Just realized it’s October 3rd today — one year since my first Pearl Jam concert. I won’t go into the details of the concert, and despite what you may hear I was not tearing up when I realized I had finally made it to a show. That was not me, that was some other dork. These are some pics from the show (not mine — they come with the “official” bootlegs).
Simply put, it was a thrill to see the band live and I was a happy camper. It was cathartic…energizing…amazing to be around 20,000 fans who felt the same. The concert bootleg has been in constant rotation ever since.
The amazing thing is that I was there at all. A couple days before flying up to Philadelphia the whole excursion seemed like a mess. The plane tickets were expensive and I had a day or so to cancel and get some of my money back. Our new dog would have to be boarded for 3-4 days (more money) and the idea of shooting up to Philadelphia of all places started feeling really silly.
I tried to cancel the reservations but fate intervened and my work computer croaked before I could complete kill the plane tickets. Frustrated, I headed home to seal the deal on the home PC.
I explained the whole situation to Ms. MoodyTunes and she said, “You’re an idiot.” Firmly put in my place, I reconfirmed hotel reservations and the rest is history. It was a great trip to Philly, which has strangely become one of my favorite places to visit, and the concert capped it all off. The only downside is that now I feel I have to go to as many PJ concerts as I can to make up for lost time. Two more this summer and more to come, I hope.
An interesting note: I sat next to another PJ fan club member at the 10/3/05 Philly show and ended up next to the same dude at the 5/27/06 Philly show. Small world.
Anyway, I can’t explain the obsession. Or maybe I’ll try in another post. All I can say is: I know! I’m just as amazed as you are. I was always the least likely guy to get into something like this. That makes it all the more fun: Nobody expects that I’d be such a freak about something. Hey, I’m finally doing something right!
Thirty years of trying to do what’s expected and I finally figured out that’s a waste of time.
