DESCRIPTION:
Pearl Jam - Hold On - The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA-10/30/09-Night 3, Lower lever right; sect. 214 row 17 seat 15-(My 23rd Pearl Jam concert)-This was part of 4 concerts (10/27,28,30,31) that I experienced Pearl Jam blowing away everyone that was lucky enough to be there as they rocked the place, with the 4 final concerts, final 4 events overall, ever at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. These concerts, that entire week together is now and forever in my top 3 concert experiences and also top ?? (it is up there) life experiences. My favorite band (my addiction, my musical religion, whatever you want to call them) closing down the place where in my early childhood, I grew up going to see the Flyers and 76ers with my father, who was a salesman for Consolidated Freightways, and his clients in the CF luxury box. I will never forget those times with my Dad in Suite A. After the CF years I went to as many Flyers games and concerts there as I could. The Spectrum will always be in my heart and memories, and to top it all off by getting to experience these 4 shows with 2 of my best friends in life (Kevin, nights 1 and 2, and Bernie nights 3 and 4)!!!!!!!!! No words can describe how truly amazing and memorable that was for me. I won the Ten Club ticket lottery and got to be in row 9 on the floor on night 2. The final night 4 the seats were incredible as well, 19 or 20th row on the floor I believe. I shot as much video as I could and with so much emotion here all 4 nights. Please enjoy every note of all of the songs that I post. Eddie and the band were the best I had ever heard them sound and their emotion and energy was so evident as they felt blessed as well just to be there, let alone to have the honor of closing such a historic building out. I listen to the CD (long since on my IPOD) versions of these shows on a somewhat regular basis. These are usually my goto Pearl Jam official bootlegs of the 75 or so that I own, even with all of the wide variety of music that I listen to. I come back to these shows a lot. There are so many stories from these 4 nights that week, but I will just leave you with one memory. After the balloons had dropped after Yellow Ledbetter and Mike playing the National Anthem on guitar to finish it all off, Bernie​ and I just sat in our seats and soaked in everything that had happened that night and took some pictures as the majority of the crowd had filed out. I cried a bit then. Tears of joy in remembering such great times at this place. Security was very cool with some of us just hanging out longer than usual after a show and then we finally walked up into the lower level seats just under Suite A and I took some pictures there and I cried a lot more, happily remembering all of those times there with my Dad. I sat there for a bit and soaked all of that in. Then we walked a full lap around the lower level concourse for one last time to soak that in and then I took some pictures outside of Suite A and cried some more of course. From there, as Bernie and I loved to do as much as we could over our many many concert-going years together, we closed down the Spectrum parking lot by not leaving until security was saying it was time to leave. At this point I cried a little more and I'm pretty sure I hugged my best friend with some "I Love You Man" hugs, and took some more pictures of us with the Spectrum in the background and we finally left the lot and took that final Spectrum trek on the Schuylkill and then up the Turnpike, one last time. Cheers to Pearl Jam and Cheers to the Spectrum!!! Enjoy all of this great music. Peace.... Joel