One of my favorite performers of all time is Trey Anastasio. I’ve seen him play dozens of times before, mostly with Phish, sometimes with other jam bands he’s led as a soloist.

I’ve seen various symphony orchestras through the years as well, from high school groups up to philharmonics from major cities.

I have a split personality when it comes to music.

(Actually it’s more like 17 different personalities, but two big ones.)

Both sides of said personality were able to hang out at Wolf Trap last night and be entertained by Trey Anastasio and the National Symphony Orchestra.

Thanks for playing a gig a few miles up the road from my house, guys.

It was either the most staid Trey show I’d ever seen, or the most raucous orchestral performance I’d ever seen, or perhaps some happy Goldilocks medium that brought a few worlds together. Yeah, there were some drunken (among other things) hippies there and some very confused opera-goer types, but for the most part everyone was embracing the alliance. Tuxedo t-shirt was sort of the standard uniform.

Trey doesn’t sit in with the symphony too often (and vice versa), so this really was the first time I was hearing most if not all of these arrangements. Yeah, I’ve heard the tunes before but not like this. I liked being surprised and I liked seeing something different.

Both of me did.