Red Mosquito

daft twat wrote:

Jaeti wrote:Got GA for both Pittsburgh shows. Now it's on to strategizing the best way to do that with my six-and-a-half-year old.

Get him some oversized hearing protection and hold him on your shoulders, obstructing the view of everyone behind you. Ed will point him out. He’ll maybe get to sit on stage for a song while Ed sings and you’ll for sure get a tambourine. That is the only reason to bring a 6 year old to the show.

I can see where I sound like an asshole, and I am one, but your kid isn’t going to have a great time, and it’s going to affect your time as well. You should bring a friend and hope the band is still around in 4 or 5 years when it can be the experience you’re wanting to make happen now.

It's all good, you're working with limited information. I grew up in Pittsburgh but have no family there any longer, so my kid has never seen my hometown, my old house, etc. So this is a good excuse to make that trip, if nothing else.

Regarding the band, I've been to three dozen shows. My best friend and I were just eight "rows" deep in the pit in Boston in September. After I went to four shows in a month last summer, my kid started saying he wanted to go to one with me. And when this tour announcement came out I realized I was officially past the point of needing to treat these things as sacred. Me and my aforementioned friend have been to 30 shows together (he and his daughter will join us at these shows). We've been front-front row, we were at State College '03, Halloween at the Spectrum, yadda yadda. I've got several of those types of feathers in my cap. It's a solid resume.

I love this band, but their live peak is obviously behind them. They're going to play their 25 songs, and it'll be great, but there's zero risk of my kid getting tired and whiny and distracting me from being fully absorbed in "the last legendary Pearl Jam show." That show is already in the past. If it's a rough go, so be it. I'm not worried about my experience, just his, and we'll manage it. If he wants to leave, we'll leave.

I actually felt a bit of sadness after my shows this summer because, honestly, I couldn't be certain that I'd ever have a chance to try and take my kid to one. We all assume there will be more shows, and now we have a few, but that's not actually ever certain. So, yeah, hard to argue that waiting until he's 10 or 11 would be a better bet for it all going swimmingly, but I think I'll roll the low-stakes dice here and see how it goes.

i hate trying to get in and out of the city for a concert. 65 or 279 is always my best bet. i avoid greentree hill at all costs

Got the dreaded email. My ticket requests are like my wife.

Shut out for both Pittburgh shows. Lame.

Superblood Wolfmoon wrote:Shut out for both Pittburgh shows. Lame.

Only upper east coast show. One has to figure those shows have the highest demand. Bummer you were shut out.

Jaeti wrote:

daft twat wrote:

Jaeti wrote:Got GA for both Pittsburgh shows. Now it's on to strategizing the best way to do that with my six-and-a-half-year old.

Get him some oversized hearing protection and hold him on your shoulders, obstructing the view of everyone behind you. Ed will point him out. He’ll maybe get to sit on stage for a song while Ed sings and you’ll for sure get a tambourine. That is the only reason to bring a 6 year old to the show.

I can see where I sound like an asshole, and I am one, but your kid isn’t going to have a great time, and it’s going to affect your time as well. You should bring a friend and hope the band is still around in 4 or 5 years when it can be the experience you’re wanting to make happen now.

It's all good, you're working with limited information. I grew up in Pittsburgh but have no family there any longer, so my kid has never seen my hometown, my old house, etc. So this is a good excuse to make that trip, if nothing else.

Regarding the band, I've been to three dozen shows. My best friend and I were just eight "rows" deep in the pit in Boston in September. After I went to four shows in a month last summer, my kid started saying he wanted to go to one with me. And when this tour announcement came out I realized I was officially past the point of needing to treat these things as sacred. Me and my aforementioned friend have been to 30 shows together (he and his daughter will join us at these shows). We've been front-front row, we were at State College '03, Halloween at the Spectrum, yadda yadda. I've got several of those types of feathers in my cap. It's a solid resume.

I love this band, but their live peak is obviously behind them. They're going to play their 25 songs, and it'll be great, but there's zero risk of my kid getting tired and whiny and distracting me from being fully absorbed in "the last legendary Pearl Jam show." That show is already in the past. If it's a rough go, so be it. I'm not worried about my experience, just his, and we'll manage it. If he wants to leave, we'll leave.

I actually felt a bit of sadness after my shows this summer because, honestly, I couldn't be certain that I'd ever have a chance to try and take my kid to one. We all assume there will be more shows, and now we have a few, but that's not actually ever certain. So, yeah, hard to argue that waiting until he's 10 or 11 would be a better bet for it all going swimmingly, but I think I'll roll the low-stakes dice here and see how it goes.

I did have limited information. Your history with the band is cool. The info I was working with was my own personal experience. I took my 7 year old to a home show in St. Paul in 2014 because I was so excited to share my favorite thing with him. He wanted to go to and even knew a couple songs pretty well. The day of the show, he was too excited to take a nap. We had front row reserved seats on the side. He could see everything. He was dead asleep after 10 songs. A roadie brought him a pick and a drum stick at some point during the show. He remembers all this happened, but he doesn’t really remember any of it. And that’s fine. I guess my point was GA is just not likely to be a good time for him or you. All kids are different, but most 7 year olds are pretty tiny, get tired of standing, and get cranky if their sleep schedule is disrupted. Elevated seating solves most of that. Throw in some popcorn or ice cream and it’s hard to not have a good time. Whatever you do, I hope you have a great time. I’ll be there with my 15 year old son as well. We could fly, but he’d rather make the 12 hour drive because of the road trip we took there two summers ago to see his favorite band at PNC. The one who was with me in 2014 has no interest.

Monkey_Driven wrote:

Superblood Wolfmoon wrote:Shut out for both Pittburgh shows. Lame.

Only upper east coast show. One has to figure those shows have the highest demand. Bummer you were shut out.

Yeah, I don't know if they take into account your home zip code and give priority to locals, but I'm in Oregon so that may have worked against me too.

Biff Pocoroba wrote:Put in for Hollywood 2 and both Atlanta shows. Only got Atlanta 1. Never was able to sign up for the presale.

I didn’t get an email on the second Atlanta date but today’s email from Ticketmaster shows both and my Amex account has two pending $408.95 charges so looks like I’m good for the local concerts. Still going to try Hollywood 2 on Friday but not getting my hopes up.

Biff Pocoroba wrote:

Biff Pocoroba wrote:Put in for Hollywood 2 and both Atlanta shows. Only got Atlanta 1. Never was able to sign up for the presale.

I didn’t get an email on the second Atlanta date but today’s email from Ticketmaster shows both and my Amex account has two pending $408.95 charges so looks like I’m good for the local concerts. Still going to try Hollywood 2 on Friday but not getting my hopes up.

daft twat wrote:

Jaeti wrote:

daft twat wrote:

Jaeti wrote:Got GA for both Pittsburgh shows. Now it's on to strategizing the best way to do that with my six-and-a-half-year old.

Get him some oversized hearing protection and hold him on your shoulders, obstructing the view of everyone behind you. Ed will point him out. He’ll maybe get to sit on stage for a song while Ed sings and you’ll for sure get a tambourine. That is the only reason to bring a 6 year old to the show.

I can see where I sound like an asshole, and I am one, but your kid isn’t going to have a great time, and it’s going to affect your time as well. You should bring a friend and hope the band is still around in 4 or 5 years when it can be the experience you’re wanting to make happen now.

It's all good, you're working with limited information. I grew up in Pittsburgh but have no family there any longer, so my kid has never seen my hometown, my old house, etc. So this is a good excuse to make that trip, if nothing else.

Regarding the band, I've been to three dozen shows. My best friend and I were just eight "rows" deep in the pit in Boston in September. After I went to four shows in a month last summer, my kid started saying he wanted to go to one with me. And when this tour announcement came out I realized I was officially past the point of needing to treat these things as sacred. Me and my aforementioned friend have been to 30 shows together (he and his daughter will join us at these shows). We've been front-front row, we were at State College '03, Halloween at the Spectrum, yadda yadda. I've got several of those types of feathers in my cap. It's a solid resume.

I love this band, but their live peak is obviously behind them. They're going to play their 25 songs, and it'll be great, but there's zero risk of my kid getting tired and whiny and distracting me from being fully absorbed in "the last legendary Pearl Jam show." That show is already in the past. If it's a rough go, so be it. I'm not worried about my experience, just his, and we'll manage it. If he wants to leave, we'll leave.

I actually felt a bit of sadness after my shows this summer because, honestly, I couldn't be certain that I'd ever have a chance to try and take my kid to one. We all assume there will be more shows, and now we have a few, but that's not actually ever certain. So, yeah, hard to argue that waiting until he's 10 or 11 would be a better bet for it all going swimmingly, but I think I'll roll the low-stakes dice here and see how it goes.

I did have limited information. Your history with the band is cool. The info I was working with was my own personal experience. I took my 7 year old to a home show in St. Paul in 2014 because I was so excited to share my favorite thing with him. He wanted to go to and even knew a couple songs pretty well. The day of the show, he was too excited to take a nap. We had front row reserved seats on the side. He could see everything. He was dead asleep after 10 songs. A roadie brought him a pick and a drum stick at some point during the show. He remembers all this happened, but he doesn’t really remember any of it. And that’s fine. I guess my point was GA is just not likely to be a good time for him or you. All kids are different, but most 7 year olds are pretty tiny, get tired of standing, and get cranky if their sleep schedule is disrupted. Elevated seating solves most of that. Throw in some popcorn or ice cream and it’s hard to not have a good time. Whatever you do, I hope you have a great time. I’ll be there with my 15 year old son as well. We could fly, but he’d rather make the 12 hour drive because of the road trip we took there two summers ago to see his favorite band at PNC. The one who was with me in 2014 has no interest.

I hear you on the GA vs. seats. I wouldn't have been sad at all to end up with seats, but I wanted to maximize my odds of simply landing tickets, so I put in for either option. Now that they're in hand as a Plan A, I may explore a Plan B of buying seats elsewhere and putting my tickets back up on the ticket exchange.

Also, while he's no longer a napper, I definitely was thinking today about how to make sure he doesn't wipe himself out doing whatever else that day before the show even starts. Appreciate your perspective, and happy to hear other takes from anyone else who's tackled what I'm thinking of tackling.

Bi_3 wrote:Got the dreaded email. My ticket requests are like my wife.

"Unfilled" (Peep Show reference)

Jaeti wrote:Got GA for both Pittsburgh shows. Now it's on to strategizing the best way to do that with my six-and-a-half-year old.

I've taken all three of mine at one point or another. Six is pushing it.

I took our oldest who is now in college when he was 8 and he's a huge fan now, has no recollection whatsoever of the show. He was totally fine at the show, was as engaged as possible, we were on the floor in Baltimore right behind GA. I didn't take hearing protection. Good memory.

Our middle kid is now 16, took him to the Ten show in Philadelphia when he was 8, he also has no recollection of the show. He was not as nearly engaged as his brother, he played Subway Surfer on my phone most of the show. We were in reserved, no hearing protection. He regrets not being engaged, for sure. He's a fan now, not quite as big of a fan as his brother, just went with me to one of the Philly shows. First show for him was less of a great memory. We bust his balls over it as often as possible.

Just took my daughter to Baltimore in GA, she just turned 10(was 9 at the time), I've posted about this far too much. Best experience I've had at any show no matter if kids were with me or not, as Ed, Mike, and Stone interacted with her. She obviously doesn't know Tremor Christ or Can't Keep, but she does know the Dark Matter stuff and a lot more than you would imagine, through having to hear it around the house and in the car. She was as fully engaged as any other fan. She danced around most of the night until she got tired near the end and tapped out. We did take over the ear hearing protection for her, since we knew she'd be close.

I am saying this as a dad, I think you will spend more of your time entertaining your kid at 6 and it will rob you of your experience. That is unless your kid is some sort of PJ savant and knows enough to enjoy the show.

Hope everything works out.

Bi_3 wrote:Got the dreaded email. My ticket requests are like my wife.

unfulfilled?

We’ve taken our youngest to quite a few shows starting when she was 5-6-7? Her first few were Taylor Swift and she fell asleep thru all of them. (I wasn’t at these). Then I took her to Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers when she was 9-10. She had a blast during the Doobies and was singing along with the ones she knew. Then, after Steely Dan came on, she was just tired and irritable. She didn’t fall asleep but I sure wish she would’ve. She spent most of their set yelling “play Peg!!” because she knew they were playing it close to the end of the show and she wanted to go home. When they did play it, she was a different child and was good thru the remaining couple of songs.

9-10 has to be the sweet spot, anything earlier is ehhhhh, I think.

Chris_H_2 wrote:

Bi_3 wrote:Got the dreaded email. My ticket requests are like my wife.

unfulfilled?

Appreciate you relaying your stories Mr.x & wease

Peeps wrote:

Chris_H_2 wrote:

Bi_3 wrote:Got the dreaded email. My ticket requests are like my wife.

unfulfilled?

Better than GA