Delaware Phish fan has seen band in 180 concerts. He's heard this song the most at shows
CLARIFICATION: Matt Urban's new boss is the owner of Hillside Oil Heating & Cooling in Newark. An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated Urban's new boss oversaw another company that Urban is simultaneously involved with.
Imagine earning a dollar each time you saw your favorite bands in concert. Wilmington's Matt Urban would collect $180 just from the Phish shows he's seen.
He's been hooked on Phish concerts (which include the band's festivals) since 1992.
This includes traveling to see them 180 times in 55 cities, 21 states in North America, and in six international countries (Italy, France, Germany, England, Mexico and the Netherlands).
Phish is luring Urban to The Woodlands of Dover for the jam band's Mondegreen festival in August. It'll be the Vermont quartet's 11th self-created festival.
Urban was going to attend Mondegreen even if it was held in another state. But since the fest is coming to Delaware, he's extra geeked.
"They're playing in my backyard ... that's a no-brainer," the 55-year-old Urban said.
He's doing Glen Close RV camping with a few of his longtime Phish friends he met over the years. One of them is Jim Sellers, his new boss who owns Hillside Oil Heating & Cooling in Newark.
Urban is the chief marketing officer at Hillside and he's also a partner and videographer/photographer for NüPOINT Marketing in Wilmington.
"I can't really separate out my current life and some of the key people, and some of the key opportunities I've had without Phish being a huge thread through the whole thing," Urban said.
Phish brings port-a-potty on stage
He celebrated the turn of the millennium with Phish at the band's Big Cypress festival at Florida’s Big Cypress Indian Reservation on New Year's Eve in 1999.
The Phish festival drew a record-setting attendance of 80,000 people. The band ended up jamming the night away, playing a seven-hour set until the sun came up on New Year's Day.
"They played until 7:45 in the morning," Urban recalled. "They didn't leave the stage. They took no breaks. They had a port-a-potty on stage ... somebody would run into the porta-potty in the middle of the long jam and come back out. Their point was ... we’re gonna play all night. You guys are here for the turn of the century.”
Another reason Urban can’t forget Big Cypress is because he spent 14 hours in a car line to enter the festival, he said.
Delaware fan recalls Phish’s breakup show
Urban attended Phish's first self-produced festival, The Clifford Ball, at Watkins Glen, New York, in 1996.
That event changed the festival landscape and inspired future fests like Bonnaroo in Tennessee and The Woodlands' own Firefly Music Festival to attract tens of thousands of music lovers from across the country to party in big open fields.
He also attended the Coventry festival in Vermont, which Phish announced in advance would be their breakup show in 2004.
Lead singer Trey Anastasio, who explained in a letter to fans archived on the band's website, said it was time to call it quits because “we don’t want to become caricatures of ourselves, or worse yet, a nostalgia act.”
Anastasio was grappling with drug addiction at that time.
While Urban remembers the farewell festival having some “brilliant moments,” the band sounded like a shadow of itself back then.
The Phish fan likened the band’s breakup festival to a romantic relationship where you're on the fence about ending it, yet you decide to give it one more shot. Then it goes left.
"You get a really ugly reminder of why it really is time to end it. That's what Coventry was," he explained. "It was kind of a really sad situation."
‘Chills up my spine’ at Phish reunion show
After the band’s funeral in 2004, Urban was in the crowd in early 2009 when Phish was resurrected and started playing shows again.
Phish played three gigs at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The venue is affectionately nicknamed "The Spaceship" because it looks like a UFO.
"Their first show back, I can't think about it without having chills up my spine," Urban explained. "They walk out on stage — deafening roar."
Anastasio picked up his guitar and played the opening notes. It took Urban a millisecond to realize the band was playing his favorite Phish song, "Fluffhead."
Urban described "Fluffhead" as one of the group’s most complex tunes to perform, and he said the band wasn’t in musical shape to perform it in 2004, before Anastasio got sober.
By playing "Fluffhead" at The Spaceship, Urban said, it was the jam band’s way of making a bold statement: "We are back. We're going to do this right. We're not going to let ourselves down. We're not going to let anybody else down.'"
‘The Simpsons’ cameo at Phish show
Urban lived through many other Phish milestones, including the iconic moment when the band soared above the audience on a giant hot dog at Boston Garden on Dec. 31, 1994. The hot dog is now enshrined in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
He reminisced about the creative ways the band interacted with fans during the 1990s.
This ranged from Phish playing a chess match on stage against the audience, to the jam band creating musical signals for the crowd. For example, the band might play the theme of “The Simpsons” cartoon, to which the crowd would respond by yelling Homer’s famous phrase: “Doh!”
First Phish concert was in Philly as an opener
Urban's first official Phish concert was at The Mann Center in Philadelphia on July 18, 1992. It was the band's first gig there.
Today, the band has the star power to sell out at Madison Square Garden (which they have). But back at The Mann, Phish opened for Santana and the jam band played one set.
The band’s lead singer used his microphone stand as a slide during "Foam," according to their website.
Later that year, however, is when Urban would finally see Phish headline a show in the Philly area.
"My first real [Phish] show was the day before Thanksgiving 1992 at the Keswick Theatre; and for a lot of people that are local, old-school Phish fans, that was also their first."
What makes fans love Phish?
Some key elements that contribute to the addictiveness of Phish concerts for Urban and his peers boils down to the band's enthusiastic fan base.
Another reason Phish is beloved, he added, is their concerts are never the same, and their setlists are always different.
The band's popularity also has to do more with the live experience than their studio recordings as they offer a lot of improvisation on stage.
A song that might be five minutes one night could be 30 minutes the next night because they use it as a framework and then expand upon it.
"That sense of exploration — coupled with incredible musicianship and really fun, quirky, interesting songs you haven't heard of in that style before — is what really caught me," Urban said.
But being embraced by the Phish community is what has kept him coming back to the band’s concerts for over three decades.
"Phish, to those that are in it, is not a band; it's a community," he explained. "You go to a show and you're immediately welcomed, and you feel like family, and it becomes family. That's what's really at the heart of it."
Wild Phish stats from Delaware fan
Here's an overview of Phish stats from the band's 180 shows that Urban has attended since 1992:
He's seen Phish at 64 different venues.
The venue Urban has frequented most to see Phish is Madison Square Garden (17).
Three songs Urban has heard Phish perform most are "Chalk Dust Torture" (53), "Harry Hood" (53) and "Run Like an Antelope" (51).
Urban has seen Phish play at the University of Delaware twice. The first was Feb. 13, 1993, followed by April 18, 1994. Phish has played in Delaware only those two times.
The fan has seen Phish perform all seven days of the week. The most frequent day is Saturday (51 shows) and the least is Monday (8 shows).
He's seen the band play a show each month. The most frequent month is July (43) and the least is January (1).
Urban's Top 5 most-frequented states he's seen Phish are in New York (34), Pennsylvania (33), New Jersey (22), Virginia (16) and Maryland (15).
His most active year for attending Phish concerts is in 1995 (20).
How much are Mondegreen tickets?
General admission starts at $450 and covers access for all four days. If you're bringing a vehicle, you must also buy a camping or parking vehicle pass (1 per car or RV). Parking passes (day or overnight) start at $40.
The cost for general admission car camping starts at $150. GA RV camping starts at $500.
Mondegreen is in The Woodlands near Dover Motor Speedway (1131 N. Dupont Highway, Dover) from Thursday, Aug. 15, to Sunday, Aug. 18. For more info, visit mondegreen.phish.com.
Are you coming to the Mondegreen festival and have a cool Phish story to tell? Please email lifestyle reporter Andre Lamar at alamar@gannett.com. Consider signing up for his weekly newsletter, DO Delaware, at delawareonline.com/newsletters.
More Delaware Phish news
Phish fans have over 40 hotel options: Rooms to book for Mondegreen festival in Woodlands Dover
7 things for Phish fans to know: Before coming to The Woodlands Dover 2024 four-day festival
Phish reveals tickets for Mondegreen: Details on new Dover festival
Firefly wouldn't exist without Phish: Here's why, and what fans should know about The Woodlands before Mondegreen
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware Phish fan saw band in 180 concerts. Mondegreen is next up
