April 25, 2003 - Cleveland, OH - Pearl Jam, Sparta

Venue:  Quicken Loans Arena (Gund Arena, at the time)

This was my first Pearl Jam concert and it's still perhaps, my favorite concert of all time.

In the Spring/Summer of 2001, I had a membership at the Louisville Public Library in Louisville, OH.  I would mostly take out CDs and listen to the at home on a portable Sony CD Walkman while lying in bed.

One day I checked out a Pearl Jam album called 'Live on Two Legs', which is a live compilation recorded from their 1998 tour'.  I had never heard any band put more heart or energy into a live performance.  Before 'Live On Two Legs', I only knew Pearl Jam's early 90s grunge songs, and had no idea that they were absolutely amazing live.  I never ended up developing a strong connection to their first records, and instead, I ended up developing a deep love and connection to their weird, more alternative albums, as well as their live albums from their 2000 tour.

I am a very rare example of a Pearl jam fan, that doesn't worship their early career output.  Their 'middle' period albums, 'No Code', 'Yield', and 'Binaural, are still my favorites and stand beside anything else they have done.

Pearl Jam would quickly grow tobecome my favorite band, and as I bought and listened to more of their records, I knew that I absolutely had to see them live.

I had just missed their 2000 tour, which had wrapped up months before I found their CD at the library, so I had to wait a couple of years for their new album and tour.  and thequality of the seats was based on seniority.  Tickets through the Pearl Jam fan club came in pairs and I really had no one that I knew that was anywhere near as big of a fan as I was, so I just went with my good friend James.

James was a trooper, because he was alright with getting to and standing outside the arena hours early, so we could get slightly better seats.  Ten Club tickets, at the time, were based on seniority, but you could improve your position within a a block of seats by getting to the box office early.  We ended up with tickets about 20 rows back on the side (on the aisle!!!!), and they were great.  I don't think there was a bad seat in the house.

Opening band Sparta consisted of some of the members of the then defunct 'At The Drive-In', and they underwhelmed, but I didn't care at all.  I was too excited.

They played 28 songs, including 17 songs in the main set and 11 in the two encores.  Corduroy into Grievance into Save You into Do The Evolution was tremendous.  Lukin into Not For You was amazing.  You Are and Daughter in the first encore were fantastic, and then Eddie played People Have The Power, with just him on electric guitar and Matt on drums and I actually said "Wow!" out loud when he hit the "Freeeeeeee-dommmmmm" part towards the end.

I could write a paragraph about each song they played that night, because I have literally heard them over and over dozens of times since then on the officially released bootleg.  It's still my go-to Pearl Jam live album, and as of writing this I have seen them 13 times (with tickets for 14 and 15 purchased).

It sounds hokey and weird, but it's true; Pearl Jam has been incredibly important to me over the last 15 years.  Their music has inspired me and helped me through some rough times, and their live shows are some of the highest points of the last decade and a half of my life. I am thankful to them and incredibly excited to be one of their fans. 

Simply put, I would be a very different person if I hadn't picked up that beat up library CD 15 years ago.