March 29, 2005 Pat Metheny Group

Lisner Auditorium, backstage

Lisner Auditorium, Washington, DC

Two weeks after I wrote my 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.

That night I gave Pat a copy of my doctoral dissertation, The Exotic Rhythms of Don Ellis, as thanks for letting me interview him by phone for it years earlier. I also told him I would be building a fan site at PatMethenyMusic.com. That’s the dissertation in his hands in the backstage photo (my 2019 photo gallery post tells the same story).

Lisner was my 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 me years after our 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 and holding a bound copy of Sean’s dissertation, leans toward Sean Fenlon, in glasses and a dark jacket, backstage at Lisner Auditorium — Backstage with Pat, March 29, 2005. He’s holding the copy of my dissertation I gave him that night.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).