2ND Toronto show… and I decided to wear my Alex Semin jersey….. We went to pick up the tickets from will call….decided to skip Mudhoney (becase basically they killed our ears the night before) and apparently a lot of other 10 Club members decided to skip the opening act becase the 10 Club ticket pick-up [...]]]>

2ND Toronto show… and I decided to wear my Alex Semin jersey….. We went to pick up the tickets from will call….decided to skip Mudhoney (becase basically they killed our ears the night before) and apparently a lot of other 10 Club members decided to skip the opening act becase the 10 Club ticket pick-up windwo was complete chaos. Like it seriously wasn’t moving. I was getting nervous that we weren’t gonna get inside before Pearl Jam came on….

Luckily we did make it with about 5 minutes to spare…. 6th row this time but pretty much dead center… and on an aisle!

Set – main set: Go, Animal, Olé, Hail, Hail, In My Tree, Sad, Dissident, Setting Forth, Corduroy, Gods’ Dice, Deep, Garden, Wishlist, Even Flow, Present Tense, Rats, State of Love and Trust, The Fixer, Porch
first encore: Last Kiss, Just Breathe, I Got Id (/Cinnamon Girl), Light Years, Jeremy, Why Go
second encore: Do The Evolution, Alive, Kick Out The Jams, Baba O’Riley, Yellow Ledbetter

Highlights for me… In My Tree, SAD!!!!!!!!, Deep, Rats, SOLAT and Baba

At some point… 3 tall guys wander down the aisle…C looks at them and says… “those are hockey players”. I was like you think? So I tweet “I think we are standing next to Maple Leafs, but we don’t know who”. Then people start @replying me and asking if its Joffrey Lupul (cause apparently he was tweeting that he was at the show). C leans over and asks the middle guy…. are you hockey players? He just smiles and doesn’t answer. (Remember I am standing right there in my Semin Caps jersey)…. Then the security guard/usher gets in on the action…. we asked him.. are they hockey players? He said yes, so we asked who? He would only say I can’t say because they will get mobbed… and No pictures!!! Well I snapped this one

So then I take my phone and point at a tweet that was asking if it was @JLupul, and ask the last guy if that was him…. He looked at me, smiled, shook his head and grabbed my phone and typed in @dboyce47… I’m like ok….

So then we pulled up the Leafs roster and start trying to figure out the other two…. and not having any luck… for some reason I think the security guard finally realized we had no clue who they were and no one in the Pearl Jam Fan Club section was going to mob them… so he basically told us the 1st guy was Tim Connolly but wouldn’t tell us the other guy’s name.

So they left after the 1st encore. The next morning I woke up to a tweet from the security guard…. telling me the 3rd guy was Dion Phaneuf.

My 28th Pearl Jam show First in a foreign country. I was wearing a #Caps Winter Classic tee.

My friend C and I tried to pick up out tix around 3pm …. when the 10 Club Will Call lines first opened, but the the lines were huge. So we went to grab [...]]]>

My 28th Pearl Jam show First in a foreign country. I was wearing a #Caps Winter Classic tee.

My friend C and I tried to pick up out tix around 3pm …. when the 10 Club Will Call lines first opened, but the the lines were huge. So we went to grab something to eat and nap at the hotel.

Back again around 7-ish….. picked up tix, 5th row, on Stone’s side. We arrived in the middle of Mudhoney’s set. OMG LOUD. We decalred we’re waiting until after this is over for tomorrow. (Oh… the beers at Air Canada Centre are HUGE… I don’t know if this is due to Metric conversion or whatever…. but Verizon should get on board for this… though MSG has better plastic cups).

We knew our seatmates on the left from the 2009 Spectrum shows…. So we chatted with them while we waited for Pearl Jam to come on…….

Opened with Long Road….

Rest of the setlist….

main set: Long Road, Do The Evolution, Once, Got Some, Faithfull, Nothing As It Seems, Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Setting Forth, Not For You(/Modern Girl), Given To Fly, Just Breathe, Off He Goes, Daughter(/It’s OK), Grievance, Down, Unthought Known, The Fixer, Porch
first encore: Nothingman, Better Man, Leatherman, Black, Rearviewmirror
second encore: Chloe Dancer / Crown Of Thorns, Alive, Rockin’ In The Free World

DTE, Nothing As It Seems, Not For You/Modern Girl, Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns were highlights for me… but the Cherry on Top, happened midway through RITFW… when Neil Young walked out to jam with the band….. I started screaming like a schoolgirl….

show ended. Picked up a PJ20 tee… then back to the hotel

When this tour was first announced back in May, my friend C and I were debating going…..but the Airfare for flying directly into Canada almost killed the whole trip. We originally did a search on Expedia and Non stop flights were around $560, 1 stop flights weren’t much better at $500. [...]]]>

When this tour was first announced back in May, my friend C and I were debating going…..but the Airfare for flying directly into Canada almost killed the whole trip. We originally did a search on Expedia and Non stop flights were around $560, 1 stop flights weren’t much better at $500. Somone told C to fly into Buffalo and rent a car and drive from there.  So we looked at that.  Southwest had $70 flights (return flight $50)… can’t beat that… and Rental car was only about $150 for 3 days. 

So once I said I thought I could handle the actual driving duties… we were in! (provided we could get tickets

On sale day arrived and we got tickets for both shows!  Booked a hotel a few days later… Thanks Priceline! Then booked the flights and reserved the rental car.

Travel day arrived bright and early for me on Sunday… Up at 5:30am…. Super Shuttle picked me up at 6:45….. we picked up 2 more people.  Despite being September 11th… I breezed thru security fairly quickly… and had a whole row to myself…The plane wasn’t even half full.  A quick hour flight to Buffalo… Then off to pick up the rental car. 

I have never rented a car for travel…  so this was all knew to me. I reserved a economy size car back in June.  Yes economy is the cheapest… but I need to drive a small car…. I have always driven a small car (not counting when I learned to drive using my mothers Buick).  So I get up to the counter and the guy is like “we don’t have any economy size cars…. I can put you in a Mini-van or a yukon.”  My reponse “There is no way I can drive either of those.” Rental Car guy “yeah… I kind of figured…. I may have a Compact that I can put you in.”  So the next size up was a Chevy Malibu… sold.

Activated the Canadian Data plan that I added to my phone….Got the car and off we go.  The drive was pretty straight forward…Crossed the border.. where Canadian Border Agent said “Bonjour” as we crossed over…. but Booooo … No Stamp on my passport

Anyway…. we stayed about 2 blocks from Air Canada Centre… in Old Town Toronto.  And OMG. Between the people biking, the pedestrians that walk as slow as molasses when crossing the street, and the drivers that peel out from stop lights…. I can’t believe I didn’t hit someone or get hit myself. The hotel was pretty hidden and it took us about 20 minutes to find it (and asking a cop for directions – which didn’t help, and asking a cabbie for directions – whihc did help).

I’ll cover the actual Pearl Jam shows (and Maple Leafs that we “met”) in separate posts.

Biggest shocks…. Tim Hortons — crazy crowds… and they don’t take Visa … Huh??  I have never seen a major metro area where people walk so… slow.  Didn’t have to change any money… cause they would take US dollars… though we used cards for most purchases. Food was good.  Beer was good.  People were freindly. 

Next up Montreal??

Pearl Jam Twenty from Pearl Jam on Vimeo.

I layered up, put my bells on my shoes, grabbed my iPod, put on my Caps hat and setoff to meet my friend on the Mall.

It took [...]]]>

Last Sunday was the big day…. I woke up bright and early at 6am (good thing too…. because I later learned I didn’t set my alarm correctly). 

I layered up, put my bells on my shoes, grabbed my iPod, put on my Caps hat and setoff to meet my friend on the Mall.

It took me about 20 minutes to drive down and park (YAY GPS!!!!)

It wasn’t too cold out and it was only slightly raining (which I was fine with, because I actually like running in the rain….)

There was a ton of people that turned out for this race….many in holiday/festive dress.  There was one guy dressed as a snowman… I have no idea how he was able to run.  There were various Santas (one was juggling as he ran/walked).  Multiple reindeer…. lots of Xmas themed socks….

I ran the whole 6.2 miles, and finished in under 80 minutes (which was great for me… since my mini-goal was to finish in under 90 minutes).

Thanks to my friend R for spurring me to even attempt this and providing the training plan

Thanks of course to Pearl Jam for your awesome tunes which motivated me to power thru at the end (Can’t underestimate the power of Ed Vedder yelling out “F*ckers!” during a live performace of Given To Fly )

Thanks to the movies Halloween and Star Wars, and the TV show Law & Order… which is what I watched during most of my training runs on the treadmill…….

And thanks to the Caps/NHL for having a schedule in November which allowed to do all my runs on Tues/Thurs/Weekends and not miss any games

I missed the lottery deadline for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler registration……. so I think I am instead going to try and find a St Patricks Day 8K …….

“– Rolling Stone: It appears that Bristow, Virginia is the only city in the country’s not completely mental for Pearl Jam. The band’s sold-out or come close to selling out almost every show on its current tour, but moved just 13,706 out of 23,385 tickets in Bristow. Rolling [...]]]>

“– Rolling Stone: It appears that Bristow, Virginia is the only city in the country’s not completely mental for Pearl Jam. The band’s sold-out or come close to selling out almost every show on its current tour, but moved just 13,706 out of 23,385 tickets in Bristow. Rolling Stone’s got more summer music numbers.”

That is embarrassing… Nissan/Jiffy Lube is a crap venue.  Its too far out…. and the one lane in/one lane out does not help matters……..So back to Merriweather if Verizon isn’t available next time?

This was my 25th Pearl Jam show….. so I was hoping for Awesomeness (not really… I didn’t know what number show it was until after I got home and added it to my list…. bad Pearl Jam fan ).

Arrived at MSG after a quick stop for some pizza…. much earlier than the previous night.  [...]]]>

This was my 25th Pearl Jam show….. so I was hoping for Awesomeness (not really… I didn’t know what number show it was until after I got home and added it to my list…. bad Pearl Jam fan ).

Arrived at MSG after a quick stop for some pizza…. much earlier than the previous night.  We made our way to our seats…. but first stopped for …. Beers w/ a Pretzel stick in the mug handle!  (I discovered this 2 years ago.… and think it is the awesomest thing….seriously I talked about it for days leading up to this trip).

Then I of course checked into Foursquare……… and got my Swarm badge!!!!!!!! Woohoo!

We made our way to our seats….. Band of Horses was mid-set…. sounded ok.  They finished their set….and then it was time to wait.  But this wait time turned into spot the celebrity! Michael Moore was one section over!  Some guy in a knit cap came along and was sitting in front of Moore.  I thought he was some NY Ranger that people were talking about… but the next day found out it was actually Matt Damon!!  Half way thru Pearl Jam’s set John McEnroe also showed up in this section.  Then Vedder’s girlfriend/wife showed up about 5 rows in front of us… along with the Olsen twins.

So Pearl Jam opened with Corduroy, Hail Hail, and DTE……  which led me to tweet that this could be an epic show! And it was.  The first set was awesome…… the momentum awesome, the crowd was completely into it.  The floor was shaking!!!  We got some rarities (re done Lukin to be slow… instead of fast, Black Red Yellow…. which hasn’t been played since 1995!, Sweet Lew (though I got to see that in Philly , and Hunger Strike w/ the singer from BoH – this was epicly awesome!) Can’t wait until next time

Set List: Corduroy, Hail Hail, Do The Evolution, World Wide Suicide, Got Some, Breath, Nothing Man, I’m Open – dedicated to Howard Zinn, Unthought Known, Grievance, Amongst The Waves, Present Tense, Not For You/Modern Girl (Sleater Kinney), Push Me Pull Me, Rats, Daughter/WMA, The Fixer, Why Go

1st encore: The End with string quartet, Just Breathe with string quartet, Lukin II with string quartet, Black Red Yellow, Sweet Lew, Given To Fly, Spin The Black Circle, Rearviewmirror

2nd encore: Wasted Reprise, Better Man/Save It For Later (Charley, Cox, Morton, Steele, Wakeling), Black, The Real Me (Townshend), Hunger Strike with Ben Bridwell from “Band Of Horses” (Cornell), Alive, Kick Out The Jams (Davis, Kramer, Smith, Thompson, Tyner), Yellow Ledbetter/Star Spangled Banner

Thursday afternoon I met my friend  “C” on the train to NYC.  (usually I take the bus, but I decided to splurge and take  the train, due to not wanting to deal with Metro on Saturday afternoon, after I returned). 

We ended up at Penn Station  (convienently attached to MSG) around 4:30pm, and picked up [...]]]>

Thursday afternoon I met my friend  “C” on the train to NYC.  (usually I take the bus, but I decided to splurge and take  the train, due to not wanting to deal with Metro on Saturday afternoon, after I returned). 

We ended up at Penn Station  (convienently attached to MSG) around 4:30pm, and picked up the Fan Club tickets.  Score……Mike’s side ! (haven’t been on this side of the stage in years) Woohoo, so I was way happy

Then hiked 20 blocks uptown (10 blocks out of our way… due to not checking the exact cross street for the Hotel…. ooops).  So we turned around and went 10 blocks the other way.  Went to check in… and the room wasn’t ready! (its 6pm by now).  Receptionist said she would put a rush on it while “C” and I went to dinner (and she gave us 2 vouchers for the breakfast buffet… sweet!)

After some Pho for me and a Vietnamese beer,  we went back to the hotel, checked in, changed, and high tailed it back downtown.  Arrived at MSG at about 8:15… and my BlackBerry battery was drained, which meant no tweeting… or checking into Foursquare

We found out we had missed the opening band…. The Black Keys… which was fine with us

Set List: Sometimes, Breakerfall, Last Exit, Animal, The Fixer, Severed Hand, Small Town, I Am Mine, Comatose, Force Of Nature, Even Flow, Low Light, Down, I Got ID, Army Reserve (dedicated to Lt. Colonel John McDonough), Insignificance, Unthought Known, Do The Evolution

1st encore: The End (with string quartet), Lukin (with string quartet), Just Breathe (with string quartet), You Are, Love, Reing O’er Me (Townshend) [Ed has crowd wish Pete Townshend “Happy Birthday”], State Of Love And Trust, Once, Porch

2nd encore: Jeremy, Leash, Mankind, Crazy Mary (Williams), I Believe In Miracles (Ramone, Ray) [dedicated to Joey Ramone], Alive, Indifference

Pretty standard show… nothing epic to me….. Highlights for me  were I Got ID, Unthought Known, SOLAT, Once, Stone singing Mankind, and Indifference.

I should note there was also an annoying girl that seat hopped into the row in front of me and was blocking my view for the first half of the show, until the person who’s floor space she was encroaching on kicked her out of the row … so this probabaly affected my experience