Phans could most easily and accurately be described as people who enjoy the music that the band Phish produces. However, Phish is different than most bands out there, and likewise their phans enjoy them on many different levels and in different ways. Some phans travel across the country on tour with the band from show to show, and city to city. Some take it a step further and bring along recording equipment and tape the shows and take note of song times and setlists. Many more just go to a show or two and are looking to experience an amazing musical epiphany. Some phans primarily go for the large scene that Phish seems to bring on tour with them. Throughout the course of the tour, thousands of phans will pack up their cars with camping equipment and set up makeshift campsites, thus creating little "Phish Towns." So why would kids want to travel around with a band? Why Phish? That comes with a deeper understanding of what Phish is all about.
             Phish was started in 1983 at the University of Vermont and is comprised of Trey Anastasio on guitar, Mike Gordon on bass, Page McConnell on piano, and Jon Fishman on drums (and vacuum cleaner). It was in the small town of Burlington where they played their first shows, and from there, they just seemed to grow by word of mouth, as they still do today. Never was a music video released, nor did they have any radio play, yet by the end of 1994 they were playing large venues. They finished up the year with a New Years Eve Show at Madison Square Garden, where the band greeted midnight by flying around, playing "Auld Lang Syne" in a giant hot dog while flying over the crowd.
             From this point, their popularity exploded and continued to grow. In 1996 Phish decided to hold a two-day festival and called it the Clifford Ball. Here they took more risks than they usually did, including a "flatbed truck jam." "I loved the flatbed truck jam at the Clifford Ball," said Anastasio about the event, "...