Delusions of... Everything: Pearl Jam in Ten

If you've missed other installments of my Pearl Jam story you can read them here.

Why Go to one Seattle Pearl Jam show when you can go to three?!

The rumors of Pearl Jam performing in support of their new album in Seattle during the fall of 2002 were true! AND...

Wait for it...

They would be performing on my 40th birthday! If blogging had sound you would hear me screaming in excitement, even 6 years later!

It turned out they would perform 4 shows between December 5th & 9th, and I would attend three of them. Two of the shows would be small club shows to be performed at the Showbox Theater. Tickets were impossible to get, they were only sold over the phone. I was dialing, Handy Man was dialing and a couple people in the Pearl Jam chat room were dialing too. By the time I got through 20 minutes had gone by and both shows were sold out. I was devastated.

The other two shows were large Key Arena shows and I got tickets to both way up in the nose bleed section. The fan club was not selling tickets to these shows because they weren't billed as "official" shows. They were called "warm-up" shows, before the band left for the official tour which started in Australia.

The fan club did offer lottery tickets. This meant entering a lottery for a chance to purchase tickets. I won a chance to purchase tickets for the December 8th show (my birthday!!). I purchased the tickets not knowing where the seats would be until I picked them up the night of the show. I did know they would be better than the seats I'd already purchased.

As the shows got closer I was still frantically trying to figure out how to get to at least one of the Showbox shows. I wanted that small club experience of seeing Pearl Jam more than I can say. If you've followed my story you know I missed out on the Seattle grunge explosion and felt this was my chance to at least get a little feel of what it was like.

Since it was my 40th birthday and I didn't want anything except to see Pearl Jam, Handy Man did the most amazing and ~~illegal~~ romantic. He purchased tickets to the December 5th Showbox show off of Ebay, for more money than I'm willing to tell!

I wrote a very detailed review of what I call My Pearl Jam Birthday Weekend for the message board I visited most. Here are some snippets of that review for your enjoyment!

From the Showbox show:

We met some people in line who were in their 40's and I was thrilled to not be the oldest one there!

They let us in 10 at a time and searched everyone. They told me I couldn't take my camera in, but that I could check it. I couldn't find where to check my camera so I kept it with me and snapped a few shots.

Even though there are a few seats in the bar we decided to stand for the show, very brave, but I wanted the experience.

When the band took the stage I really questioned my desire for the experience! There was a lot of pushing and shoving, but my emotions at being there took over. I planted my feet, shoved and pushed back and rocked on.

It was amazing how everyone was singing along to the new songs. The band sounded and looked great.

Ed completely blanked out and forgot some lyrics to one of the new songs (All or None) and apologized to the crowd for having paid $36 to watch the band rehearse.

The show was definitely all that and more. I wouldn't trade the crowd experience for anything, I also will not be doing it again. I went home battered and bruised but very happy!

Here is a picture of my scrapbook page from the show: