Among jam-band fans, the show has been famous for more than 25 years.

On April 3, 1996, Athens, Ga. sextet Widespread Panic played a three-and-half-hour concert in front of 2,582 fans at the Von Braun Center arena in Huntsville, Ala.

It was a hot, intense show. The highlight: Chemtrail-toned solos by lead guitarist Michael Houser, who’d die six years later from pancreatic cancer at age 40.

In addition to fan-beloved Panic originals such as “Can’t get High,” “Arleen,” “Porch Song” and Love Tractor,” that night in Huntsville, the band ran through inspired covers of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain,” Dr. John’s “I Walk On Gilded Splinters,” Van Morrison’s “Satisfied” and Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home.”

The ‘96 Huntsville show was passed around by tape traders as a prized bootleg for years. In 2009, Widespread Panic released a multi-track recording the show as “Huntsville 1996″ as part of its archive series, still available as a digital download or compact disc via nugs.net.

Now, on Feb. 3, Widespread Panic has released the legendary concert as a five-LP vinyl boxset. The “Huntsville 1996″ vinyl box is available at independent record stores including Vertical House Records, located at Huntsville arts center Lowe Mill, address 2211 Seminole Drive.

Vertical House owner Andy Records tells AL.com that as of publishing of this story, “I started out with 30 copies and am down to 23 at the moment.” If you’re a devoted Widespread Panic fan or just want a piece of Huntsville concert history, at $70 for five LPs the boxset is a solid deal. “Huntsville 1996″ is Widespread’s third vinyl release from their deep archives of live recordings.

Widespread Panic first performed in Huntsville back in the late ‘80s, at iconic local dive-bar Tip Top Café. By the mid ‘90s, the band had graduated to amphitheaters, theaters, coliseums and arenas. Their sound, a transient natural mix of rock, blues, folk, funk and jazz. The band’s known for their alchemic onstage musician improvisations, or jams. Their everchanging setlists have rarely repeated songs during back-to-back shows.

In addition to Houser, Widespread Panic’s lineup for the 1996 Huntsville show featured raspy voiced singer/guitarist John Bell, bassist David Schools, drummer Todd Nance, keyboardist JoJo Hermann and percussionist Domingo “Sunny” Ortiz.

Formed in 1986, the hard-touring Widespread Panic have played thousands of shows. In 2014, I asked Ortiz if he still remembered the ‘96 Huntsville gig. He replied, “I remember the show. But you have to take into consideration that for us, we look at every show as an epic. The fans they tend to have a different perspective. One of the things that is real hot right now, and I use ‘hot’ as a starting point, whenever there is a recording with Mikey, Mike Houser, on it, I think the true fans really want to hear that epic Panic with Mikey.”

In the liner notes for “Huntsville 1996,” Widespread Panic’s official archivist Horace Moore wrote that whether that show, “was someone’s first or 250th show, or even if they didn’t see the band for the first time until a few years later, this show continues to hit the note. For the record, I was not there, but also fell for this show a long time ago. It’s never quit on me and has been the focus of much enjoyment and many conversations over the years.”

Last year, Widespread Panic returned to Huntsville for a buzzed-about three-night stand at the city’s new Orion Amphitheater. The band’s current lineup includes Bell, Schools, Hermann, Ortiz, guitarist Jimmy Herring (formerly with the Allman Brothers Band) and drummer Duane Trucks (younger brother of former Allmans guitarist Derek Trucks).

Unlike contemporaries like Blues Traveler and Spin Doctors, Widespread Panic never found MTV-fueled mainstream fame or pop-chart success. However, the band was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2008, has been a jam-centric festival headliner for eons and maintains a sizable fanbase to this day.

This February is shaping up to be a notable one for Widespread Panic. In addition to the “Huntsville 1996″ vinyl boxset, their debut album, 1988′s “Space Wrangler,” celebrates its 35th anniversary Feb. 4. “Space Wrangler” is anchored by such cuts as “Chilly Water,” the title track and “Driving Song.”

In 2016, Widespread’s John Bell told me decades later, when the band plays material from their debut, those songs, “seem like familiar old friends. The thing that really strikes me is when you think of the early days of writing and stuff when we were all scratching by financially and all living in the same house and writing songs together. You’ll remember the moment we wrote it together or parts of it or certain lyrics and stuff like that, where they came up and where you were in your relationship with you buddies. So that’s kind of cool.”

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