Sign My Thank You Note to Pearl Jam

ontheroad

It's taken me a week to get my thoughts together on how fortunate I was to experience the Pearl Jam Destination Weekend.

First, congratulations to the band and Ten Club for organizing and pulling off such a wonderful weekend in Alpine. I can only imagine the months, weeks, days and hours it takes to put on something like this, never mind the guts it takes to try and curate your own Destination Weekend. You did an amazing job. Thank you.

The 12 hours of music per day was amazing, the collaboration was fun and even the little details were well thought out and executed. From including cds with the Ten Club tickets, to the band sound checking during the early ticket pickup on Friday, the cool museum, the billboard and poster artists, the 10C lawn area, the 10C Park with cornhole games, to working with the venue to allow fans to bring in outside food and drinks, I even heard someone say the venue was under special instructions to sell alcohol later than usual. Heck, if you brought in a water bottle, they made water free for the day - what other venue (sports, music or otherwise) have you seen that? Pearl Jam is so cool, they made water free! Ha.

As we all know, with this band the live shows are judged in degrees of greatness, but this weekend was something else entirely. I've been to over 50 shows and fortunate to witness some of their legendary performances, but the emotion, energy, camaraderie with the performances made this such a special, one-of-a-kind weekend. Two of the people I was with had never seen the band before and they've been reading and listening to everything they can get their hands on since Labor Day.

That this modest and publicity shy band was willing to curate their own two day experience was thrilling. You never knew what was going to happen next. The other bands were as excited to witness the other bands as the fans were. Watching the people side stage get into the show as much as the fans in the crowd and seeing the side stage folks be blown away by the reaction of the crowd during PJ's set was cool too.

Obviously this is a band some of us have grown up with since the beginning, we root for these guys like our sports teams. We want to see them do well. Getting to witness every member of the band soak up the weekend or participate on the side stages or the main stage, playing music with their friends, celebrating with their fans and seeing the joy the other bands had to play with Pearl Jam made for a weekend of goosebump-inducing and tear-jerking moments. To see that genuine appreciation on behalf of all involved was just incredible.

If anyone needed an example of what this band has accomplished over their career it was evident in Wisconsin: Other bands have fans, Pearl Jam has created a community.

Here's hoping they try to do the Destination Weekend every year. Thanks Pearl Jam and Ten Club for all you did and all you do to make following this band so special.

CloneOfASon

:thumbup: :clap: +1

klusterfuk

well said

ontheroad

wouldn't it be awesome to see a positive thread have 20, 50, 100, 500 pages?

Loulou

Great words! Many thanks to PJ and Ten Club. Blew any expectations I had out of the water.

petesopete

+1!

Michelle10

This is my favorite Pj20 post - nice work :clap: I think you just captured everything we all wanted to say but could not find the words.

mysticweed

klusterfuk wrote:

well said

exactly!!
very well said

Staceb10

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

That sums up the weekend perfectly.

pinkbutterfly

ontheroad wrote:

Thanks Pearl Jam and Ten Club for all you did and all you do to make following this band so special.

Ditto!

Hugs to you all and thank you for making me happy!

81

whip cream

iamica

Yep, I feel exactly the same way. PJ20 was one of a kind, and you could really see the love the band has for its fans in everything that was done there.

conman

pigeons

CloneOfASon

conman wrote:

pigeons

81 wrote:

whip cream