T Minus 10 hours until my first PJ concert!
Sooooooo.....
It was a phenomenal experience...
My gf and I got there about 6:30, when the doors opened...We were directly across the arena from the stage in the third row of the upper section...Excellent view of the whole stage, a bit far away, but not bad at all...
Grabbed some knosh and some beers and were sitting there chilling when Eddie walks out by himself with a guitar..."Pearl Jam couldn't make it tonight...." he mutters into the mic and then starts playing "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away"...Very cool...Voice was in excellent form and the song was a hit for the 10% of the crowd that was there at that point...
My Morning Jacket came on and played for about 45 minutes...I like them, and they were pretty good, but I couldn't help thinking, "c'mon, get this over with so PJ can play"...
As you can see from the set list, Pearl Jam rocked hard straight out of the gate, ripping through Severed Hand, Corduroy, World Wide Suicide, Do The Evolution, and Marker In The Sand, Given To Fly, Dissident, and Even Flow, in quick succession...New songs sounded great live, LOTS of energy right off the bat...
Even Flow was spectacular... Eddie had prefaced the song by saying something along the lines of "Now in the middle of the song we're going to let Mike here take over, because if we don't, well, he'd just do it anyway"...And McCready sure did, blistering through a killer guitar solo, pulling out all the stops, playing behind his head, etc...Effin awesome! After EF, Eddie told the crowd that, "I don't want to say anything...But Boston was louder." Fired up the crowd a bit more....
At this point they finally slowed down a bit and played Army Reserve, which is not one of my favorites off of the new album...Lots of fans streamed out to hit the bathroom or grab a beer when he announced the song, so I guess they agree....Also think lots of fans were spent frmo the kick #### opening ...
Kept it a bit mellow next with Immortality, which sounded great, and the crowd seemed to get back into it, singing along to the chorus...Green Disease was next, which I like, but it seemed like few in the audience knew it...
Then came a fantastic version of Not For You, with a Modern Girl tag...Sounded great...Again, crowd was back into it, singing along and really getting into the chorus...Band was tight, and Eddie was intense...Putting on a Rock Star 101 clinic witht he way he owned the stage...McCready really impressed me again during Not For You...You cannot always tell on the studio albums what a talented guitarist he is, but seeing them live really reaffirmed what I had picked up from the bootlegs I have; Mike rocks HARD!
Next came Alone, which half the crowd was going nuts for and half had no idea what the song was...I was psyched, and was really getting into it...Then Mike's guitar cut out...
Crowd started booing as techs scrambled to fix it...After about a minute or two, the band started up again, picking right where they left off and finishing the song...I didn't care that it was interrupted, it was AWESOME to hear live...
At this point I do think the crowd was lagging just a bit...The combination of the sreeching halt caused by the tech malfuction and the fact that 2 of the last 3 songs weren't regular fan faves (Green Disease and Alone) had caused the energy level to sag just a bit...
Well Pearl Jam knew how to fix that, breaking out into Jeremy and Why Go, which certainly got the crowd back into it...Hearing these long time faves live was great...I know some concert vets are tired or hearing the same songs over and over, but you have to remember there are always fans and new converts who may be at their 1st PJ concert....
Life Wasted continued the energy, and lead into the Set 1 finale of Rearviewmirror...It was frenetic, with the guitars pushing the rhythm faster and faster as Eddie tore through the song...Here too there was very impressive musicianship as the band extended the song before coming back to it and crushing the ending!
Encore 1 began with Wasted Reprise, which sounded fantastic! Nice mellow segue into Man of the Hour, which was solid...Then came one of the show highlights, IMO, an AMAZING version of Come Back...This song had really grown on me as I lsitened to the new album over and over, and it was excellent live...An honest, raw reading from Eddie...Had this great effect on the crowd, as we all got caught up in the emotion of the song...
Then came the opening strains of Footsteps, and I went nuts...Are they gonna do Mamasan? I wondered...Could I be that lucky at my 1st PJ show? Footsteps was chillingly beautiful, and led into Once and Alive...Yes, apparently I could be that lucky! Alive was the Encore 1 show stopper, with a great light show that really enhanced the experience...Towards the end of the song Eddie climbed up on one of the stage's side amps, and was singing it to a section of the crowd that was all standing and shouting it back to him in total adulation...It was a great Rock 'n Roll moment...
At the end of Alive Eddie took a nasty fall and really limped off the stage...I was afraid that it would prematurely end the show, as it looked BAD...
But they came back out for Encore 2, with Eddie limping something fierce...Tore into Last Exit and Comatose, revving the crowd back up into a near frenzy...It had been over 2 hours by this point, but as Eddie said, "As long as you're still here, we're still here."
Leatherman was next...Funny moment, as Eddie was telling some rambling story about the writing of it, and then just stopped and said "leatherman"...This annoying drunk chick next to me thoguht he said "Betterman" and she went nuts, shrieking abotu how it was her favorite song...She was a bit confused when it started and she didn't know any of the words...
Glorified G was next, and was another great song live...Lots of crowd energy for that one...
Then Eddie started talking about how the last time they were there they got some criticism from the fans for playing Bu$hleaguer, and asked the crowd if they would boo if they played it (maybe 25% booed) and thn asked if we would cheer if he played it (the other 75% cheered)...He said, "Well we're not going to play it."
He then told a story about how the last time they were in NY someone help up a sign that said "Play Leash You Pu##ies." So they played it, and it sounded great. Eddie ended it by saying "Pu##ies No Longer!" Was a pretty funny moment...
By this point the house lights had come up and Eddie started talking about how they were long past curfew...Crowd booed, but quickly turned to cheers when the band broke into Baba O'Riley...Was a great moment...Crowd totally got into it, and the band really brought it home, with Mike doing the Townshend guitar windmills and Mike and Eddie ending it with a Daltrey leap!
There was time for one last song, and I thought it would be YLB, but instead they broke into Indifference, which was just a really great way to end the show...Understated following the bombast of Baba O'Riley, but seemed like a perfect summation for the show...
All in all it was probably the greatest concert I've ever been to, and I am already hooked on PJ live...Thinking about driving out Saturday and trying to get my hands on a couple of tix...Can only imagine what they have up their sleeves for the last show of Leg 1...
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At this point I started to get pumped. TU touched down around 2:00 and told me he was heading to the hotel and then would meet me at the venue. At this point things were getting sketchy in line b/c the venue and the fan club were walking around telling people all sorts of stuff about how they were going to disburse the wristbands, and that it might happen before 4:00, etc. So I called TU to let him know that he might want to stop here bfore the hotel just so we’ll get the wristbands…and I’ll hold our place in line so he can drop his stuff off. He obliges and arrives around 3:00……we end up getting our wristbands around 4:30 and then he takes off for the hotel and I continue to chill in line with the rest of the fans.
One of the rarest songs PJ has, only played live less than 5x IIRC. Exchanged the ‘Things were different then, always different then….’ Line with the crowd which was absolutely increadible.
