Eddie Vedder Gets Choked Up Detailing Friend’s Tragic Diagnosis

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Eddie Vedder gave a shoutout to former NESN cameraman John Martin, who currently is battling ALS, during Pearl Jam’s concert at Fenway Park on Tuesday night. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments.

“Thank you to my good friend Theo Epstein, that’s how I met all these cats. He sends his love I know, and I send it back. There’s another fella, part of the Red Sox family, he works on the video team, his name is John Martin. He’s got a great wife Adrian, and two daughters, and he was given some rough news fairly recently, I think last year, that part of his family’s future was to rise up and deal with something as heavy as ALS. So they have been dealing with it in a very dignified way, also they’ve been supported by their community big and large, large and small.”

He also said, “I wanted him to know that he has my support, our support. We’re very familiar because of our friend Steve Gleason. The energy of large groups of people, it has a lot of power. I got to tell you, when we go home we’re just guys in Seattle with kids, we do the laundry a little bit. We fix things around the house, take our kids on bike rides, get them to school, go to orientation things. We just feel like members of the community, proud members of the community. You don’t feel like somebody who would be able to stand in front of all of these people.”

He then appeared to call the crowd ‘family.’

“Saying it just makes it more incredible than you can even imagine, I just want to take this opportunity when talking about large groups of people, to thank everyone.”

Watch the video below, where Vedder gets choked up.

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Brett Buchanan
Brett previously hosted the BWR wrestling and MMA podcast, interviewing pro wrestling and MMA stars like Kurt Angle, Seth Rollins, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Bruce Buffer, AJ Styles, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, Edge, and DDP. After ending BWR, Brett opened GrungeReport.net in May 2009. The site changed its name to AlternativeNation.net in June 2013.  Brett ran Scott Weiland's social media accounts for his final 'Master Blaster' tour in fall 2015 and continued to run the accounts after Weiland's death until July 2016. On Alternative Nation, Brett controls all aspects of the website and reports the day to day news.  He has interviewed members of Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Imagine Dragons, Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Stone Temple Pilots, and The Smiths. Brett has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal and on the Reelz Channel. You can reach Brett at contact @alternativenation.net