people sleeping in their shoes...
This long weekend turned out to not be very long at all.
Waking up this morning...was not rad at all. I could've slept all day. When I got to work (by that time I was a little more awake, my body now
knows how to THRIVE...yes, thrive...off of little or no sleep) I tallied my hours of sleep since I left on Thursday night/Friday morning. A whopping
20 hours! So I milled about on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today on 20 hours of sleep total. AND I AM SO OK WITH THAT!!! WOO HOO!
It was sooooooooooooooo nice seeing everyone. It was soooooooooooooo nice seeing Pearl Jam. It was soooooooooooo nice driving through Ohio and Pennsylvania...
ok, that wasn't so nice.
Let's see...
Reading
We met up with Doerr, Rich, Steve, Dan, and Brian at some hole in the wall bar. It was Doerr's hangout in college, I think. That doofus went to school in Reading. Ha ha. Nothing too eventful pre-show.
Was going to say that Reading was my favorite of the three shows this weekend...and I was just about to go into details about the shows...but I will not to that...save that for my recaps. I'll probably write those
this weekend or on my flight to Deu. Reading: ranked 2 out 3.
We couldn't get out of that place fast enough. We caravaned as far as we could go. Unfortunately, it wasn't very far. I was wimping out. I'm sure others were, too...I'm just saying I was wimping out. I even
resorted to the old gum...Mountain Dew (I hate Mountain Dew, too)...and candy (Nerds, the choice candy that night by more than just me). We made it to Bedford, PA. Another shithole place. The hotel we stayed in...
probably the worst hotel I've ever stayed in. And we had two room split between 11 of us and we still had to pay like $17 each. Ridiculous. But we didn't care. We were fucking tired. Even though I was ridiculous and took a
shower before I hopped into bed at 5am. Nothing I hate more than waiting to take a shower in the morning when all I want to do is leave. Makes my stress level low.
Toledo
Toledo venue. Piece of shit. We knew before the show started Neil Young was there (hello, his tour bus was parked out back). We also heard this buzz about Peter Frampton, but we thought it was some joke. LOL, like Peter Frampton
at a Pearl Jam show? Right. Hahahha. Still funny.
My parents came out to the show. Turned out they had some really excellent seats. Saw Erica briefly. Spent another night ignoring Tim Robbins and Death Cab by sitting in the filthy hallway talking with everyone. Or more like
being an asshole with everyone. We're good at that.
No comments on show (again, recap). Toledo: ranked 3 out of 3 (and no, Neil Young had absolutely no influence on that ranking, the ranking is based on Pearl Jam and Pearl Jam only).
Grand Rapids
Most everybody headed to GR to watch stupid, horrible football. Those who are cool stuck around this area and we went to Buddy's. I also called Lauren and she came along...along with my parents and brother. It was damn good. Very enjoyable. Then we
headed to GR.
Venue...everyone bitched about how shitty it was. I thought it was fucking great! It was so small! So much smaller than Toledo! Our tickets ended up not being as great as I thought they were (Ticketmaster had the wrong seating chart on their website)...
but it was allllll good. Especially since we had a drunken IDIOT in front of us. Towards the end he wanted to fight with ME and I never even said a word to him (wait for the recap for details, yo...is this torture?).
Ideally, I wanted to get out of GR asap because I was driving home alone AND had to work in the morning. However, I HAD to say good-bye to everyone. And then SueAnn found me, so I had to catch up. Then I met some other people I had never met before (but knew)
and I couldn't be rude. I needed to be all "yo" and stuff with them.
Got home last night about 2:30am. Showered. Got to bed a little before 3am. Did NOT want to wake up this morning. I was alright once I got moving. Peeps at work think I'm super human. Not sleeping and driving like 1300 miles in three days is not as hard as you would think...
I didn't have a REAL hard time saying "bye" to everyone last night. But then I got in my car and started driving...and I was like...fuck...this sucks. Saying "bye" to people who aren't ALL going HOME. They are going onto St. Louis. I just wish I could've gone to St. Louis.
Not because of what the venue looks like...but the Pearl Jam history. If you didn't trade back in the day and study the concert chronology, I don't think you can get it. I had love affairs with shows...even if I couldn't hear them...if the tapes weren't circulating or if the
recording sucked...I still could get attached and sentimental. And that is why I really would've loved to go to St. Louis. Oh well. Take what you get. Priorities. Yada yada.
Ok. I am really tired. And I want to continue reading that Jack the Ripper book. So I best say "peace, yo" so I can get on that whole sleeping thing...
Me and Kirk drove to outside of Pittsburgh and caught up on some sleep at Scott's hotel. We got to that area of PA at about 5 or 6am. Slept until a little before 10.
Totally rockass. I tell you...I hate driving during the day. Time passes by so slowly. If it's daytime, it sure as hell be overcast and icky out if I have to be driving long distances.
It seemed like it took us 10 years to get to Reading. And boy oh boy...Reading...what a shithole of a town.
Leave one shithole town...for another shithole town. We caravaned to Toledo. Caravaning...always fun times. Along the way I experienced, for the first time ever really...people going all apeshit because of my
license plate. It seemed everyone who passed by me was going to the Toledo show and waved at us or honked their horns. This happened ALL the way to Grand Rapids, too. In fact, it happened many more times in that two hour
drive to GR than it did that 5 or 6 hour drive to Toledo.
After Toledo, just about everyone in the world went back to RO to stay at Rich's place or at my house. As we were sitting in the parking lot, waiting for the shit to calm down, it hit me that it would be excellent to get some food (I had NO
meal at all since Thursday night...because of time constraints, this was a weekend of gas station meals. Totally sucked). So I called my parents and had them investigate...and they ended up picking up some pizzas from Hungry Howies for us...and we
had food waiting for us when we got to my house a little before 2am. It was spectacular. It was a big old party. My sister and Aaron were over with two friends. My brother had a friend over. Basically, everyone and their mom was at my house.
Saturday night was the night I got the most sleep this weekend...went to bed at 3am-ish and woke up about 9:30. When I woke up, it felt like a ton of bricks had hit me. Totally rad.
