Life as I know it...: September 2011

First off, I have to say a huge THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart and give mad props to my wonderful amazing mother, without whom my trip to the Pearl Jam concert in Edmonton would not have been possible, for a multitude of reasons. She not only babysat all 4 children starting around 1:30pm Friday through til about 4:30pm Saturday, she VERY generously paid for the hotel room me and my friend Amie stayed in that night. As well, she had to deal with the shit-show that was the boys' Saturday morning hockey tryouts, and for that I say 'Mom, I'm soooo sorry you had to go through all that!!" MOM, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!

So, Friday afternoon Amie and I headed up to Edmonton in her car (of course I gave her gas money), stopped for supper at Olive Garden where we dined on pasta and Italian donuts (and had a very deep conversation on men and relationships, unfortunately I couldn't offer much advice regarding her dating woes, doh) and then began the arduous journey to the Coliseum Inn, which, thanks to MapQuest and the hotel clerk's directions, took us through Edmonton during rush hour. I told Amie that this was the way Ty and I went for the System concert and it was an absolute disaster, taking almost an hour to go like five blocks, and that my friend Christine had laughed her ass off and wondered why we didn't take the Yellowhead. But Amie said, well if both MapQuest and the hotel clerk said to go that way, we should try it rather than try to figure out how to get to the Yellowhead. Being that I am a terrified-of-driving-in-big-cities driver and am WELL KNOWN for having THE WORST sense of direction (helLO, this is the girl that took Hwy 2 South to get to Lacombe, FFS!!), I just said, 'Okay'. So fast forward through us sitting basically an hour in rush-hour traffic, inching forward at a snails pace, oh and also an ambulance came through and it was like "Where the fuck do we pull over with only two lanes and we're packed in like sardines?!".

But finally, FINALLY, we made it to the hotel and checked in. Immediately got out the booze we'd picked up in Red Deer and started drinking, chatting, laughing, taking pics, and just generally getting rowdy and excited for the concert. Amie was desperate to get her hands on a PJ shirt before they all sold out, so we headed over to Rexall Place at 6:45pm (the opening band was to take the stage at 7:30pm). Got in line, deliberated over all the shirts, hats, hoodys, etc. Amy picked out a cute black tee and I chose a black hoody with the word 'Pearl' and then a Canadian maple leaf under it with '2011' under that. I was like, "Damn, it only says Pearl, it looks stupid! Why did I pick this for $60?", then Amie realized the leaf actually spelled out the word Jam, so then it was all cool.

We didn't want to be stuck carrying around our loot for the whole concert so we returned to the hotel and continued drinking. Neither of us had any desire to see the opening band, Mudhoney (although Ty said I was crazy for missing it, as it was another grunge-era band but whatever).

About 8:15 we headed over, found our seats and settled in. Pearl Jam was supposed to hit the stage around 8:45 and we were super stoked! Our seats were in the first bowl, right behind the floor seats, row 4. So, pretty good seats in my opinion, seeing as how the other 3 concerts I'd been to we'd been in the nosebleed section. Amie wasn't thrilled though because she was used to having floor seats or else 3rd row seats by the stage. She really wanted to see Eddie's face up close (she is one of those super-intense psycho fans when it comes to Pearl Jam, haha). But whatever.

So we sit down in our seats and Amie is beside this really weird old guy who just gave off this creepy and, well, just weird, vibe. He just sat there, slightly hunched, staring straight ahead. Amie was telling me where she sat for her last concert and raised her arm to point out the seats. Suddenly, El Creepo's arm whipped out and WHACKED her hand down, snarling "Get your finger outta my face!" Our jaws dropped, like What-the-FUCK?! We both just stared at each other, trying not to burst out laughing, did that really happen? I said "Let's trade seats", she was like, "Yes, like RIGHT NOW." So we switched and when she sat down she was like "Fuckin' asshole!" and he didn't even blink, just continued staring straight ahead.

But then, these 2 cute guys came walking down the steps and we were like "please be in our row, please be next to us" and they were, so yay! They were super-friendly and excited like us but I had to lean over Amie to talk to them, it was kind of awkward so I just let Amie talk to them. The one guy was drinking a lot, and really fast, and he wasn't very talkative so his friend, this really tall hyper guy said, "Hey, trade me seats so I get to sit next to the 2 hot girls", haha. That was a nice ego-stroke. Amie and I nicknamed the two "Alky" and "Crazy", lol!

'Crazy' kept spitting on the floor and it was grossing Amie out so she called him on it, "Dude, that's really gross." He said jokingly, "Oh, you're so fancy! Are you from here?", "No, we're from Red Deer, and in Red Deer we don't spit.", he goes, "Oh, so you mean girls from Red Deer swallow?" Bahahaha! We all burst out laughing and he's like, "You totally set yourself up for that." So you can see what a funny guy he was.

Anyway, the concert started and it was frickin' amazing. Eddie's voice sounds exactly the same as it did 20 years ago, if not better. He sang quite a few songs I didn't know, maybe from a recent album? I was hoping he'd play 4 of my favorite PJ songs: Black, Alive, Crazy Mary, and Yellow Ledbetter. They played 3 of those 4 (no Crazy Mary), and thank god, their very last song of the night, the 2nd encore, was Yellow Ledbetter (otherwise I would have rioted, haha). I had resigned myself to not hearing it, they played Neil Young's Keep on Rockin in the Free World as the 1st encore and we didn't realize there would be a 2nd. So when I heard the opening notes of Yellow Ledbetter, I turned to Amie and grabbed her upper arms, shaking her, "They're playing it, they're playing it!" She was like "Okay settle down now. No just kidding, rock it out Beau, haha!" So I did, singing and swaying and waving my arms. I didn't even care that the lights had all come on and people could see me being ridiculous, because everyone else was doing the same! Lol

When Eddie sang Alive and Black, it was so amazing because the entire audience went absolute nuts, we were all singing along at the top of our lungs, everyone was waving lighters, the energy in the place was just incredible, it was like a religious, never-forgotten experience. I had goosebumps.

So, about El Creepo: he sat down in his seat the entire concert and only got up for Alive, at which point, and I'm not even exaggerating, he started thrashing his arms frantically as if he was banging on a door and head-banging (like dude, you don't headbang for Alive). It was crazy! I poked Amie and jerked my head in his direction, she rolled her eyes and shrugged. Weirdo!

So during the concert, Amie and I continued to talk to Crazy; poor Alky was half-asleep, propped up with his butt on the back of his seat, nodding his head slowly to the music. But Crazy was totally hyper and absolutely hilarious, he kept me and Amie giggling and shaking our heads at him. At one point, he grabbed his half-comatose friend and hopped the guard-rail into the floor section; we could see his blond head (because he was so tall) as he ran right up to the front of the stage! We couldn't believe the set of balls on the guy because that's such a risk, you get caught doing that and you're kicked out of the concert. They returned to their seats ten minutes later, he said it was obvious they didn't belong there and he didn't want to get busted. He tried to get us to try it later but we were too chicken.

Anywayyyy, the concert ended and we joined the throngs of exhilarated, adrenaline-filled concert-goers outside. The vibe was just amazing. Made our way back to the hotel, Amie was worn out and hungry so we ordered pizza and watched Robot Chicken (one sketch in particular, Giraffe goes through the 5 stages of grief, had us laughing hysterically). Amie took a sleeping pill and was out within half an hour so I sat up and finished my booze. Haha!

We woke up the next morning at 10:30, half an hour to check-out, and it was soooo wonderful to sleep in like that and not feel guilty. Ate breakfast at Ricky's in Leduc and made our way home, talking non-stop the whole way.

There's a few more stories about that night I could tell but this is getting a bit long and I want to get to the pics, so here you go...