At the risk of sounding creepy, I might draw the distinction that I don’t love this band - I’m in love with this band. Following them feels more like being in a relationship than merely being a fan of a rock band. I only bring up this anecdote because I think it hints at precisely what makes being a die-hard Pearl Jam fan unique. Grateful for our experience and happy for the experience of 40,000-plus fellow fans. I became nearly inconsolable after processing the trio of “Off He Goes”, “Immortality”, and “Rearviewmirror”. No doubt he, like myself, went to bed thinking about our show that should’ve been. By the morning, though, any disappointment or jealousy had subsided. He regretted missing his favorite, “State of Love and Trust”, and some deeper Ten cuts.
In words barely more eloquent than those, we spent the next hour, on and off, bemoaning that we had covered the wrong show - like two spoiled brats who had each found a shiny dime at his feet but grumbled that it wasn’t a quarter. I clicked on the setlist link, scanned down, and texted back: “Oh fuck…” No apocalypse, no emergency, just a Pearl Jam setlist that he liked better than the one we got two nights earlier at Wrigley Field. As I shrugged off sleep to try and figure out what exactly that meant, the rest of his message came through: “Tonight’s set was so much better.” I stopped getting dressed and sank back into bed. That was the only word Editor-in-Chief Michael Roffman texted me late Monday night. Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in 2016.