What's with you and Pearl Jam? VII
PART SEVEN: European Summer Tour 2018
PART SEVEN: European Summer Tour 2018
Pre-Covid, we had the chance to follow the band to the historic cities of Prague and Barcelona, among others. Prague just happened to be the city where the Rolling Stones and Pearl Jam tours crossed paths, so you can imagine just how many international music fans assembled as a result. It’ll come as no surprise that the average age of the Stones fans we met was higher than the average age of your generic travelling Pearl Jam fan. Makes me wonder what this band will be doing in 15 or 20 years’ time….
Given the regularity with which Pearl Jam covers John Lennon’s Imagine, it made total sense to visit the “Lennon Wall” while in Prague. Ed will refer frequently to “Peace” or anti-war themes during any given run of shows. While some of it seems pollyannish, it was a poignant opportunity to tie it all together for the kids. One artist had recently painted “PJ” on the wall in question, which ensured that everything came full circle for us.
We spent a good chunk of time in both Barcelona and Madrid on the Spanish leg, and the family got its lifetime fill of Flemish art from the 1500-1600s at the Prado National Museum. To balance out the art and culture, a Pro Tip is to try something that you’d never let the kids do at home. Like a Segway tour! It’ll be a highlight of the trip for them, even if you parents have a dozen mini-heart attacks during the 90 minutes in question.
With a serious sports fan in tow, we just HAD TO go to the Real Madrid stadium and check out their world famous trophy room. Pro Tip: While matching your tour itinerary with a live local professional sporting event will be tough, and expensive, there may well be better ways of doing it. A stadium tour achieves most of what would be on your young sports fan’s list, and you can fit it into your sightseeing windows.
Eddie is right when he recommends that we all should take an extended walking tour of Barcelona. During the show that July evening, he spoke of his love for the Gaudi-style buildings. Pro Tip: As your kids get a bit older, try sightseeing at night. There’s a different type of beauty to behold.
When you do the Park Guell, see if your kids agree that the late Walt Disney could have been inspired by some of the architectural lines at play in this one-of-a-kind “future city.” It’s a magical place, and you’ll wonder why we all haven’t brought more mosaic work into our own homes.
Don’t miss out on the beautiful hams at Mercado de San Miguel or La Boqueria Market, even if they’re full of tourists such as yourself. You’ll learn to eat standing up.
The Sagrada Familia is definitely worthy of the UNESCO World Heritage site designation, which explains why it featured in that evening’s concert poster.
When I get around to writing a book, perhaps I’ll tell the story about the time that the seal blew out on the door of our airplane as we headed out for the August 18th concert in Missoula, MT. The door made a huge howling noise, which alerted us all that the cabin would soon start depressurizing; the pilots were quick to drop to 3,000 feet and perform an emergency landing back in Toronto. It was scary. While we did recover from that brutal moment to squeeze in two of the late summer North American stadium shows (Wrigley #1 and Boston #2) that followed, the highlight of the year was the trip to Poland in early July.
The main square in Krakow was stunning. Architecture from a variety of periods is represented, and the cobblestones are something that North Americans will always wonder at.
We had our fill of perogies, and the lack of hotel options meant that we wound up bunking in with the band, their families, management and crew for the second city in a row. It doesn’t happen very often, and when it does, it’s entirely by accident. We leave the guys alone in these situations, on the premise that this is their time off. We are there to enjoy the new cities, try different foods, take in the atmosphere, as well as a few hours of live music. The hotel is the band’s temporary “home,” not a petting zoo (“Drop The Leash”). This is my key Pro Tip above all others: give the guys their privacy in the unlikely event that you wind up as guests at the same hotel.
If you don’t believe me, just ask Jeff Ament. ;-)
That said, the only Krakow moment worth mentioning is when B-3 player Boom Gaspar found himself locked out of his room one afternoon, and the kids wound up running into him at this particular “crisis” moment. They tried to help him out, and he offered a photo in return — despite the rush. The younger (age eleven at the time) of the two kids couldn’t refuse. Molly, the older sister and committed rule-follower, would have no part of it!
The most meaningful day of our 2018 European PJ Tour had nothing to do with the band, or the sights and sounds of Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and Prague, however.
As we planned our non-concert time in Poland, my wife noticed that Krakow was just an hour’s drive to the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birken Memorials. No matter how well versed you may be in this unspeakably horrendous time in our history, the trip was a gift to the four of us. You will be stunned by the sheer magnitude of the Auschwitz sites, and you won’t ever forget the visit.
As you might imagine, some of the exhibits are very graphic, and appropriately so. The only way to begin to share the tragedy with visitors is to not hold back on what is known about that site and those who suffered and were murdered there. Although we’d been to the Holocaust wing of London’s Imperial Museum two years earlier, the Auschwitz I Museum brought our youngest to actually vomit within the first hour of our exhibit walkabout; no one around us seemed at all shocked.
It’s that type of place. And a stark reminder about how important it is to show your kids the world. Some things they just have to experience for themselves.
MRM ©
(this post, like all blogs, is an Opinion Piece)