What's with you and Pearl Jam? VIII

PART EIGHT: European Summer Tour 2022

PART EIGHT: European Summer Tour 2022

The 2022 U.S. Tour dates conflicted with the crescendo of the school term, which meant that neither Molly nor Emerson could get to the band’s Covid-riddled California shows.

A combination of us did make it to Berlin, Zurich, Amsterdam and Copenhagen that summer of ’22, however. Then-17 year-old Molly was able to fit in three of the four (her summer life guarding job was more rigid than mine, somehow).  Each city has its own delights, of course, but the key Pro Tip is to prepare yourself for the unique realities that come with certain European concert settings. 

While it might be stating the obvious, a new Pro Tip for us going forward is to not check all of our clothes into luggage that then gets tucked into the aircraft hold. We each checked a single large suitcase, and mine went missing for over a week; it finally made the outbound flight six days later, and never caught up to us. For Molly, there was relief that we eventually found hers a couple of days later, lying randomly on the floor of the Berlin airport baggage area amongst hundreds of other bags from around the world. We have now learned to take a couple of days of clothing in our carry-on; replacing everything quickly (sun screen, hats, underwear, socks, tooth brush, razor, etc.) in a foreign country isn’t as easy as it sounds.

The June 21^st show in Berlin was at the historic Waldbuhne site, which had famously / infamously hosted the 1936 Olympic boxing matches.  To think that it had been a decade since I’d seen Pearl Jam in Berlin with my father (see prior post “What's with you and Pearl Jam?” Sept. 3-23), and now I’d be experiencing it all with my teenage daughter in the final weeks before she left our family nest for her first year at College. The band and crew were “bubbled-up” in the wake of their California Covid experience, so we knew going in that we wouldn’t likely cross paths with any of them along the way.

Waldbuhne was originally designed to mirror an outdoor Greek amphitheatre, and it has stood the test of time.  All of the 22,000 seats are General Admission.  First come, first served, while the pit in front of the stage is only for the brave/strong among us.  Young German men still love to slam dance!  The sound carries well, but the 10:00 pm hard-and-fast curfew makes for a rushed show.  Unlike other venues, it doesn’t seem as though one can just pay the fine and keep on playing, as we’ve all seen/heard Pearl Jam do in other, similar Municipal By-law limiting situations — such as Madison Square Garden, for example, which is in fact more a union cost thing than a local “law.”  Eddie ended the night at 10pm sharp, by cutting YLED to less than two minutes so that he could finish the show with a complete rendition of Alive!

This unique venue has drawn all of the large acts over the decades, including Queen, The Stones, U2, Springsteen, Bowie and so on.  Just prepare yourself to be surrounded by folks who love passing the time, pre-show, chain-smoking cigarettes.  And it’s not as though you can leave your unassigned seats, as someone else will have moved in by the time you return.

The musical highlight of the night had to be the cover of Street Fighting Man, which may have been an echo to the Stones’ Waldbuhne appearance in 1965, when fans “stormed the stage, and the band left after a set of only 20 to 25 minutes.”

The art gallery scene in Berlin is excellent, and you must make time for East Berlin, the Berlin Wall, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. We took in a challenging Paul Gauguin exhibition, which tried to bring to light his interaction with, and depiction of, young Tahitian women in the late 1800s.

We loved this next picture; I like to think that it was the first time “mansplaining” was captured in a painting. You can understand all that she’s feeling by the look on her face.

We were then off to Zurich, and the GA Pit.  Although we were there with plenty of time to spare, by the time the show started, we were suddenly 24 deep from the stage as dozens of people weaseled their way in front of us; something that we didn’t see take place at the Toronto show a few months later. 

The Zurich-specific poster and T-shirts were both fabulous, but (Pro Tip) it’s a hassle to manage them in GA if you buy them inside the arena before the show — no matter how old your kids are.  As much as we all love the perspective from the pit, many young male Swiss fans approach the night in the same manner as the German’s when songs like Even Flow, Animal, DTE or Why Go are aired. 

Slam! 

Pro Tip: If you’re standing immediately beside three of these fellows, your youngish daughter is going to get a bit beat up; more than either of you will be able to tolerate.  Early on, there was a Swiss Mom with her ~10 year-old son standing beside us; they gave up after eight songs and moved 30 feet away. No one, even the locals, is immune. Maybe that explains the Lion hockey player on the poster that night — you need equipment to see a show in German/Swiss GA!  

I held up my forearm to protect her, and one of the guys got pissed when he was now bumping into something a bit more firm than a young women’s frame. The fourth time it happened, he got the point, and miraculously was able to keep slam dancing — but just far enough away to avoid hitting Molly for the rest of the night.

Of all of the shows that I’ve been to, I’ve never seen a boyfriend hold his adult date up in this manner. Spooky!

And then there’s the beer! The Swiss sell beer right in the GA pit (even as the final song is finishing-up) with helpful carriers that allow fans to cart six open draft beer cups at a time, per hand.  As you can imagine, substantial spillage occurs every 10 or 15 feet, as the mule fan carts the party back to their original spot in the auditorium.  Pro Tip: if you find yourself in a Euro GA situation, and you don’t know the lay of the land, be smart and wear closed-toe shoes that can handle a wet, sticky floor.

As your kids get older, you’ll find yourself doing different things for fun. Instead of go-carts, it’ll be Lime Scooters in the dark of night. Pro Tip: let it happen! This is the teen version of “what happens on the road, stays on the road.” Just be safe.

Against all odds, it turns out that the Swiss know how to craft a beautiful bowl of pasta, although the cheese fondue at Adler’s Swiss Chuchi is to die for — cliche or not! Pro Tip: Zurich is very expensive, so don’t plan on bring much home beyond a small remembrance; somehow, a hotel breakfast could run two or three times what it would cost to eat the same meal at a hotel of similar quality in Amsterdam, for example. If you can follow Bruce, Pearl Jam, Harry Styles or Taylor Swift to somewhere other than Switzerland, do so. No offence to our excellent hosts!

Our Copenhagen trip coincided with the highly unusual shopping mall mass shooting immediately beside the Royal Arena, the night prior to Pearl Jam’s appearance, but hours before Harry Styles was to take the stage.  Molly and Mommy were already inside the arena, waiting patiently for Harry to take the stage. He eventually cancelled, and fans were rushed to city trains and express shipped to the other end of the City – as far away from the scene as police thought was appropriate, while they determined the number of shooters involved.  Considering the wide array of countries we’d been to at that point in our decade of Tours, it came as a shock that the country where anyone came the closest to danger was Denmark (where the murder rate/100k population is barely a third of Canada’s, and just 12% of the USA’s). 

Glorified G isn’t solely a U.S. thing.

The only Pro Tip I have to pass along about Denmark is to avoid GA if you can. The Danish are incredibly tall! And no matter how tall you and your teen family might be, they’ll be taller. More importantly, we got to experience as emotional a Pearl Jam show as your going to experience, as Denmark was the site of Pearl Jam’s Roskilde Festival tragedy, where eight concert-goers were crushed to death at a festival in 2000; a ninth fan died a few days later.

I think about those parents, from time to time, and what it must be like to have tried to carry-on for the last two decades without their loved ones. That tragedy certainly affirms the genesis of #PearlJamFamily (see prior post “What's with you and Pearl Jam?” Sept 3-23).

None of us know what tomorrow will bring. Carpe diem!

MRM ©

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