Cumartesi 30 Haz 2007, 12:22

Thu 28 Jun – Pearl Jam in the Park

My first ever Pearl Jam concert. I got up at 6 and arrived at 9 in the morning to make sure I had a good place, which didn't prove necessary since I could've had the same spot if I had gotten there at 12. I met some people from Israel who also had some trouble finding the concert and a dude from Brazil. If you're reading this: Hi!

At 17.00 Sattelite Party (SP) started playing. There was a big cheer when they came on stage, probably because Perry Farrel's wife wasn't wearing all that much. And she has firm buttocks. I didn't really care for SP, although Farrell did make it a good show and really tried to get through to the audience.

Can't say the sam for Kings of Leon (KoL). The highlight of their show was the last song when Eddie Vedder joined them to play the mandolins (which both broke fairly soon). Seemed like either they were nervous or just uptight, and I really didn't care for them. It's a live show and you should really at least try to connect with the audience, but it's probably not that easy if your lead singer plays guitar. Guess they were a bit overwhelmed or something.

Incubus was better, although there wasn't a connection with the audience either. I didn't really know any of the three support acts so I couldn't sing along, but Incubus got by far the best response, so cheers and a thumbs up to them.

Then at 20.45, Pearl Jam came out to play. I was quite tired form standing at that point (although I did sit down in between support acts), but the energy came rushing back.

Setlist
Release
Go
Hail, Hail
World Wide Suicide
Whipping
Do the Evolution
Given to Fly
Not for You
Wishlist
Even Flow
Insignificance
Unemployable
Jeremy
Nothingman
Better Man / Save It For Later
Corduroy
Why go

Encore #1
Comatose
Daughter / Another Brick In The Wall / War
Leash
Rearviewmirror

Encore #2
No More (Eddie acoustic on guitar)
Blood
Alive
Rockin’ In The Free World
Yellow Ledbetter

This took them over two hours to play, so everyone was left satisfied (except for the people who really wanted to hear Black).
Better Man was a request from the sister of the Dutch guy who didn't survive the 2000 Roskilde incident.
No More was an anti-war/anti-President Bush song that Vedder played on his guitar all by himself (with help form the audience). I sort of hoped he was going to play Thumbing my Way, but I figured that wasn't very likely.
Highlights for me personally were Given to Fly, Better Man, Nothingman and Rockin' in the Free World.
It really seemed like the band was having a blast, and the audience was too. Luckily it was dry during the entire concert (a few showers while queueing, but nothing too serious).
After leaving all my stuff behind at the gates I sprinted to the front and a got a place there at Mike McCready's side. He was really up to it and was enjoying himself, trowing handfuls of picks in the audience. Didn't catch one but that's okay. Of course Matt threw in his drumsticks. Eddie gave away four mandolins at the end. I left with just an amazing concert to remember. (and two t-shirts)

I don't have any pictures, but my Brazilian friend said he would mail them to me, so I will post them when they arrive.

All in all, fucking perfect. The energy, the weather, the songs, the audience. Excellent.