This still moves me as well, but the most formative image from that day is that of Dave’s mother. All this he did with sincerity even though it was also a kind of show, and I am sure that sometime later that afternoon he curled up in a corner and wept like his remaining sons. Neither is it the image of Dave’s father, who wrapped up every blessed stranger in that procession with a bear hug, told them he knew them if he did and from where, and thanked them for coming. I remember how openly they wept, one of them in particular, but this is not the primary image that has stayed with me. I still see his two younger suited brothers in the receiving line, exiting now and then to catch their breath and then returning to shake hands alongside their parents. I carry a few frozen images from that day, but one stands above the rest. But Dave’s viewing remains my archetype of the beloved friend-sibling-child cut down in the prime of life, and of the family managing somehow to stay vertical alongside the body while others stream past with hugs and handshakes saying how much the deceased meant to them. His was not the first dead body I had seen, and I have since presided over funerals of others who have died young. Four summers later, I stood by his body at the viewing. Dave was not my best friend over the years (sometimes I thought everyone else in Philadelphia knew him better than I did), but he was my best friend that summer, and it was easy to love something loved by someone I loved. I’m not sure whether it is due to a truly acquired love of Pearl Jam’s music or to Dave’s influence, but ever since that summer I have defended my conviction that they are the greatest-ever American rock band the way that some defend their family’s honor - with more pathos than logos, and with scant consideration of the evidence. I ended up seeing them three times on that tour alone, and Dave was with me for all of them. By their second decade, Pearl Jam had left the combat boot-laden audiences of the grunge era and was drawing a multi-generational crowd, but even so, by the end of the first song, Dave was high-fiving the fans to our right - a 13-year-old and his mom - and by the end of the night’s encore I was high-fiving them, too. Yes, Dave was also proud.) That night he wore an olive military jacket and a fresh mohawk in protest of the new war in Iraq, which was not exactly the look of the crowd at large. (In his own words, Dave used to say that he was the fourth most popular person in Philadelphia, right behind Iverson, McNabb and former mayor-turned-governor Ed Rendell. I once mentioned his name in a bar on 15th Street and a stranger next to me yelled, “I know him!” and went on to tell me about her own hijinks with Dave. On that night he had a free ticket, and that is the only reason I joined him.īy the time we got off the subway and found our seats at the now-imploded Spectrum, I was not surprised that Dave had greeted a dozen past acquaintances. Dave, on the other hand, had a personal connection to the band (his childhood friend was the son of their lawyer, as I recall) and had been backstage at a dozen or more Pearl Jam concerts over the years. Pearl Jam was too mainstream to be either. Also, by 2003 I was 21 and interested in being taken seriously, which I was convinced would only happen if my musical taste was either obscure or ironic. Pearl Jam reminded me of concert T-shirts on the backs of guys that I did not get along with in High School. In April 2003 Dave convinced me to join him for my first Pearl Jam concert at the Philadelphia stop of their Riot Act tour. Their induction ceremony was held in Brooklyn last weekend, on the eve of Holy Week. Their debut album Ten recently turned 25 years old (the Hall of Fame’s minimum age requirement for a band’s nomination), which was Dave’s age when he died. The ten-year anniversary of his death roughly coincides with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction of Pearl Jam, a band that is inseparable from Dave’s life and times. My friend Dave died in a car accident in 2007. This moving piece was written by John Alexander. Holy Saturday may have come and gone, but its meaning and importance remain ever with us.
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