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Front Row · A fan’s more than 30 years with Pat Metheny

March 29, 2005 Pat Metheny Group

Lisner Auditorium, backstage

Lisner Auditorium, Washington, DC

Two weeks after Sean wrote his open thank-you letter to Pat, The Way Up tour came to Lisner Auditorium in Washington for two nights, March 28 and 29, 2005 (PMDB tour chronology). The backstage photos here are from the second night, March 29.

Lisner was Sean’s recurring DC venue for Pat: the Imaginary Day tour in 1997, both Speaking of Now nights in 2002, and The Way Up in 2005. It is also where, in 1997, Pat recognized him years after their phone interview, as the letter recalls:

“I introduced myself (not thinking you’d recognize me) and you immediately acknowledged ‘oh yeah, you’re the bassoon player, right?’”

Pat Metheny, in a grey T-shirt, leans toward Sean Fenlon, in glasses and a dark jacket, backstage at Lisner Auditorium
Backstage with Pat, March 29, 2005.AI-restored from Sean’s original photo
Pat Metheny alone on stage with an acoustic guitar under a blue-white spotlight
Pat alone with an acoustic guitar.AI-restored from Sean’s original photo
Blue-lit stage with a keyboardist on the left and Pat Metheny playing a hollow-body guitar on the right
The Pat Metheny Group on stage.AI-restored from Sean’s original photo
Six people around a restaurant table at dinner
Dinner before the show.AI-restored from Sean’s original photo
Exterior of Lisner Auditorium, a pale stone building on a Washington, DC street corner
The venue, photographed in 2009. Not from Sean’s archive: Photo: AgnosticPreachersKid, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (resized).