It was as if Colonel Sanders had commenced Operation Vacu-suck, draining and pilfering Druidia’s plentiful supply of oxygen in the name of Planet Spaceball, and we were the Druish people, stampeding the last tank operator in town for $5 balloons filled with the life-giving gas.

Only one nitrous oxide tank hissed amid the post-show lot scene, and what a scene it was around that moneymaker. Wookies and newbies, prep school hippies and hip school preppies, diehards and posers, all jockeying for position, throwing unwashed elbows to countless sets of ribs in order to get closer to the dispenser.

After five minutes of eye-poking and price-gouging, our crew resigned ourselves to the fact that the hippie crack was not to be. We would have to just get high on life…and other drugs.

An hour after the encore’s last note, we couldn’t remember where the car was, or for that matter, what band we had just seen. Ah-hah, it’s coming back. There was definitely a sweet “Bathtub Gin” and a rockin’ “Mango Song” in the first set, and Trey made a solid “ear muffs” reference preceding Fishman’s Dust in the Wind vacuum solo.

Pretty good show, except for the misplaced new tunes in the second set. Um, can we keep “Secret Smile” a secret, fellas?

– Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens