I met my wife during the Reba whistling section

There is a stretch in Reba, after the composed part collapses and before the whistling, where nobody in the crowd knows what to do with their hands. You either close your eyes or you look around. That night at Deer Creek I looked around.

She was two spots to my left with a rain poncho tied around her waist and a look on her face like she was doing math. When Trey started whistling she laughed — not at anything, just laughed — and turned to whoever was closest, which was me, and said "this is such a stupid, perfect thing for a band to do."

We talked through setbreak. We talked through the entire second set, which I have no memory of and have since had to look up. We got married four years later at a barn in Vermont and our first dance was, obviously, not Reba, because Reba is thirteen minutes long and my mother would not have survived it.

Every time I hear the whistling I think: somewhere in that field there was a version of me that kept his eyes closed.