Well that was a damn shame. Nobody was guilty of hyping these Chicago shows more than I and I'm not sure night onecould have ended any more oddly with the venue being evacuated in mass confusion and ultimately calling the show 2 songs into the second set. Coupled with the news that Pearl Jam waited out a two hour delay (under admittedly different circumstances), the whole thing does kind of smart.
Not that Phish owes us any or I expect any compensation, but many folks did devote time and treasure for something taken away from them due to circumstance. Here's ten things the band and promoters could do to show contrition. They are varying degrees of feasibility / likelihood, and most involve the remaining Chicago shows (so you'd be out of luck in Friday was your only show), but they are some ideas to start discussion.
1. Start earlier. Try to squeeze in an extra set by moving start time up for one (both?) of the remaining Chicago shows.
2. Extend curfew. Same idea but may be harder to pull off with the city / park district. If Pearl Jam can play til 2 am in a neighborhood where people live, can Phish do it in the middle of the lake?
3. Maximize time they have. Just start at the ticket time and shorten the set break to a reasonable amount of time to rest hydrate and pee. They'd more than make up for lost time from Friday.
4. Two "Second Sets". We all know the real fireworks come in second set, which was sorely missed on Friday. Come out swinging on Saturday and eschew the perfunctory lineup of in-the-box tunes in favor of full bore jamming from the get go.
5. Acknowledge the situation with narration. Harpuas and Forbins have been rare these days but would be sweet to weave Friday's story into a tale from Gamehenge. "Look Jimmy... The storm's gone."
6. Generally kick it up a notch. Bust outs. Rarities. Debuts. Unexpected jams. Just make Saturday and Sunday shows to remember.
7. Give Pearl Jam a call. They may still be in town and know a thing or two about crowd pleasing. They're not so different from us and can certainly add some spice.
8. Book a fall tour stop in Chicago. We all know fall tour's gonna be 8 nights in the Northeast (or something). Give us more Midwest love.
9. Compensate with goods from livephish.com. Free additional downloads or additional webcasts using our download codes?
10. Apologize. Often and profusely. Sincerely. We'll do anything for you guys but we're not complete pushovers.
