Funny Atlanta Fox Theatre Ed Stories

In anticipation of Ed’s 2 nights at the beautiful Cobb Theatre in Atlanta, we thought it was fitting to share a re-post from CreativeLoafing.com  of this hilarious and unique look behind-the-man from blogger Anna Watson.   Anna was 15 when she “volunteered”  to help the catering person at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre when PJ played there in 1994(remember of the legendary radio broadcast?).  Fun stuff. Enjoy!

A young fan. A chance encounter. With a leg.

By Anna Watson

1994, Fox Theater
I got a job helping the catering lady in the hopes of getting backstage access. The catering room was in the basement of the Fox, off a narrow sloped hallway with linoleum floors and cement walls. Inside there were low ceilings with corrugated ceiling tiles and collapsible round tables and chairs. It was a small room with stale air.

The encounter
Eddie Vedder walked in the room, just like a normal person. He didn’t get any food. He just went and sat down at a table in the back left corner of the room. It was a now or never moment. I don’t normally drink coffee, but I needed an excuse. So I got a cup of coffee, walked over, sat down at his table and acted like I was supposed to be there. Then I open my packet of sugar and dropped the entire packet (paper and all) in my cup. I pushed it into the coffee so he wouldn’t see and remained calm as I burnt my finger. He had a little doll figure, a boy, with movable arms and legs and clothes that were painted. He was really into it. Then I noticed that he and I were wearing matching navy corduroy — his jacket and my pants. I couldn’t resist pointing this out, and he lit up when I did — he felt the knee of my pants as if to confirm that it was indeed the same as his jacket. We bonded for a split-sec. Then he had to leave. At the end of the food table near the door there was a vase of beautiful fresh star-gazers (”Eddie Vedder flowers” forevermore). On his way out he asked me if he could take a few up to his room. I was like, “Oh, yes, please, take them. Take them all!” He took a few.

Cigarettes
I was sent to Kroger to buy cigarettes for Pearl Jam. But first I had to find them to ask what kind. I found EV in a hallway a couple floors up, surrounded by posse and bodyguards. He saw me and I tried to yell to him. The bodyguard tried to push me back (like I was dangerous or something), but EV said, “No, it’s OK.” So I asked him. I think he said Marlboro. I was only 15, but somehow Kroger sold me two big boxes of them.

The leg
Pearl Jam was on stage and everyone was distracted, so it seemed like a good opportunity to check out their dressing room and search for evidence to take home. It was on the top floor (which I knew about from a previous time when I was sent up there to deliver sugar to Meatloaf, where he was in his bathrobe). Nobody stopped me, so I went up and walked in (the door was half open, so I could have easily just been lost and wandering into the wrong room, right? Yes, I thought — a believable explanation if I get caught). The lights were off except for a couple of lamps and the bathroom light. There were all these weird psychedelic black light posters on the walls and lava lamps, which I found odd. To the left of the door was a love seat and a small coffee table with the EV stargazers and the little figure boy. I thought, OMG, I’ve found EV’s SPOT — his NEST!! I focused, got in hyper-absorption mode and looked further. And as I looked around a corner next to the coffee table, my eyes fell on something right there in front of my face. Leaning against the wall was … was EV himself — only it was just part of him. Just his LEG. Without a doubt, it was Eddie Vedder’s OWN leg — only it was FAKE. Fake as in not alive or attached to a body. Besides that, and the fact that his two other legs were on stage with him at the time, it was eerily real. Wearing worn-out cargo shorts (a short?) and a worn-out combat boot with a red and gray sock sticking out of the top — a well-worn red and grey sock. And his tattoo — the same tattoo he has! — on the inside of his right calf. I stood there staring — stunned, confused, and ecstatic to have discovered something so utterly bizarre. I touched it. Everything felt real except for the leg itself.

Suddenly I felt that I must run down to the stage and look to see if he definitely had two real legs. I went to the side of the stage, as close as I could, and looked hard. Besides being seemingly impossible for him to have done the things he was doing on a fake leg — like violently stomping, jumping off of things and scaling walls — I was close enough to see the actual hairs on both legs. I kept double checking just to be sure, even after seeing them clearly the first time. Then I went back upstairs to do one last double-take of the fake leg. It was just as I remembered, right where I left it. That’s what I saw, just like I saw it.