[Thank you Ben Harder user @BennyHa_Ha_Ha for recapping last night's show in Bangor, Maine. -Ed.]

Well it’s been a minute for me, and it’s been even longer than that for ME. My first show, at 15, was 12/11/95 at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, and since that barn burner---which included Warren Haynes on both “Funky Bitch” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and even some Elvis homage (for the last venue he was set to play) in the form of a “Suspicious Minds”---I’ve attended a number of shows each year that the band has toured. My run came to an end on 12/31/17, after which I went zero (0) for 2018. Wudn’t pretty, wudn’t preferable, but I suspect that a number of you in the Old Guard know what it means to have to sit out a tour or more to give a child your undivided love and attention. But boy does the passion abide. Perhaps even more so than when I was taking multiple night runs for granted. I listened to every note of 2018 during my hiatus, and once I got beyond the butthurt and the self-pity (and believe me, I delved deep), I just had to marvel at a show like 10/26/18. Dick’s, the New Year’s run, Mexico, they were all gravy.

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