Pearl Jam Live In Concert...Or Not

It's not that uncommon to be able to get into a show at San Francisco's polo fields for free. Especially if you show up late. My best friend and I were totally broke, but intent on getting to see Pearl Jam play outside at the Polo Fields in the city on that beautiful Saturday in June. As teens, we usually avoided driving in the city whenever possible, meaning a trip to the Polo Fields not only meant riding BART (how we usually got to the city), but also taking Muni (San Francisco's infamously tricky bus line) as well.

We studied the Muni schedule, mapped out our stops and what line we were to take to get to the polo fields and began our mission to go see Pearl Jam. One BART ride and a very long Muni ride later, we were only a couple of blocks away from the Polo Fields. We jumped off the Muni bus and began a light jog towards the Polo Fields.

As we made our way, we saw people coming away from The Polo Fields. They were grumbling and annoyed. WE continued on. Finally we got to the Polo Fields and saw that people were leaving, while others were simply coming in and out of the gates. No one asking for tickets or anything.

Things didn't seem right, yet we could still here the band playing. We walked through the gates and onto the Polo Fields, and as the music got louder we realized that it was a Neil Young song that they were playing. Not just a Neil Young song, but it was actually Neil Young singing.

Confused, we began asking the people around us what had happened, and found out that Eddie Vedder had gotten sick and stopped the show. Neil Young had stepped in to finish the show for the 50,000 plus crowd. Though we were slightly disappointed about missing Pearl Jam, we were Neil Young fans too, so we hung around to watch the show. It was vintage Neil Young. A great day at the polo fields I must say.

We met a group of people who were not much older than us, and spent the afternoon listening to Neil Young, playing hacky sack in the San Francisco sun, and then spent the evening playing pool and drinking Barefoot Chardonnay there in the City. A truly great day...

Years later I would come to find out the whole story about what happened to Eddie Vedder that day. He had been suffering from a horrific case of food poisoning and had been hospitalized the night before. He left the hospital (against orders) to perform the show that day at the Polo Fields. By the seventh song he simply couldn't go anymore. Though I missed it, reviews said that those 7 songs ROCKED, in spite of Eddie being so sick.

Eddie returned to the hotel after that seventh song, and I heard later that he would refer to that weekend as the worst 24 hours of his life. Eddie wrote the song Red Mosquito from that hotel room that horrible day. Well, horrible for him. Like I said, for me it was pretty good. Even though this song wasn't played that day, obviously, it's always weird to think that while I was enjoying Neil Young in the park that day, Eddie was laid up a few blocks away writing this song.