"Once more...this show and the next were not on my previous iteniary...but I just couldn't shake the band free.  I spent what was just about the last of my spending money in New York on a ticket to this show...But today was payday so I had money to ignore bills with and spend on PJ...so I was going to try for an upgrade.  I had made plans to meet up with Eric again this night and when I told him of my hopes to upgrade, he got a mischievious glint in his eye and said..."I think that will be very possible"...

Apparently the friend he was going to take had bailed on him at the last minute and he would have an extra fan club ticket...Neiter of us, of course, realized just HOW GOOD the tickets were going to be.  Front Row, smack dab between Stoney and Eddie.  The two of us simply DIED.
For us, stoney lovers, it was a dream come true.  Unlike in VA beach, where I brought my rig in for the hell of it, tonight I did not even bother and just ROCKED the shit out!!!  And of all shows to rock out, front row...this was CERTAINLY a good one for it.
The band opened with Sometimes...a song I simply adore...and then from there, it was ON.  Last Exit -> Animal -> Red Mosquito -> Grievance...I was drooling I think at that point.  The band was just ON that night!
Before leaving the stage, Stone threw his pick into the crowd...it was the only pick he used the entire main set...That pick is mine. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
 

But it was the encore...the encore where the shit hit the fan.  After my ten previous shows that tour, the band was *finally* coerced by all the signs and gave us the treat we all so desperately wanted..."Breath".  I had said throughout the tour that it had been so long since they had played it, I hadn't even heard it on boots for so long...that I wouldn't even recognize it when they first started it...
I was right, and not just because they munched up the opening riffs a bit either.  I WAS however...going FRIGGINOUTTAMYFRIGGINMIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OHMYFRIGGINGGOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of all the "I can't believe this is happening" moments on tour...this took the cake.  Of all the concert moments since that first show back in 1995...this was THE moment.  The surrealness of it all...I don't think anything will ever compare.  To see the sweat on Eddies face as he crooned, whaled, and screamed into the microphone.  The shit eating grin on Jeffs face, Stoney's duck walk dance in his bowling shoes (!), and Mike...well just being Mike : )  Ed had specifically pointed out the guy next to me and his breath sign before playing the song.  I hugged that man.  After breath, everything paled in comparison...but the energy of them playing it, the adrenalin and excitement in my bones...it carred over to Tremor Christ, Once....even through small town and jeremy...It was just one of those moments made everything seem better, more important, more worthwhile...
People who don't understand the connection I have with this band's music.  People who just don't "get" the desire to follow a band around like I do.  People who don't believe in the power of music...they all just don't understand, and will *never* understand.

All things said and done, I probably should have gone home after this show...not even bothered with the next night's show...this night would have been so fitting an end to my tour...

BUT it was still PJ, I still had just that ONE MORE SHOW...and damnit I was going!
 
 

One last show.  One last night.  Eddie came out prior to SY to play Dead man and Parting Ways.  I missed most of Dead Man as I was in the loo at the time (but I'd seen Ed do it twice before so i wasn't as concerned over that blunder), but did catch all of Parting Ways from up in the lawn section ..it was beautiful hearing Ed and looking out outside the venue at the lights of Philly and the water...
It was an anticlimatic show though, as I knew, deep down, it would be.  As charged up as the band was, my distance from the stage and the comparison to the night before...
The band closed with Baba (!!!) and then...it was over.  My summer stalking PJ had ended.  Driving home, it all seemed dreamlike.  Had I really seen 12 shows in the last month?  Had I really met all those wonderful people, seen all those wonderful cities and sites...had all those wonderful times?  Well I did, and I will never forget the year 2000 because of it.  If I remember nothing else of 2000, I will remember my summer with PJ."  (From "My Earthly Shell; 09.05.00")