What do you remember about the time between your dinner at The Schwebel Room and the start of the concert?

Dan Soulsby: I remember the anticipation leading to the opening of the doors and the police and security thinking that the gym was going to fill up in like five seconds, but I knew they were going file in slowly. It wasn't general admission or anything but the security were acting as if it was like a Justin Bieber concert or something.



Did you get to see what was going on in the parking lot?

Soulsby: I didn't have time to. I really wanted to. We were so busy inside the MAC just making sure everything was set up right. I remember that we had a bunch of volunteer ushers to show people where their seats were who we didn't have to pay but they got to see the show for free and I remember having to throw one of them out because I'm like 'dude, you're not showing anybody where their seats are. All you gotta do is just show e'm where their seats are with your little flashlight and then you can watch the show.' And then I came back 20 minutes later and this guy was just still dancing so I had to call security and told them to kick this guy out because he was pissing me off.



What distinct memories do you have of the performance?

Soulsby: Oh boy, I was running around so much backstage and in front of the stage that i can't even remember the whole set but I know it's online and I'm looking forward to downloading it. I remember my parents came down to the show and I asked my dad about what he thought and he was impressed that they were actually really good musicians. I think he was just expecting a bunch of guys to go up there and just fiddle around or something.



During the set break we were having problems with the folding chairs that we had set on the gym floor. They were zip tied together and people were pulling the zip ties off and pushing them away and I remember the fire chief and those people were worried about that because of the fire codes. I remember trying to handle that by bringing down more volunteers whose job it was to just keep the aisles clear so the crowd could still dance.



What do you remember about what happened immediately following the show?

Soulsby: I remember getting a check for Phish and sitting down to go over the numbers for the night. We had to write them a check and we had to get our checks from them for 20 percent of the merchandise sold. I'd never seen numbers in the hundreds of thousands before. It was over $100,000 we were talking about! Ya know when you're in college you're lucky to have $3 in your pocket and $0.99 cents left on your flashcard, so when you are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars it was just mind blowing. I remember breathing a sigh of relief that there were no EMS incidents.



What happened to Phish after the show? Did they stay in town?

Soulsby: I remember hearing stories but I don't know. I'd like to know. I'd heard that they might have gone down to to get a piece of pizza. I don't know if that's true or not, but I did hear they were socializing with people after the show.





Dan Soulsby currently owns Mentor Signs & Graphics, an advertising/marketing agency specializing in large format printing, vehicle graphics, banners and trade show displays. In his spare time he blogs about his small farm in Hudson, Ohio.



Images for this story are courtesy of The Daily Kent Stater and the Department of Special Collections and Archives, Kent State University Libraries as well as Dan Soulsby. Additional editing by Shane Hrenko.



If you enjoyed this Kent story don't miss my others concerning , , , and .