By Scott T. Sterling
Over the past few years, the American rave scene has been shadowed by the specter of illegal narcotics, with club drugs like Molly becoming more and more prevalent in the EDM-driven world. It was much more traditional rock scene at New York’s Madison Square Garden, however, when local police made 228 arrests at the first three of four Phish shows this week, with a majority of the offenses being related to drug possession and sales.
According to the New York Times, the drug haul outside of those three Phish shows (which culminated with an epic New Year’s Eve blowout) read like the chorus to Queens of the Stone Age‘s “Feel Good Hit of the Summer.” Mushrooms, hash, marijuana, MDMA (AKA molly), OxyContin and Xanax were all among the narcotics confiscated during the arrests.
For many music fans, Vermont jam band Phish have taken up where the Grateful Dead left off, combining virtuoso musicianship with heavy improvisation and whimsy. The band’s massive audience, known as “Phish heads,” has become known for drug use, which generated the thick police presence around Madison Square Garden over the band’s four-night stand. Phish has made playing MSG a recent New Year’s Eve tradition, beginning back in 2010.
While a majority of those arrested were given summonses or charged with misdemeanors, 10 have been tagged with felony offenses, primarily for selling drugs to undercover cops.
The city of New York has been particularly sensitive to concert drug use of late, with the third day of the 2013 EDM festival Electric Zoo being shut down after two attendees died and four more became seriously ill from drug-related causes.
“I hate to feel like just because of a certain look that Phish fans have, or a certain idea that goes with Phish, they’re targeted in a very certain way that maybe other fans are not,” said college student Julia Johnson, who attended the concert. “We’re all here to see music that people love, and the drugs and all that are just a part of the experience that everyone is trying to have together.”
(Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Filed under: Headlines, Latest Headlines, Music, Rock Tagged: arrests, drugs, legal, madison square garden, new york city, Phish 
