I think a lot of people just sit there going, what happened here to make this so breathtaking?

The story is almost impossible to believe.

[THUNDER RUMBLES] It all went down really quickly.

Incredibly catastrophic series of floods.

Instead of taking millions of years to develop a landscape like the Grand Canyon in Arizona, we are talking about days for these floods to just haul all this rock out of the area, to leave that scenery.

It's a crazy series of geologic accidents that ultimately created the Gorge Amphitheater.

[MUSIC] ♪ You got me on my knees... ♪ ♪ I can follow your... ♪ We're at the gorge.

There's no place like it in the world.

There's something just so enormous and endless about this place.

When people ask me about our band, about Pearl Jam, where's your favorite place to play in the world, and this is always number one, but this is number one for a reason because it is so spiritual and beautiful and you can't even explain it.

You just have to see it.

This devastating crack through the earth puts humans in a really unique place.

And here we are in the middle of nowhere getting this exclusive performance just for us.

You know, it's like it's just magical.

You're two and a half hours away from Seattle, It's not close to anything.

I mean, we flew in today and had to drive three hours to get here.

I think the most interesting thing is like who decided to build this here?

[MUSIC] My parents started the Gorge Amphitheater and also Cave B winery where we're sitting here today, My mom and dad, they've always been this amazing couple together.

They are perfect for each other.

My dad is the dreamer and the visionary, and my mom makes everything happen.

We became very much enamored with vineyards.

We looked for land here in the state of Washington.

So all of the rest of the great Central Columbia Valley here was being farmed.

And these were the pieces that were left behind because it was considered to be too difficult to farm.

Nobody knew anything when we started.

There was nothing here.

I think both Carol's folks and my folks were going to disown us.

They thought we had lost our minds.

[MUSIC] ♪ And walking along the railroad tracks.

♪ ♪ And going someplace is no going back.

♪ Virtually everything was tougher than it should be in most places.

The soils were shallow, so shallow that when you put a post into the ground, it would fall over.

This is-- this is it.

This would be considered to be terrible soil, because if you we're trying to run tillage equipment through this, it would break.

And we did not know where we could plant grapes until we learned that we could use as the guide, sagebrush.

When we look at this now, we can say that the soil here is going to be six inches or less and the one that's up here is going to be three feet or more.

Once you get into it and you realize what's here, it's-- it's incredible place to be.

So they didn't buy it for putting in an amphitheater.

They didn't buy it for the view.

They bought it for grapes.

There was going to be a grand opening for the-- the winery, which was Champs de Brionne, and we got our RSVP's from 1440 people.

Well, you know what-- there's that beautiful place out there where the acoustics are good and that'd a great place for the band.

And so for 72 hours, everyone worked around the clock and built the beginnings of the Gorge Amphitheater.

Our son built the stage, which at that time was about eight inches high, because that's how high a 2 by 8 would carry the stage-- on this little kind of thing.

We cut these terraces, a backhoe, as best we could without sliding backwards.

But it looked cool, you know people came.

We gave them wine, but the wine was terrible at the time.

We were still in very early stages of understanding what to do with wine grapes in the state of Washington.

The magic of that moment was very, very obvious.

They were really enthralled with the music out in that setting-- and the environment itself.

They realized at that time that they were on to something because people really were like, when is-- when is the next show?

In an amphitheater, it's kind of like, I don't know, you feel like something real is happening, you know, it's a real experience between musicians and people who like music.

And in an amphitheater you can see faces.

And it's a much more intimate experience, I think.

Everyone in the crowd is already grateful to be there because it's so beautiful, but also the venue is uniquely intimate, even though it's a huge space, the-- the floor seating is surprisingly small.

You can still make eye contact with just about everybody on the floor space.

You can stand on the stage as a headliner and still feel like you're playing a club show, a small show.

I know every inch of ground out there.

I just love the place.

I consider it like a second home.

Ok, so.

I have a lot of stuff in here.

It's a lot of old Gorge stuff, different call sheets and stuff.

Oh, here's some pictures of my Marianne.

That's her at the Gorge.

That's Marianne.

My brother, he took me and my sister Marianne and another friend of ours out there and said, hey, you got to you guys got to check this place out.

It's a winery.

And back then, that's all it was.

That was in the mid 80s.

It was when they just started doing stuff out there.

They didn't have like headlining bands that I recall.

It seemed like more regional type of bands playing and stuff.

And you just sit there and drink your wine and watch the show.

And it was so cool.

So we just started going out there a couple of times a year.

Whenever someone was playing out there, we'd go out there even when there were bands that we weren't that into, you know, just because it was the Gorge.

And you could go spend the weekend out there camping and just get away from it all and have an awesome time.

The music was almost secondary to just the beauty of the place.

We realized the power that it was having, the effect it was having on people, and that was having the same effect on us.

We knew very little about show business any more than just a kid growing up in Brooklyn.

And a mom who was interested in theater.

Ken Kinnear ran a company called Media One, which was a agency in Seattle that promoted entertainment activities, It was the biggest one at the time in Seattle.

I started out as a kid who had an older sister that listened to R and B records.

I knew nothing except I had an ear.

So I thought, well, if I could just get myself in the food chain somewhere, chances are I could make some money.

Along the way.

I saw Heart.

[MUSIC] Nancy Wilson had just joined the band and they were doing a lot of Zeppelin stuff at the time, and I just-- Ann Wilson's voice killed me.

And so one thing led to another and I made a deal to manage them.

They had made the first record called Dreamboat Annie, shopped it around to 14 record companies, nobody wanted it.

They said nobody's going to buy rock and roll-- the chick, singing that kind of stuff.

And so we just went out and started doing it ourselves.

And that was kind of my thing.

Just pound it out.

He became aware of the fact that there was this place called, at that time, Champs de Brionne.

Summer music theater-- We got to the point where Ken came on board.

I think to Ken's credit, he really had the-- the vision on a bigger scale and initiated some of the changes and recommendations that brought it along.

I mean, everybody thought I was crazy because 150 miles from nowhere and, you know, to get big name artists, they just-- just didn't think anybody would go.

We're in the middle of a farming community with farm roads, how can we get you to drive 140 miles to come to this place?

I can recall saying to him, who the hell would come here?

What he had was very crude.

And I just didn't believe that there was enough draw way out here to go from what he had to what it is.

I didn't have the vision.

Couldn't see it.

It's a really long drive from anywhere to get there.

We got out of the plane wherever we got out of the plane, which I don't remember, and I said, how far is this place?

Well, we got a bit of a drive and we drove through fields and fields and fields.

And finally we end up, you know, at this incredible setting in the middle of nowhere.

♪ Deep down, deep down, now♪ ♪ Stop going round, this town, deep down now.

♪ I go way back with the Gorge.

You know, you had to drive all the way here and then drive all the way back to Seattle, you know, and I did that a bunch, but it was worth it.

It was worth the trip.

And watch the whole show and then get home at five in the morning or whatever, you know, and get back to work.

I think the gorge works because it's-- it's a pilgrimage for both the artist and the audience.

I mean, just arriving there, you feel like you've accomplished something, you've committed to something and you made it.

And any time there's that much at stake, it makes it better.

I think civilizations always do this, I think they like to get together, you know, May Day things, you know, 500 people in the woods, 5000 people in the woods, 20,000 people in the woods.

It's a good party..

Early on, I was looking for people that kind of had the same inclination and love that I did for, you know, for music, and so I met Jeff and he-- he joined us at the beginning stages of doing this place.

Spring of 1988.

Ken had decided that they were going to put the Gorge on the map and they needed to have one big act and they decided that the act they needed to book was Bob Dylan.

Then everything changed after that.

[MUSIC] We moved to Seattle in 1987, and that first year that we were here, we really liked taking day trips.

We like going all around and seeing this new space we lived in and all of the Northwest and how beautiful it was.

And we also were lifelong fans of Bob Dylan.

So when we heard he was coming to this new venue that was going to be in the middle of the state, we thought, good, day trip.

Here we go.

Road trip.

Let's get in the car.

Show was in August of '88.

Definitely that year was all about Bob Dylan and it just kept selling tickets.

They weren't sure what the capacity was, so they just kept selling tickets.

All these different sources-- tickets, tickets.

It was just a perfect storm of good things in terms of business, in terms of demand for the tickets.

Operationally not so much.

There was like 12 security people tearing tickets and this line of people that was as far as the eye could see.

There weren't really markings of what to do.

There weren't really signs or, you know, not a lot of direction of how to do this.

Couple hours go by looking around, going well, the place is packed, that must mean everybody's in.

Up the hill I walked and the line looked exactly the same as it had earlier.

There was so much going on in the audience and so-- so much disarray everywhere that the only good thing really was the music coming out of this one spot and this beautiful vista behind it.

Spectacular.

It was spectacular.

They were not prepared for what Bob Dylan drew.

There were people bathing in the irrigation ditch, they were doing the dishes in the irrigation water.

I mean, it was unbelievable what was there.

And they were everywhere.

There were sleeping bags, clothes.

We figured we'd find a body.

And that's the first, I believed, that it was actually going to be something.

It put the amphitheater certainly on the map locally and even within the industry, became a lot of chatter about this place that Bob Dylan played and sold out and did 17 thousand people when it should have done 12.

And so then we were able to-- to start booking bigger and bigger bands.

And that led us to, you know, be able to put Fleetwood Mac and Sting and Jimmy Buffett.

Rod Stewart was one that I remember really well.

Steve Miller Band was really popular and did big business.

And one that really stands out was we brought Stevie Ray Vaughan back as a headliner in 1990.

And I remember Stevie just killed it.

He was just fantastic.

I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan here twice and that was life changing.

I'd given up on music, you know, it was a long struggle from 11 till about 22 of being in bands.

And, you know, it was fun.

But also, you know, it wasn't really happening.

And I thought, I got to I got to figure out what I'm going to do here.

You know, I was kind of lost.

After seeing him play here, that was an amazing kind of a spiritual change for me-- the next day I was like, I got to play guitar again, I have to do it.

And that Stevie Ray Vaughan concert here at The Gorge, put me on my-- my-- put me back on the path of music.

And I know that for sure.

Incredible show.

Six weeks later, he died in a terrible helicopter crash.

And then he was gone.

Really sad.

You know, I saw here things that I have never seen.

Stevie Ray Vaughan is a great example of that.

He just is a person that gets possessed by his instrument and by the music and by the audience.

And it kind of happens all at the same time.

You know, it's almost like he was elevated.

That happens a lot at The Gorge.

I've seen bands in all kinds of different venues and The Gorge is the better place to see them because of that, It seems like I don't know that they want to play better.

I don't know that it's just the vibe that makes them sound better.

It's just The Gorge, it's just the better shows.

Smokey Robinson, we had no idea what he was getting into, but he sensed it immediately.

He played for a few minutes and then he looked up to the audience.

He said, I'm going to play everything I know, even if I have to stay here all night.

Because let me tell you, folks, this just ain't no normal gig.

I wound up in Pullman, Washington, in 1979 and I was done with parents and that's when the education began, rock and roll took over.

Everybody was talking about this place and how much fun it was to go out there for a couple of days, not just for a show, but for a couple of days and experience it.

I had my camera and I went out there and photographed the show for a local magazine, and every time I went out there, I had a camera.

From that point forward.

Every week when I was out there, they would need footage for, like Pollstar magazine or the trade magazines and they would invite me in.

They allowed me to see the intimate moments and the inner workings of the Gorge Amphitheater.

He shoots very few shots.

He would practice on how he was going to shoot by-- by watching bands on the TV.

I thought that-- that's so cool the way he would do that and figure out his shots and he would come back with incredible shots that'd just blow me away.

I use a surfing analogy, being-- being in the pit and having, you know, this type of contact, I didn't view it as if I was photographing the person.

I was photographing the music that was going through them.

And to me, it was like being on a surfboard, you know, and bow hunting.

I wanted to get that shot.

I didn't want a machine gun, five rolls of film in three songs.

I kind of wanted to surf the wave, feel the music and then click.

For me, when I see art, I get really excited.

When I see creativity, it inspires me to be creative, makes me want to be creative.

Well, I feel like creativity is constant.

I feel like all of life is creativity in action.

And all the creativity that we're experiencing today is an extension of the Big Bang or whatever it was that sent us flying through space.

I find that music is just an echo of that explosion.

I have no idea where it's headed, but I like knowing that we're a part of that and there's no right or wrong way to do it, no matter what we do we are creating something.

I think music for me was always like eating dinner or something, it was just like part of my day, it was something I had to do.

I feel like for me, it's one of those-- I don't know, it's one of those things, it comes from such a place of need.

It's the trippiest thing playing music for people, because I feel like I'm always accessing a pretty intimate, quiet space myself, you know, I'm not really engaging with, you know, I'm sort of engaging with this kind of group consciousness that's kind of in here.

That's what keeps me from, like pacing and chain smoking all time.

So I think it helps, you know.

It's always been about the music, you know, I've always thought of The Gorge as one of the most spectacular venues I've ever been to, but definitely one of my favorite shows was the '93 Pearl Jam show at The Gorge.

The biggest one I-- I can look back to was Pearl Jam, Neil Young, 1993.

Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam, of course.

[Pearl Jam's "Evenflow"] Everybody wanted into that show.

Pearl Jam was just everywhere that summer and everybody had talked about that show in advance.

And so when we all got there, the energy just cut loose.

That was us early on, so we were probably, you know, young and aggressive and way into, you know, the whole show.

People up on the aluminum bleachers they had up on the berm.

They just wanted down.

They wanted to be a part of that show.

We were sitting on the lawn enjoying the show.

All of a sudden, people around us were just saying, let's do it, let's do it, let's go.

And all these swarms of people just started going over the fence till they actually tumbled the fence down.

Some of them slid, some of them rolled, some jumped, whatever means it took, they got down.

But it was like a mashing unit up here with people that were scared, might have been injured, things like that.

It was a tsunami.

The fans wanted to be as close as they possibly could.

I mean, it was, you know, at that point in time, it was full participation.

I remember it being kind of exciting, but that's probably just me being young and naive.

You know, we didn't have any control over that.

But, you know, thinking about it now, it makes me a little scared and sad-- hopefully nobody got hurt.

You don't ever want that at a show.

They made comments that, you know, take care of each other and you could see it in their faces that they were figuring that crowd out for a little bit, the first few songs.

And then it got into a groove where everybody was saying, ok, you know, now-- now we can, you know, be in unison.

But there was a point in time during the first three songs where it was every man for themselves.

It was the end of an era, that's the last show that my parents owned The Gorge.

MCA Concerts negotiated a deal and hired me to be the local guy, the local promoter that looked after their everyday business up here.

At that point, they were going to invest in The Gorge, make some capital improvements.

But I really saw it as an opportunity to reach this full potential or what I what I thought as potential could be.

In the very early years, I think nobody believed that the amphitheater was going to continue or be something that would be lasting.

And so there were-- there were no great demands for putting in the big infrastructure.

When I first got there, The Gorge was a real problem.

It was one of the worst gigs to play on a long, hard tour.

We would get to The Gorge and there would be no place to stay.

You'd have to stay at a motel in Yakima.

There was one road in, it wasn't paved, and so your generators got sucked full of dirt.

There was a trailer, you know, for your dressing room with a toilet that didn't work.

It's like, hey, how do you like The Gorge now?

There was a lot of things you didn't have.

There was not concessions.

There was not facilities, but it had The Gorge, it had the view, it had something different, that's not available even today at any other place in the country.

We got feedback from people when we purchased it.

Don't change anything, make it better, but don't change it.

We wanted it to be kept rural.

They wanted it to be kept beautiful.

They didn't want to have a lot of sponsors, corporate things.

They really wanted it to be their amphitheater.

And we listened.

And they have coming here pretty much from the start, you know, mixed feelings about them dynamiting, you know, more and more of the hill to add more and more seats and that sort of thing.

When I see the finished product, it's like, yeah, this-- it works really well.

Jeff Trisler, Bill Parsons, they built that place, Those guys put everything into it.

It didn't start out enormous, it was built over time.

It's been a while since I was-- since I was in this little neighborhood, but we used to call this our cracker box palace when we were kids.

The George Harrison song because it was on a cracker box.

And that's where we grew up.

We were raised by my mom, alone.

My dad left when she was pregnant with me.

So she raised her five kids all by herself.

You know, we were poor, but we were happy.

My family has always been musical.

Everyone in my family has loved music.

Or we're just obsessed with music.

We live for music.

And we've always gone to concerts since we were kids.

Yeah, Dave-- Gorging on Dave.

In '96 was the first time I saw Dave Matthews Band on the H.O.R.D.E.

Festival.

They just blew me away.

I was just, oh my, how can a band be so good live, you know?

I went out there and photographed Dave in his first appearance at The Gorge.

I didn't know anything about Dave Matthews.

I think the first time we played here was the H.O.R.D.E.

tour.

Is that possible?

I think it was.

Just a bunch of so-called jam bands.

You know, we couldn't get a record deal so had to do something.

And it was a warmup for like Lenny Kravitz and The Blues Traveler, Rickie Lee Jones and-- and Taj Mahal were up on a second stage.

And so there was a heck of a lot going on that day.

And the fans were completely engaged.

The next summer they headlined for the first time at The Gorge.

And I had asked my sister at that point to please come and see this band with me, because she would love them.

I knew-- we both have the same kind of taste in music, and I knew she would love them if she heard it.

I happened to get second row tickets that year and she fell in love with that band that night, just like I knew she would.

Dave Matthews has been playing three straight nights at The Gorge for years, Labor Dave weekend.

Like, that's an incredible accomplishment.

You go through the history of the touring industry, there's no better marriage of an artist at a venue, I don't think you'll ever find an act that sold more tickets at a venue than Dave Matthews Band did.

From '97 on, Marianne and I just couldn't miss a Dave show.

It just became our thing to do every summer.

We always called it our annual trip to Mecca because it was just--it almost was religious to us to just be able to go out there and relax and have our good time.

It's pretty remarkable place just to be-- And so I'm sure as an audience member it's-- it's kind of special.

In 2002, we were given an opportunity to play a side stage at The Gorge for the epic Dave Matthews Band Labor Day weekend jam.

And I grew up in Virginia with Dave Matthews Band being the hero in my life.

I was 21, 22 years old.

I was mostly playing in coffee shops.

And we had three days to play music before the gates opened.

We had a little bit of an audience join us at our stage.

But the real audience came to our stage when Dave Matthews decided to take a walk out of the venue and see what was going on in the parking lot.

[CHEERING] I usually ride my bike into campgrounds and stuff and sometimes get caught up in it.

It's a little-- it's a little hectic if I go out there now, unless I put on a disguise.

All I need for a disguise is a baseball cap, because if I put a baseball cap, I don't look like myself.

It's amazing.

This is the only part of my face it's-- that is my personality.

My always been receding hairline.

This was the closest I had ever been really to my musical hero.

I played it cool, but inside there was, you know, a 15 year old kid inside of me that was totally flipping out, just freaking out.

Oh, yeah, of course, Dave's here.

Yeah man, you need to use a guitar.

Sure, man.

Here you go.

Go for it.

I'm just going to sit over here and have a cigarette and stay in my underwear.

[LAUGHS] Prior to Dave being there, we may have had 20 or 30 people hanging out at our stage and of course, as soon as Dave hits the stage, we then had four or five hundred people all swarmed around.

And when Dave left, you know, he was gracious to take pictures with fans and myself.

A picture of us happened to get in Rolling Stone the next month.

From that moment on, I had a fan base that I didn't have.

I was able to tour the country with droves of people showing up.

And my career seems to have been on a-- been on a pretty cool momentum ever since then.

So I regard that is as one of my big breaks was playing in the parking lot.

So in the early 2000s, we hired this-- this young guy named Adam Zachs.

So he came to me and said, I got this idea, I want to do a music festival at The Gorge.

I said what do you want to call it?

And he said, I want to call it Sasquatch.

And that was really Adam's baby.

He very quickly recognized something that in the idea and gave it the green light and a budget, and that was-- that was the origin of it in 2001-- of the first-- Sasquatch took place in 2002.

Sasquatch was probably the first like proper major Pacific Northwestern Festival.

So, I mean, it draws from five or six states and from Canada, You know, I mean, everybody comes down.

Thing I like about this festival specifically is that I learn about new bands, you know, and that's-- that's as an artist that's super important to keep, to keep alive and being excited about music.

For some people, it's the highlight of their year.

I mean, this is a big weekend for a lot of people and there's a bit of a responsibility to care about it and make it good, make improvements and book the right bands.

And high five, everybody.

I've been to a lot of festivals and some are really intense and kind of mean and not cool.

And this one is the complete opposite of that.

There's-- there was a moment in 2009 at the Sasquatch Festival, it became a YouTube moment-- it's dancing man at The Gorge, dancing to Santigold.

And he was all by himself and he's just dancing the wackiest little dance you've ever seen.

And then one by one, the people around him joined in.

And you ended up with this mass dance event on the lawn to Santigold.

And it was the funniest thing, it was the happiest thing, it was the nicest thing I've probably seen here.

There was times, there was years when we'd come and play and people would say they don't think The Gorge is going to make it, it doesn't have enough money.

It's not making enough.

We just can't keep it alive.

And that seemed impossible to me because it's such an amazing place.

So in 2007, the investors, they'd had enough, and they were looking for a buyer and Live Nation ended up being the high bidder and getting the company.

Well now we've gone from a mom and pop operation and now we're involved with this massive company with tremendous resources and access to every band on Earth.

I moved up here at the start of May 2008.

I started to get a vision.

I think that day, that first day.

I didn't want to reinvent the venue as such.

But we started-- we needed to do some updating because there were a lot of fences everywhere.

And this place is all about the view.

I'm going, oh, that fence has to come down.

And that fence has to come down.

Then I started just finding things like where they stack the chairs, it was right next to the stage on the stage right side.

So the chairs had the best view of the planet.

You know, the focus is the stage on what's behind the stage, and that's what it always, always needed to be and probably what it always will be.

You know, I got the chance to build the stage that is there right now.

I got the chance to be a part of that and changing the dressing rooms out.

I think we made the backstage environment a lot better for the artists from what it was before.

This was a venue that evolved.

It was never built.

So I just see what I've done as part of the evolution of The Gorge.

I think it was always naturally going to progressed to where we're at.

But I do like to think I put my own little flavor into it, if you like.

A lot of sweat, a lot of blood, literally sometimes.

Different players, different parent company, but we're still just doing what we do, which is trying to grow our business here at The Gorge.

Make it better, make it more comfortable for our fans and for the patrons and succeeding, sometimes, failing others and then learning from our mistakes.

We have identified country music as a-- as an area we really thought we could do a lot better with.

There was a void in Washington state for a premier country music festival.

We introduced a three day country music festival and George Washington was a silly name, Watershed.

Now it has become the go-to place.

Music and camping, there needs to be as much emphasis on camping as there is on the music.

This is a true three day hillbilly sleepover.

You can't clean it up.

You can't paint it.

It is what it is.

You know to me festival is all the campground, with stars-- the folks come out here camping out and, you know, you get a real good sense of the vibe of the festival when you go to this campground.

And the shedders, as they're called, they-- they've created such a vibe with this festival and with this facility that they feel like they can't miss it.

These fans take personal ownership of a watershed, it's kind of-- it's their thing.

It's the way that they create their own environment.

God gave us that, we book the bands, we put this stuff together, but ultimately the shedders are the ones that make the rules.

And they are the ones that decide how their week is going to go.

And-- and so far so good.

You know, festivals are really big right now, and I think-- I think that people are just really into, you know, taking their you know friends and their groups and going out and camping and getting in a bus and, you know, just kind of taking a week out of their life to go enjoy something.

I got together with the local electronic dance music promoter, and he had been promoting electronic dance music in nightclubs and then all of a sudden EDM music just exploded.

I had this natural passion-- we took that passion along with his experience, and we put that together, and we built Paradiso.

Having the sun set behind you, the water, The Gorge, and then like hardcore dance music or melodic dance music, it's a really interesting balance.

And basically, The Gorge has always been like just the scenery, the backdrop, the river, people call it, this is like, you know, Northwest paradise.

It's just unparalleled, and that's why I get super, super excited to play here.

You know, I prepared a lot of extra material, new content to play, specific for Paradiso, and that's because of the vibe and because of the reputation that Paradiso holds.

I marveled at the press coverage that we get.

I mean we get lots of national press coverage on it and everybody talks about it as the Sasquatch site.

Great, I'm glad you don't know anything else.

That is Sasquatch site.

The Paradiso people come-- it's the Paradiso site.

Yep!

That's the only reason we're here, it's just for you.

Watershed people come.

Oh, God, this place is the greatest place.

You can't live until you've seen a country music show at The Gorge.

Little did they know that for 20 some years we've been doing concerts here with Chuck Berry.

Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac, and Jimmy Buffett.

This is me and my CMS uniform in one of-- in front of one of Dave's trucks when they first came in.

I had loved The Gorge for so many years and I had the chance to work out there doing security in the summer of '97.

I just-- I loved it and stayed on with them for the next 10 years.

There's Marianne fixing the old Buick-- broken down on the way to the guard.

Typical.

The summer of 2007, Marianne started working out there.

She only worked out there, I think, one season.

And then later that year, that's when she was diagnosed with cancer.

In 2011, by then, Marianne was very ill, she-- the cancer had spread and-- but she just so wanted to see Dave-- just go to Dave weekend, one more time.

You know, she couldn't get up and down that year.

She-- she was confined to her wheelchair, but she-- she got to see Dave one last time.

2012, she was bed ridden by then and She told me I should go out to Dave and I just I couldn't do it without her.

I just-- I just couldn't do it.

December 23rd, 2012, she passed.

When she was at The Gorge, that's where she could go out and just relax and forget about life and not have any stress or strife.

It was just-- just her-- her in her best element, you know, ready to go to Dave and dance all night and have a great time and just make some awesome memories.

Just like Dave says, make some memories.

I just miss her so much.

I hear her voice in my head right now, I hear, Pat, would you just be cool and everything's fine.

Just don't worry about it.

Yeah, Marianne.

Going to shows with Kathy-- that love of music is shared and The Gorge Amphitheater coincidentally brought us together.

In 1997, photographing the LIVE concert in September, was our first official date.

I was really excited because, you know, he was going to be photographing and we kind of got to go backstage and he was like my dream guy because of the love of music, you know, it was huge for me.

It's always been about the music.

I didn't realize it at the time, but later as we would talk, you know, it became very clear to me that that was his last show there.

And then he had moved on and so it was-- it's kind of special, I think, you know, I think of it as being very special.

I went out there and photographed Dave in his first appearance at The Gorge, which is turned into a pilgrimage for many to have captured that and then 20 years later, to be able to have the opportunity to photograph him again.

That's full circle.

This summer with Dave Matthews will be the first time that her and I have returned there together.

To experience the difference not only in ourselves, but of the venue.

Amazing.

To experience that with Darren and see him photograph again will be really cool.

Today, we're out here with Dave Matthews and they're loaded in and set, so the-- the production has kind of found its groove and we're settled in for the weekend, which is awesome.

These are the best shows where you can set up shop and do kind of one stop shopping for three days.

I know people that have been coming out here as long as I have, 15 years.

Every year they see Dave, it's like a family pilgrimage.

Now they're bringing their kids.

It's tradition.

It's like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Labor Day at The Gorge.

Dave weekend!

Every time I get onto the property here at The Gorge, it feels awesome.

It's just such a beautiful place.

It just gives me a-- just a good feeling inside.

I can't even describe it.

A beautiful show with beautiful music, with beautiful people in a beautiful setting.

All I need, man, it's all I need.

[Dave Matthews Band's "Ants Marching"] Dave Matthews, Gorge Amphitheater.

Yeah, everything's not necessarily different, but not quite the same.

What we saw 20 years ago is not what we're seeing right now, but it feels the same.

Everybody is relaxed.

Their shoulders are down.

It's home.

Jumping into the pit and photographing the bands was fantastic, and every song everywhere, everybody's participating in it.

And there's this level and this wave of energy that's just going between the band and the audience and to be in the middle of that, fantastic.

When Marianne was here, we used to get as close as seats as we could down in the front.

But, yeah, I don't care as long as I'm there dancing.

Just before she died, Marianne begged me to take her ashes and-- and scatter them at The Gorge, at where was our favorite place together and please go on Dave weekend and do this for me so I can be there forever dancing on the clif.

And so I did.

I had put on my iPod and I-- and then I listened to Dave Matthew's song, "Sister," because that was our song together.

And of course, I cried.

It was very emotional and I just slipped out on the cliffs and I just remembered all the great times together.

That night, we went down to the show and we we're watching, you know, listening to the show and dancing.

And Dave played, "Sister."

♪ Sister ♪ ♪ And when you cry, feel your tears ♪ ♪ Rolling down my face.

♪ Oh, man, I just lost it.

I totally lost it, but it was such a beautiful moment.

Who would think you know, but he did it was like, Oh Dave you read my mind.

You know, so cool.

It is bittersweet to go out there now without Marianne, but she's there with me.

She's there and she's right here the whole time, you know.

Oh now we're cooking.

This is looking really good, even under this light.

Once we go live, we can take a peek right now.

Let's do it.

Oh, yeah, that's fantastic.

18 years, that's pretty wild.

To me, the Columbia River Gorge is like a groove cut in vinyl over time, and The Gorge Amphitheater is the needle.

And when you put that stage in that groove, the music is incredible and it'll play forever.

I still get sentimental every time I go back because of how that place changed my life.

It belongs to the people.

It's been a lot of different companies, a lot of different businesses.

But at the end of the day, without the people supporting it, it doesn't exist.

We were given credit for starting the amphitheater, but all we did was recognize the fact that there was this unique property about it.

The amphitheater had been preparing itself to be an amphitheater all of its life.

Maybe we're responsible to it rather than it being responsible to us, allows for a nice way of thinking about things.

My take is I'm going to get more out of a landscape if I can absorb all that happened before and what's going to happen after we're gone.

And that's why The Gorge Amphitheater is such a special place.

All those events happened to get to where we are now, and that stage isn't going to be there forever.

That amphitheater isn't going to be there forever.

The Columbia River is not going to be there forever.

Everything changes.

And we've just got this one little moment to enjoy this beautiful place.