What's with you and Pearl Jam? IV

PART FOUR: U.S. FALL TOUR 2014

PART FOUR: U.S. FALL TOUR 2014

This phase of our family Pearl Jam concert tour outings is when I started to discover the limitations of my planning powers.  Pro Tip: Leaving on an early morning flight is all well and good, provided that you don’t expect your 8 year-old to make it through – smiling – until Midnight that evening.

In theory, the Detroit, MI – Moline, IL back-to-back shows looked very compelling once the dates were released.  The Detroit event happened to fall on my son’s 8^th birthday, which is also the date following my own birth, some decades ago; the pitch went something like:  “How much fun would it be to fly to Detroit to see Pearl Jam for our birthdays?  And while we’re in the U.S., go to a very small town in Illinois the following evening for a second set in two nights?”

At that age, in hindsight, I suspect Emerson would have rather gone to an NHL game — but he went along with the plan.  I asked a member of then-Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s staff for the name of the best BBQ lunch place in Detroit (Slows), and we spent a good chunk of the afternoon at the Detroit Institute of Arts.  That Emerson had come to learn how to recognize some Warhol lithographs justified, in my mind, missing a day of Grade three.  (Pro Tip: a trip to a foreign Museum gives you a chance to expose your kids to some of the best and most-recognizable artists in the world, whether they have the patience to take in 45 or 120 minutes of the collection in question.  Detroit was going through a bankruptcy process at the time, so we had the chance to discuss who should actually get the Art, which had been included in the asset pool backing-up the city’s own borrowing: the lenders or the city’s future young voters?

By the time the show got rolling, he was exhausted.  The tickets weren’t great, but it had been too long a day to pull it all off.  We saw just five songs, departing long before Dennis Rodman took the stage.  That was a shame for a bunch of reasons, particularly as it would have demonstrated to our budding Toronto Raptors fan that Pearl Jam drew athlete-fans beyond the realm of professional baseball (see prior post “What's with you and Pearl Jam? II” Sept 4-23). And we missed Black Red Yellow, a song so rare that it’s been played just seven times across more than 1,000 PJ concerts since 1990 (although it was first aired in 1996).

The trip to Moline, however, was a highlight of our last decade. 

Emerson was much better rested, and our left-side stage view was interesting – parallel with the line-up of microphones.  We were only about eight rows back, but Emerson wanted to go down to the bottom of our staircase and hold his sign at the railing, just a bit above the band’s distant eye-level.  No one would be blocking his hand lettered sign of song requests and the band member’s names, and there was the added benefit that he had a full view of both the stage, the crew areas, and a chunk of General Admission. It was a neat perspective.

Emerson wasn’t standing there more than 30 seconds until our section’s Usherette started to trundle down the stairs to – I expect – ask him to return to his seat; no surprise there.  Unlike in places like Amsterdam or Copenhagen, North American arena staff take their “fun police” role very seriously. She hadn’t made it down five of the 20 steps when I saw a member of the band’s travelling security crew (who happened to be about 20 yards beyond Emerson, but in her line-of-sight), look up at her and shake his head. 

A truly imposing figure in his own right, applying the most subtle of motions.  It was a thing of beauty. 

This full-time member of the band’s security team was leaning on a guitar storage case and had been constantly scanning the GA crowd at that point, but our benefactor had a sufficiently-attuned appreciation for his audience that he had already picked-up on this little kid’s presence in his peripheral vision. 

I have to assume that he’d determined that no harm could come to anyone from Emerson’s new vantagepoint — that the kid wasn’t blocking anyone’s view, and that the three foot high railing would keep him both safe and well-contained.  As part of the entity that had rented the arena for the night, he took it upon himself to make some eight year-old’s evening.  Staff at every level express the values of their organization, and I think the band’s pragmatic, fan-focused culture comes through in this anecdote. When I met him the following year, the crew member in question came across as a very serious person; it was clear that he doesn’t do things to make friends, in a effort to build his own favour bank for later in life, for example. He just didn’t worry about stuff that wasn’t a threat to anyone’s safety or enjoyment at his concerts.

A few songs later, I noticed that a young woman had left her seat in our section to take a selfie with Emerson.  As a former news photographer, I quickly whipped out my Blackberry and captured the moment; it seemed hilarious.  I have to give this woman credit – she’d clearly figured out that Emerson had one of the best spots in the stands, and our new friend from Memphis, TN stood with him for the rest of the show (I had stayed in our seats so as to not push Emerson’s luck).

During the rendition of “Fuckin’ Up,” Eddie Vedder was ready to hand out a few tambourines. This is one of the great traditions at the end of Pearl Jam’s shows, where he rewards a few folks in the General Admission section for i) the having brought great energy, ii) attending, say, their 300th PJ show, iii) wearing the T-shirt of an obscure band that he loves, iv) having lined-up anywhere between three and 48 hours before the show to get a spot in the GA pit, etc. You’d have to ask him what he’s looking for each night, but you get the drift.

It was the moment when he started to run behind the speakers onstage that I realized he was going to cross the riser and come right to Emerson.  Sure enough, he covered the few hundred feet very quickly.  He came to the railing, the tambourine was delivered to Emerson, he flashed a smile, and Eddie also took the time to shake the hand of the young woman standing with him.

As any PJ concert regular will tell you, EV hands out between four and eight tambourines at the end of most nights. For Emerson to get one at his 6th show was a stroke of serious luck.

A few moments later, other members of the band’s travelling crew came over with a drumstick and a setlist.  It was pretty clear that Emerson had displayed the true colours of an engaged young fan, but for that to have registered with Eddie at such a distance – and behind his line of sight – was impressive.  (Pro Tip: You might think that it’s the signs that kids bring that make the difference, but I’ve been to enough shows now to believe that it’s the sense of engagement and enjoyment that registers for more than a flicker.  EV will certainly notice your little one, if only to make sure she/he is safe; but he’ll be drawn back to her/his face if they’re truly, happily engaged in all that’s going on around them.)

That Emerson was wearing the PJ T-shirt from the previous night’s show in Detroit might not have gone unnoticed, however. It was so cool that even members of the travelling crew wore one that evening. 

(Pro Tip: Our Residence Inn Marriott in Moline had an outdoor pool, which in some smaller cities will be all the entertainment that’s available as you try to fill the afternoon before a show. We lucked out with a basketball net, too. Figure this out when you’re booking your hotels/motels; you can only nap so long.)

During Covid, the band shared a video of the entire Moline show via Nugs.net.  Of all of the dozens of recent concerts they could have picked, it was our luck that Emerson’s tambourine night made the cut.  And, for a brief moment as things wind down for the evening, we get to see Eddie giving Emerson his tambourine (courtesy of the centre camerman’s efforts).  The look of joy on that young woman’s face surpasses Emerson’s smile.  His female winger told me that she was a teacher, and had a daughter who was a bit younger than Emerson; the selfie she took of the two of them was to show her own child. Despite listening to many hours of Pearl Jam in the car on SiriusXM’s Pearl Jam Radio, her daughter hadn’t yet agreed to see a show.  This Memphis Mom was hoping that the photo of the two of them would spurn her to accept that PJ concerts were a natural place for kids.

When we got home, Emerson told the family about the tambourine moment.  His Mother immediately recognized a problem: “Eddie will think the woman standing with you was your Mom. But I wasn’t even there!”

It would be only a year before we’d find out just how much of an impression Emerson and his Memphis Winger had made on Eddie that evening….

MRM ©

(this post, like all blogs, is an Opinion Piece)