Labor Day weekend 2008: Dave Matthews Band

The week of my Cousin Kelly’s tragic accident I meet a wonderful family and new friends; the Rinaldo’s (Gavin Rinaldo was my cousin’s boyfriend) They’re good people and I will forever consider them apart of my family.
Vito Rinaldo, Gavin’s father, is a huge fan of the Dave Matthews Band. I kid you not that he wore a DMB shirt every single day I was there. Towards the end of the week I found out the he and his beautiful daughter, Gillian, would be traveling to Gorge, WA to see DMB play Labor Day weekend. I’ve never been to the Gorge nor have I ever really been to a major concert before and when this opportunity came up I didn’t hesitate.
With the concert about a month away there was no way for me to get tickets or camping passes on my own. Most of these were being sold a year in advance. Fortunately, Vito belongs to the major DMB fan club called the Warehouse. Through his connections there I was able to get some good seats that normally I wouldn’t have access to.
The weekend was a blast! I took off of work early on Thursday, ran a few errands and then started the 5 hour drive (I hit traffic leaving Portland) to the Gorge. We camped at the Wild Horse Campground with about 300 Vito’s friends, all Warehouse members. DMB played Friday, Saturday and Sunday night and we spent the every day drinking and goofing off.
I was bummed that Gavin wasn’t able to make the concert due to an overbearing Soccer coach. A lot of the people I met, mostly Warehouse members, asked about him. The only other down side to the whole weekend was that Gillian and I got sick; I came home with a head cold and she brought and ear infection with her that just got worse. “She got Ebola!” her joke not mine :)