20 years later, Phish fan releases documentary ‘Jam’ recalling Coventry festival

By Anna Guber

Click here for updates on this story

    COVENTRY, Vermont (WPTZ) — A legendary concert in Vermont is the subject of a new fan-made documentary out this week, with a focus on the unbelievable journey concertgoers embarked on to see their favorite band perform.

Wednesday, Aug. 14 marks the 20th anniversary of the Burlington-based band Phish’s performance in Coventry, Vermont. At the time, the group said it would be their last performance, drawing fans from around the country to Vermont to see them play.

However, severe weather leading up to the event left tens of thousands of fans stranded on Interstate 91, including filmmaker Alex Daltas. Now, he’s sharing the story of Vermont’s greatest traffic backup in a 30-minute documentary called “Jam.”

“It was just such an impactful, you know, once-in-a-lifetime thing where you just see the true love for a band really get proven,” Daltas said when reflecting on the I-91 backup.

Daltas traveled from Los Angeles with his video camera to capture Phish’s Coventry concert, but he said he ended up using most of his footage on people he met trying to get there.

Torrential rain leading up to the event washed out the roads and the venue where it was set to take place, and Daltas said he was among fans who were stuck on the interstate for days.

He was a recent film school graduate and said he began speaking with fans also traveling from LAX to those on the road to Coventry.

“I was just sticking my camera in people’s faces, you know, like the whole time, and they were all cool about it,” he said.

Daltas said no one knew how long they would be stuck for.

“For a while there, we’re just like, ‘Yeah this is messed up,’ and we thought we’d all start taking bets and ‘Hey, when do you think we’re getting in?’ You know, ‘Alright, you call it’, but nobody really anticipated it would take that long,” he said.

But Daltas said emotions truly peaked when an announcement came over the radio from the band and Vermont State Police that told fans they needed to turn around.

“We made an announcement over the radio to ask people to turn around and not continue to try to come to the concert,” Bruce Melendy, a retired VSP sergeant, said.

Nonetheless, Daltas and thousands of fans were determined to see Phish play. So, they left their cars behind and hiked miles to Coventry.

“I talked to a lot of people that walked in that had to park their car on Interstate 91 and walk 8 or 10 miles to get there, lugging all their luggage, all their stuff on their back,” Matt Maxwell, Coventry’s current town administrator, recalled.

Maxwell’s family owns the farm that hosted the Coventry concert. He said he watched in awe of the thousands of people pouring onto the farm with their belongings in hand and smiles on their faces.

“You’d think those people would been disgruntled or whatever,” he said. “But, they were just happy to be there.”

Now, as they recall the 2004 I-91 backup, Daltas said people like Maxwell and Melendy and all of the “Phans” who hit the road to Coventry have allowed him to paint a greater picture for the world to see — a picture that shows how much Phish means to their fans, and the resilience fans showed during Vermont’s greatest traffic jam.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.