We Saw It! Pearl Jam … In My Dreams!

Did Pearl Jam play here Sunday night?

The venue resembled something similar to your neighborhood grocery store. The big neon sign hanging above the slight overhang, the full-frontal window display with giant posters claiming you can get stuff inside for 99-cents.

Except that last night, instead of groceries filling the “grocery store,” it was one of modern day’s greatest rock groups, Pearl Jam.

My buddy, Random Guy I Know Through Community Events, and myself had prime seats. In fact, closing my eyes and thinking about it, there weren’t a lot of seats available, just because there weren’t a lot of seats – maybe five to seven rows of seating, about 20 seats across. Kind of a cozy venue, if you think about it.

The stage was long, like really long, like the length of a Wal-Mart Supercenter long, with a huge, burgundy, vinyl curtain.

As we awaited the performance of Pearl Jam, my buddy, Random Guy I Know Through Community Events, and myself decided to order drinks.

Come to think of it, the dude working the vending booth actually asked us what we wanted. How nice of him! Weird that it was also my business partner that was working the booth, but whatevs!

The “Beer Booth” was designed to look like a mini-Airstream camper (see picture below). turned into a vending booth. Interesting concept, except that it was in the middle of the seating area. Why would they do that?

My buddy and Random Guy I Know Through Community Events, ordered beers. The vendor stopped me before I could begin to order my drink. He knew what I wanted, and began pouring cranberry juice in a 24 oz. Styrofoam cup. The rim of the cup was similar to a sponge, so the vodka was poured directly into this, allowing it to soak nicely with the juice. What a brilliant idea!

It was finally time for the opening act, Eddie Vedder & The … unfortunately the last part escapes me!

The act was a comedy quartet, with a sound similar to Mumford and Sons, but features similar to those two dudes on the “Get Happy, Get GEICO” commercials, that stand on the little stage and say, “Happier than…”, oh and they did NOT feature Eddie Vedder.

EDITOR’s NOTE: Funny because when looking for a Mumford & Sons video to embed I found a video released Monday for the song “Hopeless Wanderer” featuring a comedic quartet of Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Ed Helms and Will Forte. And to make things even more coincidental, towards the end of the video the four are playing in front of a burgundy, vinyl curtain. Does this make me some sort of prophet?

You can find my Viewfinder about the video by clicking here.

In between one of their songs the curtain opened revealing giant cardboard replicas of an AT-AT, the AT-ST and Luke’s T-47 Airspeeder. As I attempt to take a picture with my camera the curtains close. Kinda ticked me off!

It was then that it hit me … the sun in my eyes. As I awoke I realized that I was going to be late for work and that I wouldn’t be seeing Pearl Jam at all. Thus making this entire post nonsense, and me wondering if it’ll even get posted.

Not a huge deal because I’m not a big Pearl Jam fan, though I did enjoy Ten. But for those of you who are Pearl Jam fans, you’re probably excited to know (and probably already knew) that Eddie Vedder and the crew start their tour on October 11 in Pittsburgh, before closing it out on December 6 at a sold out KeyArena in their hometown of Seattle. You can find tour dates at pearljam.com/tour.

I’ll leave you all with a video of my favorite Pearl Jam song, “Even Flow” and wondering why they allow me to post things like this on the site.