It all started a few days before February 14^th 2014, which happened to be our 10^th anniversary. I was out of ideas and a colleague of mine was giving me suggestions of gifts/celebration ideas when she uttered the word “concert” and I had an immediate flashback to a posting I saw a month before that on our favorite band’s Facebook page, where they posted they will be participating in a so called “liquidsol festival” and the dots instantly materialized the ideal anniversary present for us both: going to see Blind Melon live for the first time in our lives.

Blind Melon for me has been a sort of religion to me, and is definitely my all-time favorite band of all times, not just because they are great musicians and compose great rock melodies, but also because I grew up listening to them, which adds a great deal in the sense that in the years I was resolving the person I was going to be, I was already a Melon Head.

So I immediately bought two tickets without even thinking twice about it.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m Mexican or because I grew up in the 90’s but I never consulted how to get to the arena and what band was playing in what stage until the day of the festival. I was upset and sad to see that Blind Melon was playing on a secondary stage and way earlier than the “top” bands. Little did I know at that time, that this was a stroke of luck, since I could only afford GA tickets and the GA audience was separated from the main stage by 100 meters (I’m Mexican and we use the metric system, sorry), the so called “VIP” sections having preference. When we finally found stage #2 in the Beer Garden, we found no such separation and not many people there, which allowed us to stand in the first row.

We decided to come in early, so we got to hear the first two bands on that stage, so we met Lovehammers at 11AM and Zero Authority around noonish. Getting some beers in between the shows, the experience turned into some insights about music, visits from friends I shared these with, and overall a great serenade for my soul.

Lovehammers is a band out of Chicago, with a fresh upbeat sound and emotional lyrics. They had the toughest job which was to play really early and at the beginning, to a field with just a few stragglers. Nonetheless they took up the stage, as if they were playing for a full arena and eventually were able to pull more people close to our stage. Kudos out to them and I’m thankful we decided to come in early enough to see them live. You can really feel a difference when a group is playing live, trying to win over the audience vs. an established “popular” group who really doesn’t care whether they get one more fan because they already have thousands of them.

Then onto Authority Zero, which came on stage with an austere appearance, the singer wearing simple jeans, a plain white t-shirt and converse-like tennis. Drummer wearing only shorts and shoes, guitarist and bass player also without any extravagant decorations. They start playing fast and heavy, with a lot of energy that by the end, their show reminded me that rock is more than gimmicks and fashions, its energy bursting forth from a defiant attitude, an attitude that tells us that true freedom is born from defiance. Thank you Authority Zero.

Mario, I remembered the mush at your wedding with this performance, and was highly tempted to start throwing myself into people.

On came Blind Melon. Since they started prepping the stage, I was able to confirm my suspicion that here are musicians obsessed with music, Maestros. The drummer going over each drum, tweaking the tension ever so slightly until he seemed convinced it was tuned just perfect, a process he started backstage while Authority Zero was still playing. Everyone else must uphold the same level of perfection since from the first song to the last one, they sounded studio-album quality.

Things got started with 2x4, which was a surprise because we were just hearing the music to the hello/goodbye preamble in Soup, which normally is followed by Galaxy. Here I was visited by Daniel, Gustavo and Agustin. Friends from back home when under the influence of some “stuff” we put the Soup cassette into the cassette player of my 68 Dodge Dart and had our brains blown out.
I remember specifically 2x4 being pure ecstasy, and it was ecstasy again today hearing it live.

I’m grateful they chose a mix of songs from Blind Melon, Soup and Nico, but was a little disappointed no songs from For my Friends were included. I guess there’s so much you can do in 1 hour.

Throughout songs like Toes Across the Floor, I Wonder, Soup, Sleeppyhouse, Change and No Rain, my soul was lifted and rocked with the greatness from each individual instrument, and the songs as a whole.

Music within the realm of rock but undefinable within it, good old rock, but fresh, fluid, melodious, insightful, harmonious, etc.

Since each instrument (including the vocals), in each song is superbly orchestrated, the experience is way too much for me to grasp and much less can put it into words. I can only give you some photos and clips I was able to shoot in the midst of one of my all-time favorite moments of my life.

Thank you Blind Melon and I hope we meet again.

PS: Travis, although I had my doubts as any other hardcore Blind Melon fan, but you made a believer out of me with your work in For My Friends and your performance today. Keep on rocking!

Andres Gonzalez

Finding Nevermind.

Under typical Seattle cloudy weather, with some friends who came to visit me in my new hometown (Seattle) we started the day a little late. We first decided to start the day out buying some tickets for a concert downtown, so regardless of what we ended up doing during the day we had to come back downtown at 8pm. We arrived near noon to buy those tickets, for a band only my friends had heard, a band that they highly recommended called Minus the Bear. Since they were going to be in Seattle for a week we had looked up key locations to make sure to visit, among these the Jimmy Hendrix Memorial and Bruce Lee's tomb. Since we shared a connection to the early 90's rock music we had also looked up Kurt Cobain's hometown as a must. We kinda decided what to do on a moment by moment basis so in the morning we set out to buy the tickets, go visit the Jimmy Hendrix memorial and take it from there.

We arrived at the memorial in the early afternoon, I was a little apprehensive about doing touristic stuff where other people were mourning, perhaps a relative, close by. The memorial itself wasn't hard to find since it was within sight of the parking lot. We approached it, and read through the engravings on the granite like stone. Soon the feeling of being out of place vanished replaced by a sense of wonder at the words and images before us. We naturally took some pictures and my friend left a cartoon of his music band within the memorial, as token of gratitude and as a prayer for good fortune.

After asking at the office if Bruce Lee was buried there (which he wasn't) we decided it was time to move on. The question was where? Between 2-3pm and having to arrive back downtown by 8pm, What was a good option?
We decided on going to Aberdeen, Kurt's hometown, "How far could it be?...But we don't know how to get there?.." and talking on the parking lot of the graveyard, across the street came into view a Gas station with the usual store at its side.. "We can buy a map..." And it was decided.
A quick visit to the store, with a map, some snacks and beverages we set off. It turned out to be close to a 2 hour drive and a lucky one at that. Along the road we saw flashing signs that read "I-5 now open" and getting close to our destination we understood why, the area was flooded and just that day the roads had opened up again.

Coming close to Aberdeen we realized that we knew of a museum that had information about Nirvana, we heard somewhere there was bench that fans had been signing since his death but we had no idea where to locate them and chances were that Aberdeen wasn't a 1-block town.
As we came closer we saw the welcoming sign to Aberdeen with the phrase "Come as you are" written under it.





After stopping on the side of the road taking some pictures and slipping in the mud we decided to into town and ask around. Soon after we saw another peculiar sign, a hand-painted sign announcing a Star Wars shop which caught our attention for a little bit and then we went on. First we stopped at a local butchers shop, asked around and soon met someone who had heard Kurt and Kris play at a gathering before they were famous but had no idea if such a bench existed. He gave us directions to a park where Kurt used to hang out, thinking that might a place to start looking. As we followed the directions, that were pretty straight forward, somehow we never came to see a park but we noticed the Star Wars shop whose sign had caught our attention earlier. Driving by, thinking it would be cool to visit the store and at the same time disregarding the notion due to our time limit and purpose, I saw upon the windows of the shop a hand written sign stating "Nirvana information inside".



We pulled over and went inside the shop. The shop hosted a large star wars collection and my friends soon became lost among its collectibles, both new and old. I quickly approached the owner who was very friendly and I let him know the purpose of our visit. He quickly showed me a corner of the shop where he had Nirvana collectibles on display and sale, some black and white photocopies of points of interest within Aberdeen regarding Nirvana and gave me directions how to find Kurt's childhood house and a bridge where he used spend some of his time. He didn't know of a bench but gave information of who might. After thanking him and complimenting his shop he graciously showed us a tattoo of princes Lea, which he asked ... to autograph at a convention and also had the autograph tattooed.

With time on our hands already, we decided to forgo the bench and quickly visit the sights we already had directions to. We quickly photographed the house without lingering to much, the neighbors were alert to what we did and the photocopy explained that the house was under new ownership.

We came upon the bridge and parked on the nearest block to it, while trying to find a way to the riverbank and under the bridge, we soon found ourselves in someones backyard. A fellow came out of his garage where he was at work and asked if he could help us, we explained why we were there and he directed us (he called out to us if we had already visited Kurt's old house) to the other side of the road where we found a muddy trail right beside the beginning of the bridge.
We found a tall sign with Kurt's picture on it, explaining that the river was the Wishkha river, and some benches beside it.