Delusions of... Everything: Pearl Jam in Ten

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

I can't believe I've neglected my story since March! Bad blogger! One of the main reasons I started blogging was to share the story of my Pearl Jam infatuation. I guess I found other uses for my blogging!

On to the rest of Track Four.... Why Go to one PJ show when you can go to three?! (Cont.)

Pearl Jam was performing four shows in five nights in Seattle, all surrounding my 40th Birthday. I had met many other Pearl Jam fans on the internet. As of yet, I hadn't met any internet people in real life, that would change very soon.

A couple nights after the amazing small club show at the Showbox there was a fan meet up planned at a local bar where a 90's cover band called Grunge would be playing. Since it was the night before my 40th birthday Handy Man and I decided to go and we partied hardy! I met one guy that night who I'm still friends with to this day, Dan from Oregon. My family and I even went to his wedding and Dancing Daughter and I will more than likely be going to their upcoming baby shower! But I digress, kind of... What I've found on my Pearl Jam journey is that the people I've met really mean more to me than the band.

The next day was my birthday and I had a horrible hangover... Not a good way to start the day. Partying hardy is not the same when you're 40 as when you were 25! We had plans to meet family and friends for my big birthday dinner at the Olde Spaghetti Factory before the big concert. My new friend Dan even showed up, with a couple other internet friends. It really was a great time.

A quick side note about Pearl Jam's fan club. When you are a member you get first opportunity to purchase preferred seat tickets to shows, usually... For these shows they did lottery drawings for the chance to purchase tickets. That meant that if you wanted to be guaranteed a seat at the show you had to buy them the old fashioned way. My tickets were way up in the high section. However I won a lottery pick to purchase fan club seats. The catch is you don't know where your seats are until you pick up the tickets before the show. Now I had 4 tickets to the show, luckily Handy Man's sister and her boyfriend wanted to go, so they got to use the other tickets.

We ended up having great seats, in the sight line of the lead singer and I swear to you Eddie Vedder was singing to me all night long, at least what I've deluded myself into thinking! Because it was a benefit show for various charities in Seattle there were two opening bands, Brad which is a local favorite of mine and Steve Earle, whose music I was not familiar with. All bands performances were amazing! This was my 5th Pearl Jam show and I just loved them more and more every time I saw them perform! I just wished that I didn't feel like I was going to pass out everytime I cheered really loud or tried to do any dancing of any kind. I decided on that night that the 40's were not going to be fun.

Handy Man and I stayed in a hotel with a gorgeous view of the Space Needle and the next day my parents brought the kids to town to continue celebrating my birthday. Handy Man and I were lucky enough to be going to yet another Pearl Jam show that night, but we hung out all day doing Christmasy stuff with the family.

It really was the best way to spend a 40th birthday!

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