish version of "Family Feud" featuring fellow concert-goers as contestants in the Studio X tent; "Glurt factory" art installation; "Monkey Maker" performance art; cornhole beanbag tournament; and the Labratory, an artwork/hangout area with a second level deck from which to view the goings on.

I also found the M Lounge where deliciously boozy specialized cocktails were being served (I had the Cuddly But Muscular).

By the time Phish opened with "Simple" I was slightly drunk, overtired, and super-excited. They came swinging with bustouts - the first "The Dogs" since New Year's Eve and Halloween; the first "The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday" and "Avenu Malkanu" since Jones Beach 2012 (I was there!); and, incredibly, the first "Mock Song" since its debut at the Gorge in 2003. We grooved to "Free"; chilled to "Roggae"; got a double dose of 'Rift' with the title song and "The Wedge"; and sang "Happy Birthday" to Eliza Anastasio for her 20th birthday.

All of that would have made for a perfect set, but then Phish destroyed us with what was arguably one of the best performances of "Bathtub Gin" in the song's 26 year history.

And that was just Set One.

Once again swinging for the fences in Set Two, Phish brought out heavy hitters like "Chalk Dust Torture", "Ghost", "Harry Hood", and a "Slave to the Traffic Light" closer and knocked them all out of the park. They were firing on all cylinders, crushing it over and over, bring blissful peaks, some "Rock and Roll" Velvet Underground style, yet another funky version of the new "No Men in No Man's Land" and a lovely "Waste".

By the last strains of "Slave", the temperature was in the upper 50s, but I was bundled up ("like it was December," according to my friend, Meredith) because my body was shutting down after being awake for 41 of the previous 42 hours. I could barely stand as the "Farmhouse" encore gave way to an ecstatic "First Tube" to end the show.

Marshall and I beelined it to the campsite and promptly passed out - he in the tent, me under the stars. There was partying and revelling and noise and even some fireworks going on around us, but we slept like bricks. A good night's sleep after a long day of work and travel followed by a well spent day of good fun and excellent music. The sensory overload was just beginning.