Ok, so I am a week and a half late with this post, but I was exhausted, and had to finish out my last 2 weeks at the job I was at…yup, I got a new job and that’s a whole other topc, I start it tomorrow…but this post is all about the trip to Seattle to see my saving grace, Pearl Jam!!!
So Here is how this is going to go down…I’m going to write about the whole trip and then I will post all the pictures…well not all of them because I took way too many at MoPop, but I have gathered my favorites from there. So the first thing you should know, that for a fan like me, not just of Pearl Jam, but grunge in general…traveling to Seattle is like visiting the motherland…of grunge, it’s a sacred experience!
So we arrived in Seattle at 10am and went and ate some food and then caught a bus over to Easy Street Records, I honestly just wanted to see the Mother Love Bone Mural and get pics, but not only that I looked up and there were two of my FB PJ friends, Art and Stephanie, so I got to meet them and talk for a couple minutes and get a pic and Art gave me a copy of the newest “mixtape” CD they had made, they do that make mixes of PJ stuff and give them out. Then we went inside Easy Street and OMG, it’s amazing!!! So much memorabilia for not just PJ but all of them!!! I took a lot of pics and got a couple souvenirs. Then I connected on FB with my friend Denise and we both headed from our locations down to Pike Place Market to meet up! I got to see the gumwall and added my own gum, it was sooo cool! Such a bizarre thing, but at the same time this amazing piece of living art because it’s always constantly changing. It was awesome to meet her and her awesome family! Her hubby is from New Zealand and her song is a giant…lol Then hubby and I went shopping at the market and got some cool stuff. It was really hot though and the market is mostly outside and they have like no where to sit so we decided to go to the hotel, and at our hotel they had a Starbucks so we sat there til check-in time and charged our phones and drank iced tea…lol Also met a sweet family of ladies, a mom and her two teen daughters who had flown in from Texas for the show and they were flying back out immediately after. It was a graduation gift to the older daughter. We chatted a lot because I’m from Texas and we all love PJ. Then we finally got to check-in and we went up and settled into the hotel, and then went downstairs to eat at Ruth’s Chris as our anniversary dinner, as our wedding anniversary was the night before. Then we ran back up to the hotel room for our tickets and headed to Safeco. It was insane trying to get in…sooooo unorganized and things labeled wrong. I even had to throw my purse away because you can’t take anything bigger than a wristlet into the venue…I had looked up the rules for Safeco, having no idea that PJ set their own rules. Luckily it was an old purse and I didn’t care so much, so everything important went into Jason’s cargo pockets and my little make up bag and that was it…lol So the guy who bought our 3rd ticket was actually from Australia and he was ADORABLE! The show started 1 hour late, and really I don’t know how it goes at most of them because this is my only experience but I think it was because of how disorganized it was to get through the gates.
All of a sudden the regular music pumping over the PA system shut off and the music for Aye Davanita started and then the stage lights came on and we could see the guys taking their places. They opened with Long Road but then they played RELEASE! I think I died a little when they started that one…I died a little several times. They played everything I could have asked for except Daughter. I got Corduroy(my fave song since I was 15), I got Black…extended version(We Belong together)…I got Lightning Bolt, I got Neil Young covers, I just got it all. Release, while not my fave song, is a very important one to me and I was moved nearly to tears by it. I would have cried had they played Daughter. It is one thing to listen to their albums, you feel it…but to be there in that stadium and feel Mike and Stone’s guitar, Jeff’s bass, Matt’s drums, Booms Keys and especially Eddie’s voice physically reverberate through your body, it’s a sacred and other worldly experience. This was the most amazing experience of my life to date…and you can bet your ass I will see them again!!! Pearl Jam fever is a very real thing!!!
On Thursday we went and had brunch with my bff Taylor, and then went to MoPop and went through essentially every exhibit. And then went to the space needle, Jason had to bribe me with food to get me to go up in the needle though. And then we got up there and they have the new lower deck glad floor, and I stood on it and took a pic…yeah me the one who was terrified, but Jason, the one who wanted to go up, would not step foot on the glass floor…BOOM! I got a t-shirt and a badass seattle made float out of the deal for being so brave! lol
Here are the pictures…
This last picture is a poster Jason bought for me at Pike Place Market. I had to have it, my boys played with Metallica, on my hubby’s 11th birthday in my hometown of Houston at the ASTRODOME!!! HELLS YEAH!!! lol
Safeco night 2, they did play Daughter, and my friend Denice who I met at Pike Place, she went live on Facebook just for me so I could hear it, I was just going to bed, I cried watching the live feed of that song. ❤
Ok, But First Coffee! 