It’s only rock ‘n’ roll Organizers say Phish concert goes off without a hitch

For two solid days, It breathed life. Undeterred by standing water in parts of the campgrounds and ankle-deep mud in front of the stage, the estimated 70,000 residents of the organic, overnight community ate falafel, went topless and grooved with relatively few problems. Including fans, staff and vendors, the festival made Limestone the state’s largest city for the weekend, according to law enforcement estimates.

After selling all of its 60,000 tickets, the show – known as It – went fairly smoothly, according to Adam Lewis, the festival’s organizer from Massachusetts-based Great Northeast Productions. The major problem was the mud in various parts of the concert venue, Lewis said, but promoters delayed the entry to that area for two hours Sunday while gravel and hay were laid to dry up the field.

A total of 30 people had been arrested by Sunday afternoon, 20 of them on drug-related charges, according to Lt. Darrell Ouellette of the Maine State Police. Targeting mostly blatant dealers, officers seized Ecstasy, heroin, cocaine and LSD, the latter of which resulted in one of three car seizures because the confiscated amount constituted trafficking, Ouellette said. Other confiscated items included roughly 50 baseball bats, 100 hatchets, a dozen pellet guns and a couple of swords and paintball guns.

The festival also had a half-dozen reported domestic assaults and a couple of simple assaults, such as fistfights, he said. The National Guard’s weapons of mass destruction team responded to a few incidents involving unidentified packages, but didn’t deal with any chemicals or hazardous materials, Ouellette said.

“We anticipated some problems and we had a few, but overall, we were very pleased with fan behavior,” Ouellette said.

All of the law enforcement overtime generated by the nearly 100 local and state officers at the event was paid for by the festival’s producer, Ouellette said, and more was expected after the event when additional troopers were planned to be posted at Interstate 95 exits and Maine Turnpike tollbooths starting Sunday night.

“No one is being asked to leave until 4 p.m. and we’re encouraging people to stay a good part of [today] so they’ll be well-rested,” he said.

Banned from the actual concert site, alcohol flowed freely in the campgrounds. Amateur vendors hawked bottled beers for $3 and two for $5, while more covert entrepreneurs peddled various herbs and other organic edibles. Those who strolled through the campgrounds in the evening encountered frequent wafts of marijuana smoke billowing from tent doors.

Medical staff at the festival were kept busy treating 800 people for minor emergencies, organizers said. Dehydration, sunburns and cuts on feet from broken glass were common causes of visits by people helped at one of six tents and by emergency medics on bicycles in the field, according to David Woodward, a tent supervisor for Peacemaker Medical Services out of Lancaster, N.H. As of late Sunday, 14 people had been transported to Cary Medical Center in Caribou, and all but the most recently transported had been released, officials said.

“This is pretty much what happens when you have an event of this size,” Woodward said, comparing the extent of the emergencies as similar to the previous two Limestone festivals where the medical company also worked. “It’s been a good, mellow crowd.”

During the down times between sets, fans swarmed the festival ground’s Outfield 13, which featured attractions such as the Ferris wheel and the Cliffhanger – a spinning thrill ride similar to Superman flying in circles. A parade Saturday featured jugglers on 7-foot-tall unicycles, marchers in oversized puppet heads and a trail of men and women sporting bunny noses, knee-high boots and tutus.

A more popular destination that generated long lines at nearly all hours of the day – the House of Live Phish – featured 20 I-Mac stations where fans could choose live tracks from recent concerts and burn them to a CD, free of charge. Normally a pay service through www.livephish.com, the festival’s digital cafe even featured songs on Sunday from Saturday night’s performances.

Eric Maxim, 30, of Augusta woke up early just to get into the tent and still had to stand in line for more than an hour before downloading jams from shows in Cincinnati, Atlanta and Chula Vista, Calif.

“Usually I can do this sort of thing off my computer at home, but to have the music available at the show is incredible,” Maxim said. “It adds so much to the festival experience.”

Inside the concert venue, fans navigated through the labyrinth of Sunk City, a group of connected half-buildings erected just for It that gave clues to unraveling the festival’s mystery. Those with an artistic itch hung out in the rock sculpture garden crafting pyramids and pathways from a nearby pile of stones.

A constant the entire weekend, the community created by the festival became the source of inspiration and enjoyment for many of those gathered in Limestone. After traveling more than a solid day from Madison, Wis., for It, 21-year-old Jason Vroman inched along for 10 hours to cover the last 30 miles to his campsite. After seeing dozens of shows, neither the waits nor the weather could dampen his spirits for reconnecting with the community.

“You could meet any of the hundred people right here around us and they would give you a hug and say what’s up,” Vroman said. “After you’ve been to so many shows, it just doesn’t matter anymore. You can reach out to anyone. That’s what makes it so real.”