Photos by David Paul Kleinman and Sarah Paige Danielsen

In 2003 Hurricane Isabel pounced ashore in Hampton, VA, doing all the insensitive things a hurricane is supposed to do, including putting my first visit in question. Six days after the storm I arrived in the town I knew one thing about: the cupcake-shaped temple we call the Mothership. I returned the next year to witness what I thought would be my only Coliseum show: the less-than-infamous set flip-flop show. Two years after that I left the Midwest, set up in my parents’ remodeled ground floor, made new friends, found a good job, started writing for the local paper, got a house, and prayed for Phish’s return.

I didn’t even try to get a ticket to the first night in 2009. The second night I was taken for $600; money I only saw again after fifty or sixty angry customer calls to PayPal. Shut out of two nights in my backyard—that stung. The final night I got to see the band with all my old friends from Chicago, and to be honest since then my life has been a series of blessed and fortunate events. If everything goes as planned, my girlfriend (Sarah Paige) and I will be engaged before summer tour. I’ve been able to see Phish 23 times since Hampton 2009, and I’ll be in New York later this month. Sarah and I aren’t photographers, but I hope you appreciate a photo tour of the place we call home. Special thanks to Julia Mordaunt, Beth Rowles, Molly Ward, and Melissa Kennedy.

Old MacDonald’s Farm was owned by the same family from the 1600s until the 1950s. In 1968 construction on the Hampton Coliseum began, so the farm was re-christened Bluebird Gap Farm…

…and it re-located down the street.

Walked on me and danced a jig.

Trigger a blastoplast, ramshackle laker recedes.

Things I needed bad.

Hampton Roads is one of the largest harbors in the world.

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Mayor Molly Ward says “Hampton and Phish make a memorable team. We’d love to host the band and fans on the next tour.” She speaks of going to see the Rolling Stones infamous concert at the Coliseum in 1981, and of a trip from the University of Virginia back to Hampton to see Bruce Springsteen the same year. “We had an old Datsun hatchback, so we put a sign in the back window, ‘Bruce is Boss.’ Cars were honking the whole way down 64!”

From the 8th floor of City Hall.

Edgar Allan Poe resided at Fort Monroe for a spell. As such the recently de-commissioned fort is haunted. Of the proposals for its future public use, nudist colony was surely the best.

Emancipation Oak, located on the campus of Hampton University, once provided intellectual stimulation to Booker T. Washington.

In recent years downtown Hampton has seen a re-birth with the opening of the Taphouse, the Old Hampton Ice Cream Parlor, Modernlux, and the Conch & Bucket.

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Fancy a pint the next time Phish is in town?

The Hampton Carousel: “One of only 200 antique carousels still in the United States, it is a rare and beautiful example of American folk art. Its prancing steeds and stately chariots were painstakingly carved from fine-grained hardwood and painted by German, Italian and Russian immigrant artisans.”