backing band. On December 30, 1994, the band made their first appearance on national network television when they performed "Chalk Dust Torture" on Late Night with David Letterman. The band would go on to appear on the program seven more times before David Letterman's retirement as host in 2015. For their 1994 New Years Run, Phish played the Civic Centers in Philadelphia and Providence as well as sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden, which marked their debut performances at both venues. For the December 31 show at the Boston Garden, the band rode around the arena in a float shaped like a hot dog. The stunt was reprised at their 1999 New Year's Eve concert before the hot dog was donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the end of 1994, Phish appeared on Pollstars list of the highest grossing concert tours in the United States for the first time, as the 32nd highest grossing act, with $10.3 million in ticket sales. Following the death of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia in the summer of 1995 and the appearance of "Down with Disease" on Beavis and Butt-Head, the band experienced a surge in the growth of their fan base and an increased awareness in popular culture. In their tradition of playing a well-known album by another band for Halloween, Phish contracted a full horn section for their performance of The Who's Quadrophenia in 1995. Phish's first live album, A Live One, was released during the summer of 1995 and featured selections from various concerts from their 1994 winter tour. The album charted at number 18 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and was reported to have sold around 50,000 copies in its first week on sale. A Live One became Phish's first RIAA-certified gold album in November 1995. In 1997, A Live One became the band's first Platinum album, certified for sales of 1 million copies in the United States, and remains their best selling album to date. Billy Breathes, The Story of the Ghost, and The Siket Disc: 1996–1999 Following an appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April 1996, the band spent the summer of that year opening for Santana on their European tour. In August 1996, the band held their first festival, The Clifford Ball, at the decommissioned Plattsburgh Air Force Base on the New York side of