The Pearl Jam show was amazing even if the crowd around me was less than stellar. I was not interested in getting a contact high from my neighbor's very skunky smelling pot nor did I appreciate the elbows to the head from him dancing while too wasted to stand. Oddly enough, the closest I came to losing my temper was when his girlfriend went to put her arm around him and gouged my face with her nails. She didn't leave a mark much less draw blood but I let them know how much I enjoyed coughing up a storm only to get whacked in the head numerous times.
The fact was that I was at the end of my rope when I got ready to go to the concert. Everything hurt already with this breaking last year's record for the harshest change of season pain ever. I thought I had planned well for this concert but a slight mistake buying tickets forced Melissa and me to start over and we lost the good seats that we were buying. Just too many numbers to type in such a short time. I didn't know the Wells Fargo Center as well as I thought so I figured any second level seat would do. Unfortunately, there is no third level. We arrived an hour early for the printed starting time only to learn that there was no opening band. The rest of the crowd strolled in just before the real starting time so I had spent two extra hours in a seat designed to squeeze every last cent out of a potential crowd. My knees cramped and I was wedged between the two chair arms. There was no leaping for joy from this PJ fan.
The show started on a quiet note which I found soothing for about 1.5 seconds. The crowd all jumped up and started dancing anyway. The first few songs were thought provoking and full of subtle guitar work but I couldn't hear a thing. The crowd was so loud that I couldn't quite hear the band. Pearl Jam's sound engineers fixed that problem before long but not until after I had loosened my ear plugs. Soon, I found a position where I could lean back against the top of my seat and see through a gap between a guy recording the concert illegally and someone who was pleasantly short. If I stood up any more, the sides of the chair were going to remove my pants and that's just something I prefer to keep private.
After the first few songs, it was a matter of agony and ecstasy. The agony came from all over my body including my legs where my thighs were going painfully numb while my swollen knees simply ached. The ecstasy came from the music and what I could see onstage. They played just about everything I had hoped to hear except "Love Boat Captain" for me and "Black" for Melissa and me. Mike played entire songs with his guitar held over his head. He must have been supporting all the weight with his left hand on the neck while still using it to play. He also played for long stretches with the guitar behind his head. It was incredibly cool to be on Mike's side of the stage even with my head brushing the Wells Fargo Center's roof. Eddie had been remarkably well behaved during the first two concerts we attended. This time, he climbed a stage light hanging from the roof and went swinging Tarzan style overhead (yet well below me) through "Porch." He had his feet resting on the flat top of the light but he did it with a microphone in hand so it was classic Eddie Vedder. We sang along to all the songs we knew at the top of our lungs (between coughing sprees for me - damn inconsiderate potheads!) in that rare tribal experience left in American life including "Not for You" which I realized is the ultimate expression of that tribal feeling. Outsiders who don't get us can just [stay away] which I'm editing because I'm not eloquent with the f-bomb the way Eddie is.
Somehow, my loosened right ear plug got knocked out of my ear. It might have been during one of those shots from the dancing plume of smoke next to me. You think? I didn't notice it for quite some time until I realized that my entire body was taking the sound from the speakers like body punches. All of my spares were in my bag which was wedged between my feet. My sensible precautions were coming unglued one at a time. I even had my sunglasses on top of my head because the stage was pretty dark from our angle until a yellow spotlight nailed me during "Yellow Moon." Not sure if that quite makes it to ironic but it nearly cost me my balance and I was properly dazzled for a few minutes.
Agony was winning out over ecstasy bit by bit. Sometimes, chronic pain is too unpredictable to prepare for regardless of your experience. As the concert ended, I realized that I was more than ready to leave. There was no jubilant seeking of Pierre and Matt from WMMR. I wanted a bathroom and to go home in that order. The bathroom was just outside our section but I was unsteady on my feet anyway. The pain had gone past my endurance probably before we left. I doubt anything but Pearl Jam could have dragged me out of my sick bed (recliner) that night.
I must have looked terrible because some big guy walked me to the front of the bathroom line daring everyone to say something. I mean that pretty much literally. He had an even clearer picture of how badly I was doing than I did. On the way toward the elevator or stairs, I fell twice on flat ground. I know how to take a fall but the concrete hurt anyway. My second fall took place right in front of a Comcast employee who seemed to be questioning my right to take the elevator. Jackass! The contrast between the drunk guy helping me and the employee failing to do his job by helping me is absurd. It just wasn't funny at the time.
The pain only got worse the next day. My main defense against this sorta pain is reclining into a comfortable position and meditating my way to sleep. I was too overwhelmed and touch sensitive to find any sort of comfortable position. Beer brought a certain numbness with it but it deprives me of sleep. The concert was Monday night and today is Friday (might be Saturday before I post) with the time in between a painful blur. My cats took outrageous advantage of the fact that I could hardly get out of my chair. I was the perfect napping platform and 30 pounds of cat or more did not help me get up to meet my needs. For a while, it seemed like some sort of congealed hell but time did pass.
I seem to have regained a few useful hours where I can meditate past the pain. At first, I blamed myself as being stupid for going to see my favorite band. The thing is that we bought the tickets in July when I was anticipating a lot of relief from the stress triggered pain of the time. Looking forward to this show brought me a lot of the relief I did feel. Call it stubbornness but Melissa and I are working on a revised set of rules for enjoying a concert despite extreme chronic pain. It might help to take a limo up with some fan friends of ours and we will need better seats. Getting the right mix of conditions for a little preliminary numbness could be crucial. Belgian beer in the limo plus using my right to take my medication when it's needed most seems logical. If there's a will,...sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and admit your preparations failed.
I hope it doesn't come to that again because a fourth Pearl Jam show will not be enough. I could follow them around the way people used to follow the Grateful Dead.
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