Bridge School
Tuesday, October 23, 2001 - 9:06

The Bridge School show was really cool. All of the performers were awesome. They were: Jill Sobule, Ben Harper, Billy Fucking Idol, Tracy Chapman, Dave Matthews, REM, Pearl Jam, and Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

Jill Sobule went first both days (after Neil Young opened with a song or two). The first day, there were these goddamn drunk, high frat boys behind us, and they were making fun of Jill Sobule. If there's one group of people who always fit their stereotype, it's frat boys. I fucking hate frat boys, especially drunk, high, sexist frat boys. But Jill was really good.

Then Ben Harper went after Jill both days. He was good too. On Sunday his mom came out and played a song with him.

On Saturday, Billy Idol went after Ben Harper. Billy Idol was frozen in 1989 and thawed out just for this weekend. I swear. He was exactly the same. It was so funny. All the Bridge School kids and their parents were sitting at the back of the stage. (The Bridge School is a school for kids with severe speech and physical impairments.) And Billy Idol was doing all these phallic gestures and singing "My dick is so cheesy" and stuff. I was shocked. But damn, the guy's a really good singer, and his guitar player, Steve Stevens, is a really good guitar player. In short, Billy Idol kicked ass. On Sunday he played second to last, right before Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

Tracy Chapman played after Billy Idol on Saturday. On Sunday she played right before him. She totally kicked ass. I totally love her now.

Then REM played. Michael Stipe was dancing all over the place.

And then Dave Matthews played. The drunk, high frat boys (and their chicks) loved Dave Matthews. They were really good fans, too. Dave introduced a song he said he just finished, and then halfway through that song, the drunk, high frat boys and their chicks were like "What's this, a new song or something?" They weren't even listening. Tracy Chapman sang a song with him on Sunday.

Then Pearl Jam played. The drunk, high frat boys liked Pearl Jam and actually knew their new stuff. The drunk, high chicks that were with them were saying "Just play Yellow Ledbetter so we can leave." They played two new songs. They played Low Light, which they'd never played live before. Ben Harper came out and sang Indifference with them both nights. On the first night, Eddie turned around and sang Last Kiss to a girl named Maricor, who was a Bridge School student and is now a sophomore at Berkeley. Afterwards he gave her his tambourine and gave her a kiss. She was thrilled. All the kids were so happy. It was awesome. Mike McCready was awesome. Pearl Jam sounded really good, I was really happy to be there, gush, gush, etc. I can't really say enough.

After them, Neil Young and Crazy Horse played. They played an instrumental version of Imagine, and the words were supposed to be up on the big screens, but someone forgot to put them up for the first verse. But once the words were up, the whole audience started singing and it was really cool.

On Sunday we left before Neil Young came on. I felt bad about leaving early, but as it was, we got home at 2:30 and I had class at 10:30.

But it was an awesome weekend. The weather was great. The music was great. I want to go again next year. This year it sold out in two and a half hours.