Trip Down Memory Lane… First Concert

This isn’t one of our typical news posts, but more of a retrospective on a period in my life when I was naive, innocent & young enough not to know better.

My First Concert

I can’t specifically remember how the topic came up of going to see Pearl Jam in Salt Lake City back in the mid-90′s, but I remember going with my friend Enrique. I had liked Pearl Jam from what I’d heard on the radio and I think they were playing with Veruca Salt(?) and a couple other opening bands; I remember they were pretty good btw.

Anyway, I think we pre-purchased our concert tickets to the show and having my first car (I was only 16), I was ready to go & have some fun.

The concert was at the Delta Center, which I was actually pretty familiar with because we had 1/3 of a season’s tickets to Utah Jazz home games. Other than the venue, the entire atmosphere was a completely new experience.

One of the things I remember distinctly was the smell of pot throughout the entire arena. I don’t think smoking was allowed in the building at the time; let alone smoking mary-jane. This was the first time that I’d been exposed to an illegal drug – odd at 16 years old, but yeah… I didn’t use during or after the concert, but I’m sure there was enough there to get a (minor) contact high (yeah, maybe that’s a stretch).

The concert was fantastic… I remember that I had very little of my voice left afterwards and for about 2 additional days. We didn’t even leave the arena until around midnight, so not only was it my first concert, but it was also the latest I’d been allowed to stay out with some friends away from home (or their home).

While I haven’t been to a lot of concerts in my lifetime, I think the Pearl Jam concert opened my eyes in terms of what to expect and that I could really enjoy going. Since the concert, my interest in Pearl Jam has definitely waned, but I think that has more to do with their new music, more than anything. Their album Ten is still my favorite – easy choice for sure.

Since Pearl Jam, some of my favorite concerts include:

• KoRn, Stone Sour & Deftones in Phoenix.
• Seether in Phoenix.
• Silverchair in Salt Lake.
• Staind, Nickelback & others in Phoenix.