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Maybe my anthropological schtick was doomed from the start. I'd already seen Widespread Panic (as well as most other leading jam bands, from the String Cheese Incident to the Disco Biscuits) so this wasn't really foreign territory. But a show in Alabama instead of New York would be different, I thought. This is practically home for these Georgia boys. And one thing I know is that many of the kids in my town love Widespread Panic more intensely than they love anything other than the Crimson Tide.
I'd expected more tie dye and fewer polo shirts. But this was one of the most courteous, least aggressive rock audiences I've joined. The mandate to dance (and maybe whatever the revelers had consumed besides the tallboys they held aloft) diffused the considerable testosterone in the amphitheater. Big dudes shook their bellies and hugged each other. If someone bumped into me, he apologized.
Maybe all the women down front had a certain calming effect. In many years of hearing jam bands and their devotees be vilified, I've rarely heard their female fans discussed. In fact, women make up a large part of this subculture. Around me they hugged their dates and flirted with strangers; but they also danced together in happy little circles, unconcerned about what all those dudes around them were thinking.
When I quizzed one follower who was catching four shows in a row about why he loved Widespread Panic so much, he kept his answer simple: "I love to dance." The friend I brought with me, a professor of Russian history who's often up front at local indie rock shows but also once drove 18 hours to see Widespread Panic, used a fancier word. "It's the mantra," she said of the unnamed, consistent element that runs through the band's meandering shows.
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