We were incredibly fortunate to receive a generous gift from Mike McCready of Pearl Jam—12 tickets to their concert!

Mike, who understands the challenges of living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), wanted to meet some of our campers from Camp Purple Live. We held a random draw for both current and past campers who put their names forward, and the excitement was evident when the winners were announced.

Alexis Painton's story:

It all started off with seeing a post on Instagram for tickets to Pearl Jam, and I thought I would enter to see if I could win. Later on, the next day, I got a phone call from the camp organiser, Belinda, saying that I had won a ticket and to meet her there the next day. I was buzzing the rest of the day, excited to meet Mr McCready and watch him perform.

The morning of the concert, I got up early to do my jobs before I got ready to head into town. Since I was so excited that he had given us the tickets, I thought I’d get him some little gifts in return as a thank you. Once I got to the stadium and was waiting to meet up with everyone, I got a T-shirt for him to sign and then went back to the gates, waiting eagerly to find everyone. Once everyone was together and the tickets were handed out, we all went to get in at the gates, but it took us three shots to find the right gate to get back to the family room to meet him.

By the time we all got through security and backstage, walking past everyone, we had finally made it to the room where we would all meet the famous rock star that we could all relate to in the sense of IBD. As soon as we went in the room to meet him, he was friendly, understanding and genuinely seemed happy to meet us all. Once we had all introduced ourselves and were talking about stuff, he gave everyone guitar picks and started to sign everything that we brought along with us and was talking the whole time. After about half an hour of chatting with everyone, he got called off to the band to rehearse and prepare.

We were then ushered off into the crowd and found our own VIP mosh pit, where we were able to watch Liam Finn, the Pixies, and Pearl Jam up close. When Pearl Jam came on stage, you could see the excitement they had for everyone, and for us campers, it reached a new high.

We were all over the moon to be able to get the opportunity to meet such a down to earth guy, like Mike, who lives IBD. Knowing someone that has IBD and can accomplish so much, reassures us that we can accomplish anything, even playing guitar behind our heads for several minutes in front of thousands of people. The experiences that people like Mike give to people are amazing - they see you as a person just like them and understand what you are going through. It is also nice to know that he isn’t defined for having IBD but for having IBD and not letting it stand in the way of his life.

I would like to say another huge thank you to Mike and the band for having us come to the concert and for the experience. Also, another massive thank you to Dr Stein and Belinda Brown for the amazing opportunity to be able to meet Mike and for the concert. Can’t wait to see you at camp.

It was a night our campers will never forget, filled with great music and the unforgettable experience of being so close to an IBD rock idol.