The drive to Winston-Salem took six hours. North Carolina is serious tobacco country. And in tobacco country, Winston-Salem is cigarette city. Mike and Sam bought several cartons each, only $11 because of a Christmas special. That's so sick. I saw a signs supporting tobacco, and cigarettes were even sold in the venue. With Mike and Sam puffing like fiends, the four non-smokers in the back got all the downwind smoke on a consistent basis. I was courteous at first, but  got progressively more annoying as the trip got longer. I was convinced that Trey was going to do an anti-smoking narration at the Lawrence Joel Veteran's Memorial Coliseum, but Trey hasn't been in the narration mood for a while. Even without the narration, the NC show was spectacular. After the past two shows in VA, I was preparing for a letdown. No way to top those Hampton shows. Yup, they did.

The Memorial Coliseum is not as futuristic as Hampton, but has many charms of its own. It has a smaller floor and it was cozier all around, although it probably held about 14,000 with its second deck. It was the third consecutive General Admission show, a definite rarity outside of summer tour. Incidentally, Sam and Mike kept remarking how much better fall tour is with louder sound and a true light show. I agreed and felt a whole lot better about missing summer tour. Fall tour is the bomb.

The My Soul opener tore the house down, starting from a barely audible riff. The rest of the set was chaos, with the Stash> NICU and Fluffhead knocking us down. Sam called the Fluffhead all the way back in New York and it worked. Nobody expected the gift Zero. Almost a 90-minute set. Pretty nuts. I wasn't crazy about the Twist Around, but I could have cared less by the time Fluffhead was rolling around. Screamed the entire song, just like I did with My Soul. Man, is that a fun song to scream. I found myself singing it aloud all night at the hotel.

The Gin opener is, and has always been, amazing. I hadn't even considered it. Paired with "Down with Disease," the opening of the second set fit together like a puzzle. During the extended jam, I heard the riff to Low Rider and refused to acknowledge it until Fish started singing it. Wacky. I knew they were coming back to finish the DwD, so I was dancing incredibly  hard. Funked out like hell, and forever, too. By the time Disease dissipated, I felt like the show should have been over. But it was really only the second or third song. Mike called it Disease Reprise, but it wasn't quite. Axis was unreal. The first time since I knew what it was, I didn't know it was Jimi, and didn't fully appreciate it. I fully appreciated this one. Trey's solo took me over the edge. Total body dance. Each note turned me upside down. Unbelievable show. But the encore was better than anything I'd experienced before.

Phish take their pre-encore wait on the side of the stage, no more than 15 feet from our row. Mike and Sam are leaning off the edge yelling "Yem! Yem!" That would have been phat, but Trey had other things in mind. They come back and the opening to Julius takes us all a little off guard. There's always a bit of disappointment when hearing an encore because it's the last song of the night. For a moment I thought maybe something like Julius> Sample, but then I realized how amazing the Julius would be if I just listened. So I did. And it blew me away. I would look up and see Trey, placing one of his favorite songs with a huge grin on his face. That helped me pick up the energy a bit, throwing my spinning arms way out in front of me and stomping my feet -- maybe throw my long hair around in circles. My eyes were closed most of the time, but every time I looked up, I kept seeing Trey with that huge smile, looking right at our row. I'd make eye contact for a second, then turn down again because it was just too intense. It actually felt like my heart was on fire. The same thing happened about six times throughout the sick climax of the song, Trey still staring me down. It kept on going, too, unlike any Julius I'd ever heard. This was for and away the best Julius my ears have witnessed, and I felt  I had some input on that. Everyone in the row agreed that Trey was working off us, but I didn't believe it until Shawn told us in the parking lot. He said that from across the venue, he could see our row and that Trey was feeding off our us. "You guys made that Julius," he later told us. Pretty intense.

It's not often  you can feel that connection to Phish, and when it happens, it's the best. We were so close and were all dancing so nuts, that it was possible. We all lament missing the club shows, but not too much. I can't forget the post-show Godfather music playing in the arena as we all melted into our seats, absolutely devastated. The official name for this tour, as it's billed, is "Phish destroys America." Oh yeah.

Stumbling up the stairs, some dude asks if I was in Europe. '96? "Yeah, you were the one handing out flyers in Amsterdam, right?" That made me smile and I joked about the flyers' success. He was a friend of Joe's, he said, and his name was Lucas. When I told him my name, he said he knew. He also read my journal in "that book." Right on. Lucas didn't  look vaguely familiar, but it's cool to feel a part of the community. Few shows have ever made me feel more a part of the magic of what's happening than that Sunday night in North Carolina. Smart decision to go. I remember telling Sam early on in the semester that if he continued past Virginia, would catch a bus back to school in Boston. Sure.

I bought the first veggie lot food I found, still angry at myself for passing it up the previous two nights. I mean, Pizza is good and all, but I was in dire need of some healthy veggie food. I picked up a bagel with humus, cucumbers, alfalfa and much other good stuff and was convinced it was the best meal I'd ever had, downing it with an invigorating Mountain Dew. It was warm, all of my senses were reeling with adrenalin, and everyone was just psyched on what I called "for the third night in a row, The Best Show of my Life." Yeah, I know, but it was.

The six of us drove straight on through the night, leaving North Carolina at midnight and arriving in Manhattan just before noon. We dropped Andrew off at the Baltimore airport to catch an 8:20 a.m. flight to Ohio so that he could catch the end of his Chinese class. After three days of constant touring, tripping and traveling, he was going to Chinese class without sleeping a wink. He was trying to study in Virginia, but it just wasn't happening. I crashed hardcore while Mike, Sam and his Wesleyan buddies kept driving north back to school. Personally, I just don't see how that could accomplish anything.