Bonnaroo, June 2004. Photo by Regan T

The view outside of Vermont’s most famous barn reflects the mood inside the cavernous room. The mountains in the distance glisten with snow, while the birds of spring seem to sing with a renewed optimism. Inside, warm laughter keeps pace with the hard work at hand, as Trey Anastasio and his still unnamed band run through previously unplayed material. Inside and out, it’s a bright and cheerful scene. 

“Let’s play ‘Low’,” Anatasio says smilingly to his bandmates, drummer Skeeto Valdez, bassist Peter Chwazik, keyboardists Ray Paczkowski and multi-instrumentalist Les Hall. Valdez counts off the beat as Hall (who is playing guitar for this song) strikes a Pete Townshend-like anthemic chord. Anastasio quickly joins in to lead his crew on the maiden voyage of “Low.”

The following is an excerpt from Relix magazine's September/October '06 cover story.
 

photo: Lynn Goldsmith

 "The one thing that people always get wrong about us is that they think that we're the Grateful Dead, when we're really the Led Zeppelin of the jamband world," explains Nance.

"With Panic it's all about the song itself, and the jam part just came as a consequence of just having fun playing a good song," agrees McConnell. "It's kinda like Led Zeppelin when they play something that they've written in the studio, then when it gets live it would become this big monster thing with a drum solo. But then you could just as easily say that they're really Black Sabbath. As I understand, Mikey [Houser] was a big Black Sabbath freak, and real into heavy music and stuff.

Hunter S. Thompson graced the cover of Relix magazine’s April/May 2003 issue. Our writer, Jesse Jarnow, met Thompson that February in New York City for lunch and spent the day with him, conversing, drinking and rabble rousing. Below is an excerpt from Mr. Jarnow’s cover story. For a complete copy of the piece, please visit www.relix.com/hunterthompson to order the issue in its entirety.