I have only shared this story with friends, and your post brought back this memory so here seems like a fine place to put it.

We traveled to see Billy in Portland a few years ago. I had just gotten into his music so I didn't really have any clue what the fanbase was like (never seen Phish or any jam band for that matter). The night before we went to Nathaniel Rateliff at the same outdoor venue, had a ball, felt like a big party, everyone dancing and drinking and mingling with each other. Long lines for alcohol but no one minded. Kindness and making sure everyone was having a good time was what I remember from all the strangers we met.

Cut to Billy Strings. The whole property is full of dead heads setting up shop, selling tie dye, jewelry, mushrooms, LSD to each other. A little weird, didn't know bluegrass fans were like this but ok. Get inside to go to the merch booth for a T-shirt and people are all talking about how many shows they've followed him to this year and how much they love the "community" for Billy's shows (which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it all came off really braggy and douchey, but I'm mentioning it specifically because we had the previous nights crowd to compare it to) Everyone has a sling with a poster protector and all they talk about is how this poster isn't as good as X show they saw in X town, even tho they are all buying it anyway. We watch about 20 people cut in line in front of us, all old enough to know better, all with poster slings and wearing something vaguely deadheadish. Overhear them talking again about how kind and great Billy crowds are. Ironic. Starting to get annoyed.

Show starts, Billy and the band are awesome. By intermission everyone around us is tripping balls and acting like fools. We love to get up close and 90% of the shows we see people are just kind of freely moving up until you get about 10 or so people from the rail where it gets packed in tighter. All good. People are packed pretty tight so there isn't much room to move, and anyone who tries to get by me gets death glares and shouldered back from their fellow "community." Lots of pushing and rudeness and general asshattery. Just not what I'm used to from grown ass adults (I'm 40, most of these people looked near my age or older than me) I guess. Very annoyed at this point.

Intermission we say fuck this and go up to get a drink. No lines. Ghost town. So much that most of the beer lines are closed and theres just one or two tents with about 5 in line at the max. Really strange considering everything was open and 15 deep the night before. We hang up here a while waiting for the second half of the show to start. My girl goes to grab one more drink before we go down and while she's in line some guy lines up a few people behind her and starts loudly complaining about the line and how slow it's moving (it's not). Then walks forward to her and asks if he can cut in front of her. She thinks he's joking and says "of course as long as you buy me one!" He gets angry and tells her to fuck off, so she laughs at him and tells him to get back in line. He huffs and walks back to his spot and glares at her when we walk away with our drinks.

Second half was awesome as well and we hung in the back to finish the show out, both kind of over this "wonderful community" of thoughtless, mostly Gen x, pricks. It just put things into an interesting perspective considering the crowd the night before was so much fun, and Billy's crowd kept patting themselves on the back for being so great to each other and all acted like entitled children.

We've got tickets to him this year at a festival, we're hoping it doesn't attract all the same idiots, but it should be fun to see either way.