(If you need to catch up on the story here you can do so here.)
Even Flow is a song that features the impressive guitar work of Mike McCready. When played live he takes the song to a whole new level, as I would soon find out... First I had to get tickets to the show.
When I decided to suck it up, be brave and go see Pearl Jam in concert the question was how to get tickets? At this time in my life I was a day care mom and had a full time employee, ShaSha. ShaSha and her b/f, The Butcher, were considerably younger than Handy Man and myself. The age difference is close to 15 years, but we had a lot in common so we hung out together after hours. They wanted to go see Pearl Jam too. As the date of the ticket sale approached we formulated a plan of action. We decided ShaSha would go to a ticket outlet in person to wait in line for tickets. Handy Man and I would be at home using two phones and the computer to try for tickets. The drawback of the computer was the dial up modem we had back then, making it almost impossible to do things like purchase tickets when thousands of others were trying too.
Ten a.m. arrived and we started dialing. It was horrible, we could not get through at all, busy signal after busy signal. After about 30 minutes I got through on the computer... Sold Out! The only thing I could do was sit and wait for ShaSha to get back to see if she was successful. She pulled into the driveway and I was very nervous. She tried to look sad and unsuccessful, but she couldn't fool me. I was going to see Pearl Jam. I've been forever grateful to ShaSha for helping me get to my first show!
July 21, 1998, the day of the show I was extremely nervous. Since the seating was general admission we decided to get to the Seattle Center early to wait in line. It was very warm and it was an outdoor concert. I started to feel more at ease when we arrived to the line. There was a huge range of ages, even people older than me! When the gates opened we went to get seats, yes we got seats! I wasn't about to get into the massive crowd of bodies just yet. We found nice side seats with a great view, settled in and started people watching.
I've been stuck about what to say from this point on because I know I won't be able to convey the excitement and elation as Pearl Jam took the stage. I had been waiting for this moment for so long. Finally, with smiles on their faces, the band walked on stage and wasted no time getting into the first song, Corduroy. "The waiting drove me mad, you're finally here and I'm a mess." Very appropriate start to my first show! Even though the evening was very hot the band was full of energy that could be felt throughout the stadium.
The cool thing about being above the floor crowd was you could see the ebb and flow of movement. You could see people moshing in pits and crowd surfing. You could see the crowd responding to the band appropriately with raising of arms, waving and jumping up and down in unison. At one point The Butcher decided he was going to crowd surf. He took off and ShaSha was a nervous wreck. We tried to keep track of him as he made his way through the crowd, but we lost him. It seemed like forever before he got back and when he did he was scratched up, sweaty and totally pumped. He said when he got to the front, lead singer Eddie Vedder looked him right in the eye and it was electric!
A note on the guitar work of Mike McCready. At this show I realized that he can set his guitar and the crowd on fire with his exceptional playing and he has a blast doing it. It's obvious he loves his job and everyone loves watching him do his job! As I watched and listened to him play I couldn't remember why I was so scared to go to a Pearl Jam show. I felt like I was home!
I can't think of one song I wanted to hear that they didn't play. I heard all my favorites of the time, biggest favorite being Given to Fly, which remains my favorite Pearl Jam song! When the first chords of Baba O'Riley started the crowd went wild. (Later in my "research" of the band I would find out that Eddie Vedder is a huge Who fan and Pete Townshend is one of his idols.) They did the Who proud with their rendition of the song. It. Was. Simply. Amazing. The show closed with Yellow Ledbetter and with tears in my eyes we left the stadium.
These are pictures of my scrapbook pages of the show. (I'm a dork, I know!)
There was another show the next night, but we did not have tickets. I wanted to try to get tickets right away, but Handy Man refused saying it would be exactly the same show and what would be the point. WHAT?! He was obviously not bitten by the same insane bug I was. I spent the next night at home, being pissy, looking up Pearl Jam on the internet. Seeing Pearl Jam perform live pushed me past the point of no return, into the realm of freaky fandom. For the first time in my life I joined a fan club! It was a $10 membership fee which included a band written newsletter sent out twice a year, a special fan club single put out once a year and, most intriguing, first chance at concert tickets! This last one would turn out to be invaluable!
In my Pearl Jam internet surfing I came across a site called Five Horizons. This site was a wealth of information. They did a concert chronology updated after every show, usually within hours, so you could see what happened at the concert and sometimes there were photos. Many times there were reviews of shows written by the site founders. Five Horizons was my lifeline to the band for a long time. They had a message board, I didn't join but I was able to read other people's posts. I was a chicken shit. I couldn't imagine what I would have to contribute about a band I was just getting to know.
On June 30, 2000 tragedy struck the band. They were playing a music festival in Roskile Denmark when a crowd surge on wet slippery ground caused the death of 9 fans. You can read about it here. It was a dark time for fans. We didn't know what would happen with the band. Would they call it quits? Would they cancel the upcoming U.S. tour? Would they recover from this tragedy? This was the point I tried to join the Five Horizons message board, but was denied. They were not accepting new members. I kept reading the information on the site, but wasn't able to discuss the state of the band with anyone. I was the only freaky fan I knew.
The band went on with the scheduled U.S. tour. The shows were emotional as the band tried to heal. At the first show back they played a cover of Dead Moon's - It's OK and you could hear Ed's voice cracking while singing it. After they had played a few shows there was an obvious song missing from the setlist, they stopped playing Alive, one of their top songs played at almost every show. The show we had tickets to was the second to the last of the U.S. tour, Nov 5, 2000 Seattle show. Once again Handy Man refused to buy tickets for the second night, a mistake I would never make again.
I enjoyed my second show as much as my first, but in a much different way. I knew the band so much better now. I knew all the songs inside and out. I knew the meaning behind most of them too. It was a fun night. The Red Hot Chili Peppers opened, which was a huge treat. The crowd was a little dead, probably due to the fact that fan club members had to wait in the pouring cold rain for hours just to get our tickets, then wait in a very long and winding line to get into the venue. We did manage to get in just in time to hear Eddie's pre-set song, Throw Your Arms Around Me.
Scrapbook spread of the event. The pictures on the left I took, the ones I the right I got elsewhere.
Next night's show was the last of the extremely emotional U.S. tour. We, of course, were not there. The band played longer than normal and they broke out Alive, which brought many to tears. After I read about this show I swore I wouldn't miss back to back shows and except for one time I haven't!
By Spring of 2002 I was ready to enter the world of message boards and chat rooms. Little did I know how much my life was about to expand and change in ways I've only dreamed about in my little corner of the Pacific Northwest...
