It's a rare night when I come face to face with Eddie Vedder and the next morning the memory is only a small, unimportant footnote. There's a bar inside the Crystal Ballroom called Lola's. From the floor you can find it by its fluorescent sign. Vedder was exiting Lola's on Saturday, beer in hand. I was entering. We were both there for Sleater-Kinney's final show.

It was the rarest of nights.

Vedder, of course, was an invited guest of Sleater-Kinney, while I was merely a guy with a ticket, but on this night we were the same. Vedder and I were just fans, crossing paths in the hallway, there to pay our respects to the most important group rock 'n' roll has produced in the last ten years; there to witness history happening right before our eyes. We both knew.  Everyone knew.  A sold out, sweaty, heavyhearted crowd packed the Crystal Ballroom Friday, Aug. 11, and Saturday, Aug. 12, for the final scenes, of the final act, of Sleater-Kinney.  It was a love story. It was a comedy. It was a tragedy. It was history.

What started Friday night, with a triumphant and celebratory two-hour set, highlighted by Carrie Brownstein's expert guitar abuse, Corin Tucker's perfected shrills, and Janet Weiss' fluid and natural pummeling, ended Saturday when Sleater-Kinney, fighting back tears and choking out lyrics, played the last song of their last encore. 

The band announced their "indefinite hiatus" in July.  Shortly after, they announced plans for a final show at Portland's Crystal Ballroom.  When tickets sold out in a nanosecond, a second show was added. Hardcore fans had been waiting with strange depressed anticipation ever since. 

For better or worse, the wait was over.

Friday night, after their set, Sleater-Kinney ran off stage, hugging, high-fiving fans, and feeding on the energy of a crowd of screaming and stomping devotees -- not applauding their two jaw-dropping encores, but their entire career. Saturday the mood was heavier.

"You know how you wish you could have seen the Beatles or Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin or the Who with Keith Moon? Well, I am very fortunate and extremely grateful to live in a time when I can see Sleater-Kinney play live," said Vedder during a brief two-song opening set, his trademark mumble making it difficult to discern the words. Pearl Jam's front-man performed a folksy acoustic number, full of predictable hate towards our administration, then produced a ukulele and invited Weiss on stage for the moving duet "You Belong to Me."  Their friendship was visible.

No one was there for Vedder.  The crowd wanted Sleater-Kinney. At around 10:30 Saturday night, the band took the stage together one last time.

Stage lights illuminated each member, as though sent from a higher power, penetrating the Crystal Ballroom’s ceiling.  The band blasted into "The Fox," from what figures to be their final masterpiece, 2005's The Woods. While each member of Sleater-Kinney is individually amazing, it's the creative power of mixing the three explosive ingredients that sets them apart. It's the combination of Brownstein, Weiss, and Tucker that will be most sorely missed and hardest to swallow -- Tucker's razor sharp delivery and dropped down guitar pushing urgency, Weiss' drumming setting the pace and giving things shape, and Brownstein's guitar heroics and snarling, seductive, pixie backup vocals throwing a wicked uppercut, lifting Sleater-Kinney above other bands of their generation, and placing them securely among the greatest of all time.

Brownstein does things with a guitar once thought only capable from a man â€" and does them on par with men like Pete Townshend, or Neil Young at his most ferocious, or any other penis ever to pick up an axe. No one has ever approached singing rock 'n' roll like Corin Tucker, and if they had, very few would have pulled it off. Janet Weiss could whip the shit out of Tommy Lee, Travis Barker, and that guy with one arm from Def Leppard â€" and do it playing harmonica and keeping three-fourths time.  In terms of talent, very few bands have ever matched Sleater-Kinney.  In terms of integrity, even fewer have. They created the model for rock success without selling out. In terms of impact, it's too early to grasp the full scope, but my guess is quite a few girls picked up a guitar thanks to Sleater-Kinney. My guess is a lot a boys did too. I know for sure none of them will ever duplicate what this band did. 

Saturday, through a little over two hours, Sleater-Kinney brought everything they had to the table. They played heavily from The Woods, and 2002's One Beat -- their most mature albums -- but also served up older favorites from All Hands On the Bad One and Dig Me Out, to the delight of the bouncing thousands, testing the limits of the Ballroom’s spring loaded floor. Never has a more appreciative band played to a more appreciative audience. Sleater-Kinney played every song like it was their last.

Probably because it was.

The day after the show I sit in saddened retrospection. I also sit content in the fact I saw Sleater-Kinney at their very best, two last times.  Thumbing through the reviews from papers all around the country, the phrase "end of an era" seems to be an overwhelming sentiment.  Understandable, yes, but to reduce Sleater-Kinney to figureheads of some sort of era is to understate them.  To say their final performance was an end of an era implies a simplifying connection between the band and a period of time, or movement.  They were much more than that. They weren't simply part of the post-Nirvana, post-grunge period. They weren't simply feminists. They weren't simply DIY.  They weren't just chicks with guitars.  Sleater-Kinney was one of the greatest rock bands ever. Period.

What that means is, while the members of Sleater-Kinney have played their last notes together on stage, nothing died Saturday night â€" not an era, and not a band.  Years from now little boys will be daydreaming of playing like Brownstein. Sleater-Kinney's records will take their spot among the all-time classics.  Stories of the band at their peak (last night) will only grow and become more legendary.  Time will straighten things out and the facts will be clear.  The band will be missed, but the Sleater-Kinney era is far from dead.

As the band hugged on stage at the conclusion of their last song, sharing their private moment with everyone in attendance, I headed towards the bright fluorescent sign for Lola's, which had been blocked off and was where the band would escape backstage after being ushered away from the masses.  On Friday, they'd stopped for high-fives and handshakes, and tonight I wanted a chance at touching one of my heroes. I weaved through the crowd just in time to meet Sleater-Kinney as they hurriedly turned down the stairs.  There were no handshakes on Saturday, only tears. Each member passed me, each wiping her eyes and crying. I fell dead in my tracks, and simply started clapping.  When I recall Sleater-Kinney's final show, it's this image burned in my memory â€" the image of Brownstein, Tucker, and Weiss heading offstage one final time.  This is the picture I'll remember, not my brief encounter with Mr. Vedder.

It was the rarest of nights. It was history. â€" Matt Driscoll