MEETING PEARL JAM IN 1992

March 29, 1992

Because I had made plans to attend the March 30th Pearl Jam concert with someone else, my girlfriend at the time insisted that I take her out to a movie the night before the show. (She wasn’t a big Pearl Jam fan anyway.) We went to Showcase Cinemas in Norwood and, as was our custom at the time, took a moment to get high in the parking lot before the movie. As we walked through the front door I noticed a taxi cab pulling up to the curb out front. We stood for a moment in the lobby, shaking off the cold and just looking around.

I asked my girlfriend to hold on a second, nodding in the direction of the taxi. We exchanged a look that said, “Is that who I think it is?” We fell into the ticket line behind the guys who had just emerged from the taxi and I nodded to my girlfriend, whispering, “No. It’s not them.” We were going to see Wayne’s World and the line was long. We stood behind these guys for a full ten minutes thinking No, that’s silly, there is no way that’s who we thought it was. Then the tallest guy in their crew - that turned out to be Jeff Ament in his big fuzzy Russian cap of the time - turned around and I saw that he was also wearing a Lakers jacket. I blurted out, “YOU GUYS ARE PEARL JAM.” They were kinda stunned that anybody knew who they were at the time. It was still early days for them. They only had one record out and it hadn't really started taking off yet. Jeff introduced us to Stone and a couple of their roadies but there was a little guy in a backwards cap on the fringes of their group and I said, “Who’s the little guy?” Turned out that was shy little Eddie, but he lit up right away and spoke to us for the next 10-15 minutes. He joked about going to see Wayne’s World. “It’s like the hip thing to do. A French film, isn’t it?” They bought their tickets and Eddie turned to my girlfriend and me saying, “We’re just going over to the concession stand, if you wanna join us.” We said sure as they walked away and we stepped up to buy our tickets.

At the concession stand is where I really fell into a nice chat with Eddie. Told him I had tickets to the show and I loved the album. He was very gracious and appreciative. I told him that even with only one album out, I already saw him as one of the great singers right up there with Steven Tyler and Robin Zander. (What can I say? I’m a Cheap Trick fan!) This was the most memorable part: Eddie said, “Those are very kind words. And I’ll believe them, I’ll take them to heart, if you want me to.” And I was like, “Uhhh… Yeah! Please do!” Just like when they bought tickets just ahead of us in line, they now had their popcorn and Eddie said, “Come sit with us!” We said okay and watched them as the usher tore their tickets and they disappeared down the dark corridor. We got our popcorn but then decided, you know, that was nice but let’s give ‘em their privacy. We just sat in the back, not even looking for them in the cinema. During Wayne’s World when Wayne & Garth prostrated themselves before Alice Cooper, saying, “WE’RE NOT WORTHY! WE’RE NOT WORTHY!” I turned to my girlfriend and whispered, embarrassed, “Oh my God. Did I just do that to Pearl Jam in the lobby?” She said no, no, it was cool. If we hadn’t paused to get high in the parking lot, the timing of our encounter would have been mislaid and we would have breezed right into the theater without meeting them. So the moral of the story is: Always pause to get high in the parking lot .

Years later, I told this story to a guy who turned out to be an unscrupulous autograph hound (to put it nicely). He “stole” my story when Eddie Vedder refused his request for a photo, telling Eddie, “I’m the dude who you talked to at the movie theater going to see Wayne’s World back in ’92!” The guy got his picture with EV. Kinda bums me out that he put one over on Ed just to get his photo taken with him. There was even a local TV station that got wind of the story and wanted to interview me on camera about the guy "stealing my story" just to get his picture with Eddie Vedder. I turned them down. It seemed silly and I was not interested in airing my grievances as such. An old friend of mine co-wrote the Twenty book with the guys in the band and he’s friendly with Ed. So maybe someday I’ll get a chance to say “Actually no it was ME who you spoke to at the theater!” But it doesn’t really bother me that much. That unscrupulous autograph hound asshole has to look himself in the mirror everyday and sooner or later his karma will come full circle. I had an honest encounter with the band by happy accident. But that guy used dishonesty like a simple tool to get what he wanted: a photo with a rock star who generally shies away from personal photos with fans except on rare occasions. I kinda lost interest in Pearl Jam after Vitalogy. But this will always be a fond of memory of when that band was brand new and I was pretty fanatical at the time. And the show at Bogart’s the following night was amazing.