I'd like to start off by saying I just saw a kid in the airport who was probably about 8 or 9 years old and had a mushroom hair cut. WTF? I haven't seen that haircut in 10 years and there's good reason for that. it's got to be one of the dumbest haircuts in the history of the world. I feel bad for any kid who's parents would give that haircut. I should have taken a picture of the kid with his mom and put it up as a fail pic.

I've always been a big fan of live music. There's no better way to spend a summer day than getting together with a bunch of friends, tailgating and then going to a show. I took that mindset to an extreme this weekend and went on a mini-tour of the midwest to follow around Phish. I was a big Phish fan in high school and managed to see them 3 different times. Unfortunately, as soon as I was entering my prime years as a concertgoer (college), Phish decided to call it quits. I may never forgive them for that. That decision by them robbed me of many great summer nights. Luckily though, they weren't done for good. My friends and I were able to secure tickets for 4 shows by them this summer and 3 came this weekend (next one is just outside Chicago in August)

We kicked off the weekend on Friday. The first show was in Indianapolis at a venue called Deer Creek. I had long heard good things about Deer Creek, but I had never actually gone. I was excited to check it out. The day didn't start off great. I woke up to torrential downpour outside. To make matters worse, the weather called for severe storms to hit Indianapolis that night. There isn't much you can do about that except wear shoes instead of sandals. I'm not one to wear shoes in the summertime, but I made the sacrifice on this rainy Friday.

Our next problem occurred when highway 90 out of Chicago turned into a parking lot. I was literally able to get out of my car and chill outside for 5 minutes at a time. We decided to take an alternate route. We didn't realize it at the time, but this route took us directly through downtown Gary, IN. Gary is one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in the US. In the past, I've been in the vicinity to go to Casinos in the area, but I had never actually driven through Gary. It looked like a scene out of the Wire. There were many houses and business boarded up or in great decay. We were about the only white people in the area. There were also kids slinging drugs on the corners. At one stop light there were 3 kids about 10 feet from us that were clearly selling. I felt like I was about to hear "Yo, got yo WMD right here." We were able to safely navigate through Gary, past the traffic jam and back onto the highway.

Regrettably, we ended up hitting traffic a few other times. We made it to the concert with time to spare, but our delays had significantly reduced our time to tailgate. To be honest, I didn't care too much because I was the DD that night. I volunteered to drive us there and home that day so that I wouldn't have to worry about driving to the next two concerts. The weather was nice in Indy at this point and after waiting for my friends to slam a few beers, we headed in.

Being around hippies is always an experience. They are very much unlike the people I typically interact with. I have mixed feelings about them. On one hand, they are typically very nice and outgoing. On the other hand, they dress like idiots, don't shower very often and overuse "Dude, man, bro" to such an outrageous extreme that I don't even know how to describe it. Keep in mind, I'm one to use those phrases on the regular. They also take the task of getting fucked up before a show to an extreme. Again, I'm all for getting fucked up before a show. Literally within 5 minutes of the show starting, 2 people within 5 feet of us collapsed. The first guy fell to the ground and landed on my foot. I looked down to see a guy using my foot as a pillow. His eyes were rolled back in his head and he looked very white. He looked like shit. Luckily, his friends helped him to his feet, got him some water and he was fine. I don't need anyone dying on my foot. The next guy hit the deck right in front of us. His friends seemed to be ok with him staying down. He stuck his finger in his mouth like a baby and just went to sleep. Seems like a bad way to enjoy a concert.

The concert was a great show. One of my favorite parts about it was the storm I mentioned earlier. As soon as it got dark out, we could see the storm starting to roll in from behind the stage. It was far off at that point, but we could tell that it was going to be very severe. The lightning was very persistent and very big. As it got closer it seemed to be coming from all angles. I've never seen a lightning storm like this. The lightning would shoot out parallel to the ground and go for miles and just keep branching out. It was truly amazing. I couldn't get my Doppler radar to work on my phone, but I assumed there was a lot of red coming at us. I had a sinking feeling that we were only going to get to see 1 set that night.

This is kind of what it looked like. It was more extreme though.

The first set ended with one the best songs I've ever seen performed. They did a 20 minute rendition of Fluffhead, a song that they rarely play. It was a great way to end the set. In fact, it was so good that I was ok with the concert ending on that note. When the set ended the storm was very close and it was all around us. It wasn't raining yet, but I knew it was coming any second. As expected, they came out and announced the concert would be delayed and asked us to go back to our cars. While in our cars, we got rained on pretty hard, but the lightning and really severe stuff was content with circling us rather than on dropping on top of us. I couldn't believe our luck. An hour later, we were back watching the 2nd set. It started to rain pretty hard towards the end of the set. It downpoured through the break and through the encore. It was only water though. In the end, we got completely soaked by rain, but the show was great and I didn't mind getting wet at that point.

That night I had to drop my friend off in South Bend so that he could attend a family wedding. I needed a pickmeup after the show, so we stopped in at a Steak N Shake and got a feast. I think Steak N Shake is my favorite fast food restaurant. It's so damn good, so cheap and has a huge menu. If you have never eaten there and ever get the chance, go in and get a steakburger with a shake.

After we dropped my buddy off in South Bend, I was on the lookout for a McDonald's so that I could get a coffee. About 90 minutes from Chicago, I saw a sign for a McDonald's open 24 hours. It was one of the blue signs right before an exit with all of the food listed, so I assumed it was the next exit. I was wrong. As soon as I got off there was a big toll booth that somehow had a big line at 4 in the morning. I immediately flipped a U-turn to get back on the highway. I wasn't too pleased by this scenario, because I wanted a damn coffee. As I was making the giant turn to get back on the highway, I looked over my shoulder trying to find those beautiful golden arches. The next thing I heard was "Holy fucking shit Wiggins, what are you doing?" I looked up to see that I was heading straight for the guardrail and was about 2 feet from hitting it. Due to my amazing driving skills, I was able to swerve at the last second and remain in control of my car. I have to give credit to the Neon for responding like a BMW in the face of crisis. That's what Neons do though. They step it up when they need to. I ended up getting home at about 5am. It was a long, but great night. I was ready to get up and do it all over again the next day.