The Pearl Jam experience, part 3: "Just Breathe" (aka My contact high)

It's been almost a decade since I've been to an outdoor concert, and I'm pretty sure I didn't know what marijuana smelled like at that point. (No, I can't believe I didn't either, especially after spending four years at Ohio University. Yes, I think I probably studied too much in college.)

The crowd. No picture could capture its craziness. 

The concert was an eye-opener, if only because of how lax the security procedures are over here. Here's what you might expect at your international concert experience.

• Pre-gaming starts early in Italy. There were empty beer bottles piled everywhere, and even more bottles, cups and even six packs being carried around the neighborhood surrounding Stadio Nereo Rocco. Industrious individuals seemed to be selling them out of plastic tubs (no liquor license required apparently).
• Bring your own drinks. We bought bottles of water outside while we were waiting, and we expected security to ask us to dump them or at the least remove the bottle caps. Then we saw the people in the lane next to us carrying in open bottles of beer with no questions asked. We stopped worrying.
• Bring tissues and hand sanitizing gel.  In all likelihood, you'll face bathrooms without toilet paper, hand soap or paper towels.
• Practice those squats. And by the way, ladies, those toilets likely will be a hole in the floor that requires squatting and minor acrobatics. I truly had hoped to never see one of those again after our trip to China. 
• Beer salesmen aren't as "professional." Maybe it was just our section's guy, but he was sampling the wares during the concert. Later he ended up climbing the fence separating our section from the field to get a better view. Not that he was able to stay up there long. Probably all of the beer he'd been drinking. 
• Marijuana is a sure thing. The foursome directly in front of us had at least three joints apiece, so Ryan, Kate and I are pretty sure we left the concert with a contact high. And those four certainly weren't alone; several others in our section were lighting up as well. 
• Vomit patrol. With all the craziness listed above, is it any wonder you need to watch where you step on the way out?

Taking a beer break ... from selling beer. 

This was No. 1 of his three joints.

The Pearl Jam experience, part 2: Ten ... key points from the concert

Posters outside the stadium.

While I grew up with Pearl Jam's music, I have become more a fan as I've gotten older. And I must say, it was worth the wait to see them live for the first time in a place like Trieste -- a city nestled on the far side of the Adriatic Sea that is so remote some Italians have asked us "Why?" when we've told them it was on the itinerary.


But somehow Pearl Jam found it. And they put on a tremendous show.

1. They played for nearly three hours through a set list of 30 songs.

2. Eddie Vedder is quite the showman. He read Italian at one point to the crowd, opening his monologue with a joke about drinking too much beer after the prior show in Milan. He kicked off the beginning of "Once" on stage alone with just a guitar. He told a story about his 5-year-old daughter being impressed with the tiny toilet in her hotel room. And gave a hell of a show.

3. The Italian/Slovenian/Croatian/other European crowd was really into it. Most of the people around us knew most of the words to most of the songs. That's even more impressive considering none spoke English as their primary language. (A special shout out to the shirtless dudes in the inner circle who didn't stop head-banging, jumping and running around ... for three straight hours).

4. They played most of Ten. In addition to "Once," they broke out "Black" early on (a personal favorite) as well as "Deep," which Vedder introduced by telling the crowd they were going deep into their first album. "Even Flow," "Why Go" and "Porch" followed, and they saved "Jeremy" and "Alive" toward the end.

5. Mike McCready's behind-the-head guitar solo. Yes, he did the entire guitar solo in "Even Flow" with the guitar behind his head. Unbelievable.

6. They played lots of the new stuff. Their 10th album, Lighting Bolt, was well represented with seven songs on the set list by my count. Even the previous album, Backspacer, got decent play. I was especially pleased they chose "Unthought Known."

7. They ended the first half with a kick-ass version of "Rearviewmirror." It's always been among my favorites.

8. They played "Corduroy."

Ryan and Kate reacting to the opening notes of a song.

9. The Mother Love Bone tribute. The second song after the brief intermission, Boom Gaspar began playing those haunting first notes to "Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns." I know Pearl Jam has been playing this double-shot tribute to its roots more often since their 10th anniversary in 2000 and especially after their 20th tour. But it was still a treat to hear it live. And the in-house cameras even focused on a fan in the front row wearing a Mother Love Bone T-shirt -- as a tribute to the band that ultimately became Pearl Jam. It's different hearing Vedder's tones replace the late Andy Wood's early grunge/late '80s metal sound.

The crowd during the finale.

10. They capped off the encore -- and the night -- with Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" after fans in front of the stage unfurled a "Keep on Rockin in the Free World" banner that stretched more than half the width of the stadium. I don't know if that banner comes out at other Pearl Jam concerts, but I'd like to imagine that some of the people who helped hold up the banner were from some of the nearby Eastern European countries that were only joining the free world around the time that Pearl Jam was born.

P.S. from Elizabeth: We weren't at the show where Vedder covered "Let It Go" from Frozen - that was Milan.

The Pearl Jam experience, part 1: "Why go" ... by bus?

Ninety-eight. That's how many Pearl Jam fans you can fit into a small Trieste city bus.

And not one solitary soul more. Trust me.

We decided to wing our transportation to the Pearl Jam concert Sunday night and picked up a bus downtown to the soccer stadium in the northern part of the city.

So Kate, Elizabeth and I squished ourselves into a bus that already was bursting with humanity. And it smelled like it too.

Fortunately I was taller than most of the other passengers, so their faces were in my armpits, not the other way around. Elizabeth was in the middle of the mass of people and too far from a rail or handle, so she was leaning on me. I had such a tight grip on Elizabeth's belt loop that I gave her a wedgie trying to support her.

Just arms and heads for as far as you could see. 

At each turn, I felt like there was a 50-50 chance that the weight of a dozen other people would push me right out of the door I was leaning against. I briefly considered that I might need to make a bargain with God to survive.

Are those keys in your pocket or are you just happy to be this close to me? 

Then at a stop, one poor non-Pearl Jam fan returning home with her groceries got out. But three more people got in. At that point, Elizabeth pointed out the occupancy numbers for the bus was 22 seated and 65 standing. I began counting. By my estimation, we were at least 11 over that, not counting kids and short people I couldn't see.

But with a collective sigh of relief from our fellow passengers, we made it.

Happy to have survived the trip. Happier still to pick up our tickets.