Anything Jason played in his car cassette player, I loved. Not because I loved it, but because Jason did—that's how much I idolized my older brother's best friend. And today, Jason was playing Weezer. "Even though it's self-titled, they call it The Blue Album, because the album cover's blue," Jason taught me, an impressionable freshman. It was in his 1964 Dodge Dart where I would be tutored on this rock band of absolute dorks. "Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer, wears thick black-rimmed glasses and a sweater, but somehow it's cool," Jason would say. And seeing as how I was an absolute dork and never thought it possible my glasses could ever be described as cool, I was all ears.

Rolling Stone doesn't know what the f*ck they're talking about. Pinkerton is one of the worst albums of 1996? I may have only been listening to music for two years, but even I know that Weezer has done the improbable: their sophomore album is better than their first. If there's a better opening track to an album than "Tired of Sex," I've never heard it. Rivers' shriek is louder than the guitars! They will become the greatest band of this generation. Jason says so.

High-speed internet was a dangerous thing to give to a group of 18-year-old boys. Most of us in my University Dayton dorm had never had this level of access. It seemed illegal. And actually, I'm sure some of the things we did with it were illegal. This new addiction revealed itself in different ways: Mike spent the afternoons locking his roommate out of the room so he could explore the wonders of internet porn, Dave spent the majority of his nights IMing his girlfriend who lived in a dorm a mere 350 yards away, and I (the eternal nerd) used it for scholarly purposes. I researched. It had been three years since anyone had heard from Rivers Cuomo, yet somehow that had only strengthened the Weezer fan base. Thanks to UD's wired campus, I was able to track all of these fansites that catalogued any instance where Rivers peeked his head out into the public eye. But I kept my research to myself; no one else was that fascinated with the rumors Rivers had painted his entire apartment black and disconnected his phone. And I couldn't quite figure out why I was so fascinated, either, but the rumors somehow made the music more important.

Walking into Berry's Music to buy a CD for the second time was one of the proudest moments of my life. I hadn't lost it, accidentally stepped on it or had it stolen by my brother—I'd worn it out. I'd studied every note and lyric until the CD itself needed a break. My copy of Pinkerton started to skip and eventually stop right around "Pink Triangle." That was my favorite song on the album because I'd never heard such an honest and embarrassing topic in pop music; proclaiming to millions that you've fallen in love with a lesbian cannot be easy. Someday I, too, hoped to find an impossible dream of a girl to get depressed over. I casually mentioned this fact to the ultra cool and tattooed cashier as I carried my second Pinkerton out of the store. He wasn't as impressed with me as I was.

I couldn't wait for Brennan to get back to the apartment. I knew he got out of class at 4, so I only had about 10 minutes. Rushing to my computer, I opened Napster and stared down the computer screen, willing the program to start immediately. Once its search screen was ready to go, I typed in "Christmas Celebration" and ran into the living room to set up the speakers. I made sure they were facing the door and ran the A/V chord the 15 feet between my computer's headphone and the living room stereo. I went back and checked the song's download progress: "70%" then checked the clock—it was 4:02. Shit. I was cutting it close. As I waited impatiently for the "file progress" bar to fill completely, I tried to imagine what it would sound like. I mean, it had been five years since Pinkerton had been blasted in the press, five years since Weezer had officially performed, five years since there was new music from the band and lead singer I had grown to worship. And in those five years, absence had made the heart grow fonder, at least in the eyes of the music elite. Everyone was ready for some fresh Weezer in an era of stale rap/rock. My imagination was interrupted when the file was fully downloaded. As I found the file in my music player, I clicked play, bolted to the living room and turned the volume as loud as it would go. As the first few chords shook the dirty glasses on the coffee table, I couldn't help but smile. When Brennan arrived I could tell by the look on his face that even though he had only heard a few muffled notes from the hallway, he knew the significance of what we were having blasted into our eardrums. We knew before the song had even reached its chorus: they were back, and they were awesome.

It will always be the greatest concert I've ever seen. I've been to concerts with more talented musicians that put on a better show, but this had nothing to do with the level of execution. Weezer was back. They were playing real instruments on a real stage in front of real fans. I'd spent my high school and college years obsessing over a band that only existed in my bedroom and car. During that time, Weezer had become an abstract idea—the drums were played on my steering wheel and guitar solos on the air. But those 400 people packed into the Odeon who sang every word of those 13 songs understood Weezer was ready to reclaim their spot as the pied pipers of dork rock. And we dorks were ready to follow them anywhere.

The Green Album? Are they serious? The cover is exactly the same as Blue. Maybe they're trying to be ironic by parodying their first album. Maybe they feel like they're starting over, so they're going back to their roots. Maybe they're just lazy. Maybe this is another message board rumor with no merit.

It was Tuesday, May 15th 2001, and the excruciating wait was over. I hurried over to Berry's music, bypassing the underground hip-hop remixes and decorative bongs I had spent countless summer afternoons exploring in search of that precious lime green cover. I grabbed the Weezer album and headed home, unwrapping the annoying plastic wrapper and impossible sticker label as I steered with my knees. I knew it only had 10 songs, but I was stopped cold when I read the time blinking on my CD player: "28:23." I had just waited five years and paid $15 for a half hour of music? Well…this must be dense with indie rock greatness. It better be. It has to be.

My older brother Tom was the leader singer/screamer of a punk band when he was in high school. They practiced in the garage and played two shows at the Emerson Theater. My younger brother Jeff started playing the guitar and bass in high school after Jason left him his drums and bass while he went to teach English in Japan—Jeff would later cite this as the genesis of musical talent in an interview about his band, BIGBIGcar, that recently released their first album. I tried to take Jeff's cue by adopting Tom's guitar when he went off to college and looking up tabs on the internet. When Jeff bought a new electric, I took his old, sticker-covered model and leafed through my tabs binders. I had neither the skill nor attention span to properly learn the guitar—I had to go with what was familiar to me. And so, because they were all tattooed into my ear's memory, I printed out the tabs to every Weezer song. I could play the intricate chords of "Burndt Jamb." I could play the solo to "Say It Ain't So." It didn't matter that I couldn't play the guitar.

I got an email from Jason after he'd been teaching English in Japan for a few months. "Last Night I Met My Hero" was the title of the email, and it said nothing in the body of the message. But it had an attachment: a picture. I opened the file and saw Jason grinning like a school girl who's met her favorite Backstreet Boy. Only Jason was standing next to Pat Wilson, Weezer's drummer. They had played a concert in Japan (where they had their most loyal fanbase) and Jason was there. A few days later, he sent me a detailed account of the show, because he knew I wanted to feel like I was there too. As I read that email, my smile undoubtedly resembled the one Jason sported next to his hero.

The day Jill and Aaron casually mentioned "Falling for You" was "their song," I got irrationally angry. When Rivers wrote that, he was coming to grips with his falling in love with a girl he tried to avoid. That was my song. All those songs were mine! How dare they claim it! They weren't alone. They weren't dorks. They weren't "uncool" enough to have that song as their own. They hadn't done the research. They didn't wait those five long years for Rivers to get help and return to the band. They hadn't earned the right to love this band.

I'd never seen a band quit in the middle of their set until Cold did just that in the United Center. Below the six NBA championship banners, they reached their boiling point. They had been chosen to open for Weezer's latest tour because they had the volume to fill the arena-clad schedule, and it was reported that not only was their hardcore agro-rock one of Rivers' guilty pleasures, but also that he had written a song for them. They had not been well-received a warm by Weezer fans, and as the boos started to strengthen as their set progressed, I saw that tonight would be no different. Karl, the band's web blogger and friend, had been praising Cold for fighting through the icy reception and had asked fans to give them a chance. But the booing continued at this band that brought something different—ironic, since most Weezer fans had become Weezer fans because the band wrote songs about the struggles of feeling unfairly alienated. After five songs, the lead singer grew more and more aggressive with his comments toward the crowd, shouting obscenities so emotionally and uncontrollably that I couldn't understand the exact words. But when he stormed off the stage, I knew what had happened. When I got back home and read the tour blog on weezer.com, my suspicions and embarrassment were confirmed. Karl blogged about his disappointment that Cold had decided not only to quit the Chicago show, but the entire tour. Unlike Karl's usual lengthy and detailed account of the show, he simply apologized to Cold, thanked them for supporting Weezer and stated the band's disappointment in their fans. I felt like my dad had just caught me smoking weed, but instead of punishing me just told me how he expected more, especially from me. For the first time, I saw how devotion can turn ugly. I was ashamed to be a Weezer fan.

I used to love telling people who my favorite band was. It would be greeted with a nostalgic smile, as they remembered first hearing "Undone (The Sweater Song)" and seeing the Happy Days-inspired "Buddy Holly" video on MTV when Weezer was a cute pop band of geeks that inspired sympathy in anyone who saw their thick glasses and cardigan sweaters. But after their second coming, the nostalgic smile has turned into a confusing and somewhat worried stare. They might briefly remember they own The Blue Album and might even recall listening to it obsessively, but those memories had been pushed back and replaced with their more recent news-making efforts. They think about Rivers claiming to be on Ritalin and tequila when he wrote his last two hits. They think about the horrendous "Dope Nose" video featuring Japanese motorcycle riders. They think about the $15 dollars they spent on a half-hour CD, and the $3 they got when they sold it at a used CD store three weeks later. They think about how far this band has fallen, and they wonder how I could possibly claim them as my favorite. And I start to wonder the same thing.

Brennan sends me an IM that says simply "the end" followed by a link to pitchforkmedia.com, the premier source of news for indie rock fans. The link directs me to an article in which Rivers vaguely claims that "really, for the moment, we are done. And I'm not certain we'll ever make a record again, unless it becomes really obvious to me that we need to do one." My first reaction was absolute and complete sadness. I had invested countless hours to listening, countless dollars to tickets, countless gallons of gas to road trips, countless conversations to describing their greatness. But then the sadness started to turn into relief as I recalled the string of sub-par singles, the generic sound that infested most of their recent songs and the laziness that could be heard in their lyrics. Since returning from their five-year hiatus, Weezer had tested my loyalty time and time again, and usually they failed it. Maladroit was an uneven album with a few points of genius swimming in mediocre songs, but I defended it. Their fifth album, Make Believe, had some complexity in their instrumentation and sincerity in their lyrics; I dismissed their single (and rip-off of Steve Miller's "The Joker") "Beverly Hills" as a simple PR move to create a familiar song that would attract the general public to their better songs on the album. But all it seemed to do was force me to once again defend this shitty song in order to defend my love for the band. So perhaps I wasn't sad to hear this news—maybe my sadness was actually relief, and I knew how to make sense of my conflicted heart. I quickly went to Jason's blog, and of course he had already written about the news. And he was relieved, too.