Rain Kids

A memory of Jenny

Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan was one of my most visited music venues growing up, an easy hour’s drive from the Windsor-Detroit border. I will never forget my inaugural visit, also my first big rock concert ever: Meat Loaf on his “Everything Louder” comeback tour, June 29, 1994. My dad was a big Meat Loaf fan. I was eleven.

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Aside: my first big concert of any genre was Paula Abdul at The Palace of Auburn Hills, also outside of Detroit, in November 1991. I recounted that experience here:

Under Their Spell

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Pine Knob is an amphitheatre with two sections: a covered pavilion with thousands of reserved seats on a rake, and the lawn, an uncovered hill miles above and away from the stage.

View from the lawn at Pine Knob Music Theatre, Clarkston, Michigan

In my teens, I went with my cousin or sister to see Metallica, The Tragically Hip, and Depeche Mode at Pine Knob. The first time I visited unchaperoned was on August 2, 2000, to see the double bill of Live and Counting Crows. Joining me was my best friend, Jenny. We were 17. Jenny loved Live’s semi-spiritual grunge. I was obsessed by the hippy-slacker folk-rock of Counting Crows. An odd pairing of bands, in retrospect, but that didn’t occur to us then. This show was going to be our highlight of the summer.

I’m pretty sure my parents drove us to Pine Knob, went shopping in Michigan, and then picked us up at the end. Even with adult chauffeurs, it was surprising that Jenny was allowed to go to the concert, as her parents were much stricter than mine.

Jenny and I had been best friends for three years by that point – a long time by high school standards – and we had decided to date that summer. Arriving at Pine Knob in the afternoon, we found a prime spot on the lawn in the sunshine. Jenny was incredibly articulate, always primed to banter and debate me about bands, plays, school, friends, life and the pursuit of next and more. I picture us sitting in the hot August sun, both in t-shirts, shorts, and sneakers, chatting about anything and everything. We left our houses without sunscreen and were too young to care. I can still sense how comfortable I felt with Jenny then. We loved and understood each other.

Although we were the same age, Jenny was years ahead in emotional maturity. I was an adventurous, energetic, impatient kid. I wanted independence and experiences and relationships without responsibilities. I wasn’t boyfriend material. Before the concert started, Jenny brought up our relationship, and she called me out for being a far better friend than a boyfriend. I don’t recall the details of that conversation now, but she was 100% correct, and I admitted it then. I couldn’t lie or make excuses to Jenny. She knew me so well. We agreed that our bond was stronger as friends, and that was that.

Earlier that summer, Jenny had confided in me that her parents were physically and emotionally abusive. In typical Catholic fashion, her family presented at church on Sundays as devout, happy, normal. Behind their closed front door, Jenny and her two siblings were treated with cruelty and violence. She knew it was fucked up, but she still felt a lot of shame, like she sometimes deserved the abuse. I think I was the only friend Jenny told then and I was sworn to secrecy.

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The gig started and Live were amazing. Bright lights, bombastic sound, impassioned performances of 90s hits like “All Over You” and “Lakini’s Juice.” Counting Crows followed and they were less polished, more unpredictable. They opened with their biggest hit, “Mr. Jones”, and singer Adam Duritz changed the lyrics and melodies so it was difficult to sing along with him. At some point at the beginning of their set, the evening sky opened, and it proceeded to rain buckets. Jenny and I, ill equipped in our summer clothes, got pummelled. Unlike so many sensible people around us, we didn’t leave our spot on the lawn.

At the Crows’ encore, Duritz sat at the piano and played the start of “Live Forever” by Oasis before launching into “A Long December.” Here’s a clip from that same tour, three weeks after the Pine Knob show:

I’ve now seen Oasis four times, but this surprise snippet is still my favourite performance of “Live Forever.” I have always thought Noel Gallagher’s lyrics were vague and cliched, but now, remembering that night 26 years later, I marvel at how a few of his lines captured how 17-year-old Jenny and Josh felt right there and then: we were soaked to the bone, we were gonna live forever.

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High school progressed and we stayed best friends. Then we went our separate ways for uni. Eventually, we both ended up in Vancouver, although on different timelines and paths. We would occasionally hang out, but it was obvious we had less and less in common. We became different people. I’m fairly certain we last saw each other on October 19, 2010, in Vancouver. I have a photo from that night:

We exchanged a few emails before I moved to the UK. In September 2024, I messaged Jenny on LinkedIn to tell her I was thinking of her and hoped she was well. She replied right away and said she was.

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Jenny passed away one year ago today, 18 January 2025. I learned about it a month later, from a dear high school friend who saw a post on Facebook.

I couldn’t process Jenny’s death for most of 2025. It felt surreal and strangely inappropriate to mourn someone I hadn’t seen in 15 years. After much reflecting and writing, I am able to appreciate and honour how, in my pivotal teenage years, Jenny’s influence was massive and important. She knew me before I knew myself, before I became me.

I could tell dozens of fond stories from our time as awkward, precocious, music and theatre nerds at St. Joseph’s High School. My favourite memory is attending that Live and Counting Crows concert together at Pine Knob in August 2000. Soaking in the intensity of the music, while getting soaked by the rain, Jenny and I were unified as friends, undaunted by our circumstances, and unafraid of the future.

Jenny, in her exceptional way, was the bravest person I ever met.

Counting Crows closed the show with a tribute to those of us still on the lawn, dancing in the downpour. “Rain King” for us rain kids.