Thank you to 10C, the band, and more!

mpedone

I know this isn’t the first of these threads, but I just wanted to say thank you to so many people after this past weekend, and I feel like rambling, and getting a little sappy.

First, to the band themselves. Thank you for 2 great shows this weekend, 11 phenomenal shows overall (for me), and 27 years of amazing music. Thank you for being there, for surviving, for writing powerful music that spans generations, and the range of emotions. Thank you for writing and performing such great music that my wife and I could feature THREE songs at our wedding reception (for the record, PJ’s cover of “Love Reign O’er Me” is a fantastic first dance song), and thank you for playing all three of those songs at the Fenway shows in 2016 (I’ll also add an apology for anyone sitting around us in GS7 two years ago – I hope our belting out Reign didn’t ruin it for you).

Thank you for touching not just me and my wife, but for the way your music has touched so many people. Standing in Fenway this weekend, surrounded by so many people who have survived and pushed through adversity thanks in some part to your music was breathtaking. I get down about things in my life sometimes, and hearing some of the stories about how people have gotten through worse, again in some part thanks to you, inspires me to find the positive, to keep pushing.

Second, to the Ten Club – thank you for all you do. Simply giving us fans the first crack at tickets is amazing. Just knowing that we had tickets to the shows well before they went on sale to the general public and didn’t have to deal with TicketMaster was such a relief. I’ve been going to shows since ’96, but I’ve only been able to get 10C tickets to one other show, in 2003, because of lapses in my membership.

We’d have been happy wherever we sat. I was hoping to get seats in the field boxes, as sitting behind a pole in the grandstands wasn’t the greatest experience two years ago, but if that’s where we ended up, so be it. Night 1, we were in Grandstand 28, a bizarre, wedge-shaped section nestled up in the left field stands. Turned out to be a good view of the stage. Night 2, though, is what blew me away.

I joined the Ten Club in 2000, after buying tickets, but before seeing my 3rd show. I maintained my membership for a few years, scoring tickets for Mansfield 1 in 2003 (and fortuitously buying tickets for the 3rd night as those went on sale before I heard back about my 10C tix). Around that time, money got tight, and my membership lapsed. I re-upped in 2006, but let it lapse a year later, as money was SUPER tight. I also didn’t go to another PJ show for almost 10 years.

After seeing them in Tampa, though, I signed up for the 10C again, this time with a MUCH higher number. I do regret letting my membership lapse, about as much as I regret not joining the club when I bought Vitalogy back in ’94, but I figured that going through TicketMaster to get tickets was a stressful process that led to us getting terrible tickets anyway, so 10C tickets, even with a number in the 500K range couldn’t be worse. I knew that the 10C did a lottery, and some people got bumped up to the front rows, but, y’know, that happens to other people…

So, when I opened my tickets to see “Turf A3, Row 2”, I nearly lost my shit. I was blown away. I posted about it a couple of times here, but I didn’t really believe it. I kept freaking out that I would lose my phone, or that something was going to go wrong with our tickets, or that it was a mistake, and I was going to open the website and find out that they’d changed back to where I was supposed to be, back in the Grandstand. You cannot imagine what was going through my head Tuesday evening when my wife’s ticket failed to scan initially! We got it working and went in. Just walking over the ramp to the turf was amazing, but then, heading to our seats, the stage just kept getting closer and closer…

And it was real. We were there. 2nd row, just inside the large screen. Just to our left, we could see the microphones and Matt’s drumkit. Straight ahead of us, we had a perfect view of Boom’s keyboards. It was just incredible. What we’d seen from afar, and mostly on screens was right in front of us. I could see Boom rocking out, watch Mike’s fingers go crazy, got a close-up view of Stone’s rocking-out-faces. I got to see Eddie in all his glory, belting out lyrics, rocking out.

So, thank you, 10 Club, for giving us just the opportunity to GET tickets, and double thank you for the lottery that allowed us to have an experience neither my wife nor I ever thought we’d get.

 

(Sidenote: I know that with GA it is possible to get the rail with a little effort, but of the 11 shows I’ve been to, just 2 have had GA, so I haven’t had many opportunities at being down front.)

 

I know they won’t read this, but a thank you goes out to the Fenway event staff for being friendly while helping us get in the park and to our seats, and for recognizing how wasted the young man in front of us was and escorting him somewhere safe (for us and for him).

 

Third, a big thank you to the fans, both inside and outside the venue. It was cool hanging with people in the merch line – you guys made waiting 2 hours for the merch stand to open feel like a quarter of that, and time well spent, rather than time we could have been sleeping.

It was great chatting with the gentlemen behind us on Tuesday – thank you for being so gracious about never getting closer than 3rd row because of lucky SOBs like us – and rocking out with the guys in our row. Apologies to the young woman to my right. I hope my “dancing” didn’t impede your enjoyment. Thanks to the fans who took pictures of my wife and I, or who diverted their path to allow us to take selfies.

Even to the fans we didn’t meet, thank you for making this an awesome weekend. It was awesome to see the dude in the front row who got a generous pour of Eddie’s wine share it with the people around him, or people catching up with one another, or making friends, or just sharing in the amazing experience of seeing one of the best bands doing what they do best, rocking out and bringing us all together.

 

Also, a special thank you to the camera guy who got our sign on the screen, and to the PJ fan who managed to snap a photo (I don’t know if she posts here).

Last, but not least, an enormous thank you to my wife, @SP1984 for being a true partner in crime, helping me be less introverted (seriously, without you, I'd be that guy sitting there reading his kindle until the show started), inspiring me to dye my hair, and taking me on some great adventures!

mpedone

Tl;dr – I'm super grateful to the 10C, Pearl Jam, my fellow fans, and my wife.