Jim Irsay Collection

I had never heard of Jim Irsay before. But when I received a promotional email about his upcoming tour stop in Boston, which consisted of a free concert and a viewing of his memorabilia collection, I read that a member of my favorite [broken-up] band, R.E.M., would be playing in the concert. So I immediately ordered free tickets.

When I learned that Jim Irsay owns an NFL team, that explained why he has enough money to buy so much memorabilia and why he was touring a few US cities with a bunch of famous musicians and NFL players. I was a little apprehensive about going, because the event venue has ~20K seats, and there were not a lot of details on the event website. But I had to see Mike Mills perform a couple of R.E.M. songs.

Long story short, the event was chaotic. There were people in waiting in line to see the memorabilia. There were people waiting in line for beer and food. There were people trying to walk around all of these people. There were police and security officers standing around, but no one was wrangling the crowd. Before the concert started, we couldn’t get anywhere near the memorabilia. So we decided to find a seat and then cut out of the concert early to see the memorabilia. We really only cared about seeing Mike Mills, and luckily, he sang very early on in the show.

R.E.M. broke up 22 years ago now (i.e., an eternity), so it was very surreal to see Mike Mills perform R.E.M. songs (“[Don’t Go Back to] Rockville” and “Superman”). I was euphoric for those six minutes or so.

The rest of the concert consisted of blues and country music, and a bunch of NFL players…not our scene. I enjoyed watching blues artist Kenny Wayne Shepherd play guitar for a song or two…he is masterful. Irsay sang a few songs. He has a decent voice and sang a good rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Hurt.” He was also using this tour to promote his Kicking the Stigma initiative, which raises money for mental health advocacy. Before singing the Cash song, he spoke a bit about addiction. So I give him props for getting the word out about his initiative.

It was much easier to peruse the memorabilia during the show. There were some mind-blowing pieces…items that were owned by or about Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, JFK. Items that belonged to the Beatles, Jim Morrison, James Brown.

Irsay allegedly owns ‘the best guitar collection on Earth”…and the line to view part of it was super-long, even during the concert, so we didn’t wait to see it. But I was also excited to see the scroll with the original manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I had seen it before, but it was still a treat to see it again.

It was an interesting night out. We made a bee line out of there after looking at the memorabilia, because we did not want to be on the subway with thousands of people. We’re too old for that anymore. I don’t know if I will ever see another R.E.M. member sing an R.E.M. song live again, so I will treasure the night always just for that.