Dumbek's Random Stuff

Are you f--king kidding me? Row A? ROW A???? Ho-ly crap. The Ten Club randomly distributed tickets this time, rather than going by seniority. We pretty much hit the jackpot there. It's a shame they weren't allowing cameras. Security was extra-tight. I think they're putting together a DVD. Brendan Canty was filming (quite literally - he was one of the cameramen on stage all night), so I assume it's somehow related to Trixie.

The show was really good. I was expecting about an hour of mediocre guitar strumming and songs from Into The Wild, but was pleasantly surprised by how wrong I was. Who knew that Eddie could actually play guitar pretty well? Damn. Much better than I expected. And we did get most (all?) of Into The Wild, but we also got a couple of Pearl Jam songs, as well as a bunch of covers (Cat Stevens, a couple Dylan, Beatles, Hunters and Collectors). Eddie playing guitar...and ukulele...and mandolin...and banjo. And, of course, lots of talking and stories from Eddie. In all - the show was nearly 2.5 hours long.

Highlights..."Watchtower" with Brendan Canty on drums..."Hard Sun"..."No More"...screwing up "Society" and starting again from the guitar solo....just about everything, really. He made a passing reference to The Evens' song "All These Governors", but I forget the context. Everyone coming through DC loves to drop Ian's name in some context. It sounds cliche, but being about 10 feet from Eddie most of the night - it really felt like we were just sitting around in his living room while he sang and talked to us. It was that intimate. The 2.5 hours seemed like 20 minutes. It just flew by.

Best moment of the night was probably watching this little girl - maybe 4-5 years-old - right up against the stage for the last few songs. She was wearing an "I (heart) Eddie Vedder" t-shirt. Her father was holding her up, right at the front of the stage. She was clapping along, smiling and waving her arms around like crazy. She looked like she was having more fun than anyone else in the building. Eddie saw her and threw a guitar pick her way. She didn't hesitate to crawl out of her fathers arms and run about 5 feet onto the stage to pick it up - running right back to her dad and giving high-fives to everyone around her. Just adorable. At the very end Eddie walked over and gave her the flowers another fan had given him earlier in the evening. Nice.

So, yeah, Eddie Vedder rocks - even solo acoustic. Even on ukulele and banjo. One of my favorites of the year. I knew it would be good. I didn't know it would be THAT good.