Eddie Vedder and Neil Finn

IMG_7581, originally uploaded by jentwo.

This really isn't a particularly great photo. But it's special to me for a number of reasons.

For the 3-day Labor Day holiday weekend in 2007, I flew to the Pacific Northwest to see the band Crowded House perform. Towards the end of their set at Seattle's Bumbershoot festival, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder joined them for two songs, and it was definitely one of the many personal highlights of my weekend.

I had a pretty strong feeling that Eddie would at least attend the show. Didn't expect him to sing, but did have my tiny hopes. The show was a lot of fun and I would not have been disappointed if there was no sign of him at all, but OF COURSE his participation was the cherry on the sundae for me. I consider him to be my "gateway drug" to Neil Finnaticism.

I was aware of the hits Crowded House had in their first decade as a band, and while I never disliked them, I never bought any of their albums, either. I was also aware of the occasional associations that Eddie and Pearl Jam had with Neil and Tim Finn, going back to 1995. I was aware of the concerts Neil did in Auckland that Eddie was a part of in 2001. But it wasn't until I got the DVD of those shows, 7 Worlds Collide, (given to me by a fellow PJ fan, for the Eddie bits.) that I really started to appreciate Neil as a songwriter.

...and then Jen went on to eventually become a very big fan of Neil Finn...

For this show, their set to open Memorial Stadium on the first day of the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle, Crowded House became only the second band I have ever flown to see. Pearl Jam of course, is the other. Other bands have inspired me to put hundreds of miles on my car, but only two have gotten me into an airplane in 15 years of concert-going and now 100 shows attended.

So...yeah, Eddie came out and sang "World Where You Live" and played guitar on "Something So Strong" and the crowd just ate it up. It was a very fun set and well worth the trip.

When I got home from my trip I went straight to work getting my photos processed and uploaded to Flickr, including descriptive tags. Just a day later, I received an email from someone at Rolling Stone magazine, requesting permission to use this photo on their website. I happily granted it and was thrilled to see it online later that day:

http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/16256470/bumbershoot_2007_eddie_vedder_wu

Not only was it exciting to have something published, but for it to be a photograph of a very happy memory made it extra special for me. And this was taken with a humble 5MP point-and-shoot camera, too!