I think maybe someone should take my credit cards away.

(Diana, I’m in $50,000 of debt and this is how I’ve chose to tell you. Just kidding! Did you really think I was Nicki from Big Love? You did for a second, didn’t you?)

For the past several weeks I have been holding out hope that, since Pearl Jam’s current tour plans ignore pretty much everything south of the Mason-Dixon line (including Arizona) that they would announce fall tour dates for our part of the country for when they finish their European tour. Instead they have announced they are going to go tour in Australia. I now bear a grudge toward boomerangs.

So, either they will come visit Phoenix (but not until 2007 sometime) or we’re getting skipped completely. I know this is ridiculous, but this really bums me out.

I’ll see them on this tour anyway, because I’m driving to San Diego on July 7 to see them there. But now, with little prospect of them playing Phoenix for a year at best or three or four more years at worst, I’m getting the itch to drive to Vegas for the show the night before that one, too. (I could take a half day from work and be there in time! I think.)

This all started a few years (wait, actually 6 years. God I’m old) ago, in 2000 when (living in Tucson and having no Friday classes) I decided I could drive to Albuquerque on Friday, see the show, then drive and see them in Phoenix Saturday night. Then I found out the Sunday night show in Vegas would be their tenth anniversary concert and I had to go to that, too. And so I became a person who is willing (indeed, gets giddy at the prospect) to travel to concerts. I saw three shows in three nights in three different states.

But since then I’ve only seen Pearl Jam in concert once. In 2003 I had planned to see them in Las Vegas and then again the following night back here in Phoenix. I changed my mind, though, and decided to just spend the weekend in Vegas with friends. I sold my Phoenix ticket to some guy on eBay.

Pearl Jam tours are few and far between so I have always tried to maximize. I saw them first when I was in eighth grade (1993) and then made sure I found a way to get tickets to both of their 1995 shows at Red Rocks. Then nothing until 1998. It was the prospect of having only seen one show in 5 years that inspired me to go on the road in 2000. And now I’ve only seen one show since then.

Tickets are still available for Las Vegas via Ticketmaster. I thought perhaps if for whatever reason our June Disneyland trip didn’t work out that I would be able to justify taking another day off to go to LV. Happily (and I really mean that) Disneyland has worked out and I’m excited to be going. But now my excuse for going to LV is gone.

It is so tempting, though.