(Published in the second edition of The Phish Companion...)

It was an unusually sunny summer day on the coast of Maine. My significant other and I spent the afternoon in downtown Old Orchard Beach, eating ice cream and lobster rolls and walking along the beach. I actually had a sunburn already when we headed back to The Ballpark for the show.
The Ballpark is a small stadium, built for a minor league baseball team in the ‘80s. It wasn't anywhere near full for the show — my s.o. and I had huge amounts of dancing space where we were planted in front of the tapers’ section, and there was almost nobody in the stands. This was the last truly mellow, uncrowded Phish show I had the pleasure of experiencing.
The beginning of the first set was filled with fairly short songs. It was fun, though — especially hearing “NICU”, which had been a rarity before the Summer '94 tour, and which I had never heard on tape. The high point of the first set, though, was “Reba”. It wasn't the sort of “Reba” that you search for on tape, like the “Reba” on Halloween later in 1994, but there was a certain magic being there. The sun was setting, and tiny clouds in the west (away from the stage) were turning various shades of pink. Trey began staring off into the clouds, and then, quietly, playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. I think the entire crowd looked back to see what he was staring at.
The second set featured more composed stuff (“Lizards”, “Bouncing”, “It's Ice”, “Silent in the Morning”, “Julius”) between the “Split Open and Melt” opener and the “Squirming Coil”. It didn't matter to me at the time, though — this was my sixth show, and I was just starting to build a tape collection. It was such a thrill to hear “Lizards” live after listening to it on tape on the drive to Maine!
The high point in the show, though, was “Antelope”. Imagine “Antelope” has just begun. The crowd goes wild. They improvise around a little on the quiet part, then move on to the louder jam, and then suddenly the sky erupts in an umbrella of pink fire droplets. Big "Ooooos" from the crowd. A great fireworks display — explosions in clusters, one after another, building a visual crescendo while the jam built aurally. At one point the band started playing the fireworks — drums hit when the fireworks went off, a little rising guitar note for the rising spark, followed by chords timed with the explosion. Page played one of the fireballs exactly the way it looked. I swear I was looking at an image of the pleasure sensors in my brain going off in response to the music during the entire fireworks display.
They held the end of “Antelope” for quite a while (waiting for the fireworks to end?), but ended up moving on to “Suzie Greenberg”. The fireworks finale came near the beginning of “Suzie”.
I've seen fireworks to Sousa marches, and I've seen fireworks to Handel's “Water Music” (which was very good, by the way), but I don't think I ever fully experienced fireworks until I saw them with “Run Like An Antelope”.
During the “Fire” encore, roadies lit a Phish-logo ground fireworks display to send us off to July 4th with our brains exploding.

It's funny that several others have mentioned the weather, because that's etched in my mind too. This was a beautiful scene all around. The Dead were on the west coast, Phish was still more an insider band, and there were no knuckleheads in sight. No bad drugs. No dope sick runaway kids. No wookie hustles. Nobody showing up just to get wasted with a crowd. Just a group of thrilled Northeastern fans with perfect weather, gentle security, and a minor league baseball park with lots of breathing room for everybody.

The first half of the first set was mostly just light hearted fun with a rocking crowd. By the time we got to the Somewhere Over the Rainbow part, Trey started gazing up over the crowd with a dreamy look on his face. Soon, I noticed people starting to turn around and we realized Trey was watching the sun slowly dip below the top of the bleachers. The second the sun finally disappeared, he put his head back down and got to business....ok, the sun's down....now we're ready to go. The Reba is great as others have mentioned. I don't remember the Bowie knocking my socks off but I haven't listened to it in a long time.

The band came out for the second set with Page carrying a life-size cut-out of the Simpson family. He plopped it down in front of his piano, where it remained for the rest of the show. The Melt was deep, dark, and awesome. We'd noticed a Phish logo set piece off beside the stage so we suspected some fireworks, but when they came during the Antelope it was a very pleasant surprise. They lit off MANY all at once and the sky just exploded all of a sudden. The Antelope and the Suzy that followed were just a blast of energy and a thrilling way to close the set.

The Reba, Split, and Antelope/Suzy are top notch and should definitely be heard. The rest of the show was kind of lightweight but this remains among my favorite shows I've attended.

Went with tapers, so of course we got there unreasonably early to a nearly empty lot. Killed some time by walking down to Old Orchard Beach and hanging out on the water. Came back to a still-empty lot. Kim's review gets into the details of the day in a most excellent fashion. I too spent the day in front of the tapers (part of the human barricade protecting the equipment) and I too danced and enjoyed. I will reiterate that the soundtrack to the fireworks was one of the coolest things I've ever seen them do. This was one of the best Phish shows I ever attended, and not just because it had the feeling of being at someone's backyard party. Strong performance, great crowd and a stellar summer day!

Fishman dorks like me might be interested to hear Fish's snare drum at this show, which is wound tighter than I've ever heard. I'm working my way thru 94... curious if subsequent shows have this banjo-tight snare. Doubt it...

The SOAM jam gets pretty out there. "Exploratory" a good word for it from the phish.net scribes.

Lizards also gets 15% more far-out (in a jazzy way) than normal. It's not a jam, really, but mildly more interesting than par.

Boy this second set setlist would have been just about perfect if not for Julius. Still a monster set with multiple noteworthy jams, but nix Julius and it would have been even nuttier.

Pretty whimsical start to Antelope. Then some 4th of July fireworks go off just as the jam kicks off, it sounds very well coordinated. High production value firework/music choreography.

Fishman fans take notice: our Little Drummer Boy comes through clearly (for the most part) on this very good spreadsheet AUD, and his playing stands out even more! There are some miscues here and there from the other three, but Fish is on top of his game all night here, and especially starting with the Reba jam, he is driving this train all the way home. IMO one of the better Jon Fishman shows from 1994.

Phish shows from 1994 are also fun listening for the random standout versions of songs that are normally routine in the setlist. With a lot of early 90s shows, a listener might be inclined to skip the fluff and head straight to the highlights. But there are interesting moments in some unusual places: some megaphone-feedback from Trey during the build-up in My Friend, My Friend, a nice, heavy > from Axilla Part II into a killer Bowie, some fun Trey interaction w/ Page during his solo in Lizards, and a funky breakdown in It's Ice. Add those to the thrilling jam-chart versions of Reba, Melt, and the explosive Antelope > Suzy closer, and that's just about 100 minutes of a great Phish show mix

1994 was thee year for Reba. This one doesn't even stand out when there's the likes of 5.27, 5.28, 7.6, 10.31, and 11.25 to compare it to; however, it is still really phenomenal. At first I was skeptical that this whole "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" business was going to be one of those jam halting ideas that drag on for too long, but I was glad to be wrong. The "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" jam is quite nice and fits well within the Reba jam.

The Split Open and Melt is abnormally long for the era and is pretty great as well. There is some really nice engaging jamming throughout its seventeen minutes. The Antelope does not particularly stand-out, just rages like usual for the era. However, right after the peak, it sounds to me like the band is trying to interact with the fireworks. They drop the Fish and Mike groove and just start making abrupt eruptions of cacophonous noise that pretty closely parallel when the fireworks go off. I'm not 100% percent sure this is the case, but it sure sounds like that could be it.

The rest of the show is par for the course. I hadn't listened to any Summer '94 for quite a while and this was a nice show to remind me why I like it so much. 4 Stars.

It was the most empty show I've ever been to (meaning there was hardly anyone there!!) and it was a gorgeous day out! I remember running into the field as My Friend started playing! Honestly it was like seeing Phish in my High School baseball field, but even smaller! The "Old Home Place" was very appropriate! One of the best shows! :-)

awesome melt that no one ever talks about, worth a listen