Thoughts on current tour

Vedder4Prez

Are we in favor of the teleprompter? I didnt make any of the shows and just caught songs on XM. Did EV mess up less? Does it help with the variety of sets? 

BSully

JZ280705 said:

Went to the 2 Vegas shows. The band sounds super tight and the sound is excellent.  I wasn’t enthralled with the setlists.  Garden was the highlight.  I can do without hearing Alive, Daughter, Elderly Woman, Yellow Ledbetter for a few years. Curious to hear what others think.

I mean, pretty much any other band in the world, you will get a cookie-cutter setlist every night. They will keep playing Alive, Even Flow, and a few others because those are the songs everyone knows.
I will be going to my 11th - 13th show this fall and I fully expect to hear a few of those at all 3 shows, but I know I will get lots of new one and rare ones mixed along with it.

I can't wait to see them on this tour and to get 3 shows in a row will be such a treat for me.

SomethingCreative

Zod said:

I felt the shows in Vancouver we're pretty good, and enjoyed hearing all the new songs.   The band was solid and in great form.    I feel my problem is that I still have a hangover from the 2013 to 2018 shows, with the 3 hour+ barn burners.  When you play 35 songs a night, there's so much room for new songs, hits, rarities, and covers.    Those shows were all amazing and there was room in the setlists for everything. I never even felt a 3.5 hour set was long.  It seemed the perfect length to satiate my pj appetite. 

I'll get over that era of PJ one day

Thank you for acknowledging that it was only a 5 year span where those 3+hour shows were the norm.  I’ve noticed a lot of folks that seem to forget the previous 25 years of touring norms lol

spankyMP

SomethingCreative said:

Zod said:

I felt the shows in Vancouver we're pretty good, and enjoyed hearing all the new songs.   The band was solid and in great form.    I feel my problem is that I still have a hangover from the 2013 to 2018 shows, with the 3 hour+ barn burners.  When you play 35 songs a night, there's so much room for new songs, hits, rarities, and covers.    Those shows were all amazing and there was room in the setlists for everything. I never even felt a 3.5 hour set was long.  It seemed the perfect length to satiate my pj appetite. 

I'll get over that era of PJ one day

Thank you for acknowledging that it was only a 5 year span where those 3+hour shows were the norm.  I’ve noticed a lot of folks that seem to forget the previous 25 years of touring norms lol

Your dad sounds like a smart man

Zod

SomethingCreative said:

Zod said:

I felt the shows in Vancouver we're pretty good, and enjoyed hearing all the new songs.   The band was solid and in great form.    I feel my problem is that I still have a hangover from the 2013 to 2018 shows, with the 3 hour+ barn burners.  When you play 35 songs a night, there's so much room for new songs, hits, rarities, and covers.    Those shows were all amazing and there was room in the setlists for everything. I never even felt a 3.5 hour set was long.  It seemed the perfect length to satiate my pj appetite. 

I'll get over that era of PJ one day

Thank you for acknowledging that it was only a 5 year span where those 3+hour shows were the norm.  I’ve noticed a lot of folks that seem to forget the previous 25 years of touring norms lol

No problem.  Yah, it now feels like they just went back to how they did it before 2013.   These setlists aren't too much different in length than my first PJ tour (Yield), which is still my favourite tour

Weston1283

The Vegas shows were indeed excellent, especially Night 1

LukinAtU

JZ280705 said:

Went to the 2 Vegas shows. The band sounds super tight and the sound is excellent.  I wasn’t enthralled with the setlists.  Garden was the highlight.  I can do without hearing Alive, Daughter, Elderly Woman, Yellow Ledbetter for a few years. Curious to hear what others think.

i was present as well. Porch, Even Flow, Alive, Ledbetter & Evolution both nights. Then the new ones, which I expected and enjoyed. I think it was 10-11 repeats all together. But thought they sounded good. Such a deep catalog, spread it around.

BF25394

Vedder4Prez said:

Are we in favor of the teleprompter? I didnt make any of the shows and just caught songs on XM. Did EV mess up less? Does it help with the variety of sets? 

I am in favor, and it makes sense that it would encourage them to continue mixing up the sets. As a fan, it's always been a bummer when you hear the first notes of a deep cut that you're excited to hear, and then the lyrics are totally botched. That rarely happened on this tour.

My question is whether the decision to go with the screen, and to forgo the sales of seats behind the stage, was connected at all to the addition of the teleprompter. You could not see the words even when you were right at the front of the stage because of the way the screen was angled under the floor, but it might have been visible from seats behind the stage.

BF25394

Six songs were played at all ten shows (all eleven, counting Napa):

"React, Respond"
"Wreckage"
"Dark Matter"
"Running"
"Setting Sun"
"Alive"

"Even Flow" was skipped twice. That's a small victory.

Vedder4Prez

BF25394 said:

Vedder4Prez said:

Are we in favor of the teleprompter? I didnt make any of the shows and just caught songs on XM. Did EV mess up less? Does it help with the variety of sets? 

I am in favor, and it makes sense that it would encourage them to continue mixing up the sets. As a fan, it's always been a bummer when you hear the first notes of a deep cut that you're excited to hear, and then the lyrics are totally botched. That rarely happened on this tour.

My question is whether the decision to go with the screen, and to forgo the sales of seats behind the stage, was connected at all to the addition of the teleprompter. You could not see the words even when you were right at the front of the stage because of the way the screen was angled under the floor, but it might have been visible from seats behind the stage.

I thought for sure the screen was a decision after EV decided to go with the teleprompter. Big loss of $ but I want them touring more and diversity! So all for it! 

jimjam1982

Same as 2021 and leg 1 2022. A few slots for some fun songs. Mostly new stuff which is kick ass material.

Too many repeats. Maybe just don't play 2 in a city if you want to repeat 9 songs. Play one night and hit more different cities... reducing travel for fans = Less carbon footprint. Playing 2 encourages travel = worse for environment. Practice what you preach boys. The concept of playing 2 is basically the 2 nights = 1 long show and they strayed from that.

Visuals are neat but they should get rid of them since it dictated too much standardization of the setlists.

Band does sound great. They are really energized. Stone looks happy. Mike shreds. Jeff does Jeff things. MFC is MFC.

Edit: apologies to Boom and Josh they are also fantastic and always seem to be smiling, don't want to omit them! Love what they bring to the table.

Let's move the EV solo song back to preset before the opening act. Band can take 5 extra minutes and play a group song in that slot. They don't exactly flirt with curfew which appears to be 11:30 as shows end regularly about 11:15 these days. 

Let Stone sing.

My 2024 leg 1 summary. A step backwards from 2023 shows. 

Hankj25

I’m thrilled with how great they sound. We will always bitch about setlists, it’s what we do.  

I don’t like the DM autopilot section of the shows.  Not because the music is bad. It’s just kind of a bummer knowing the next 3-4 songs. 

They are still throwing rarities at us. Every night. 

And it’s awesome to see your favorite band look like they are having fun.  So great to get to see them again and already waiting for August. 

drfox

Can’t wait for the European tour, getting really excited. The US bootlegs sound great.
When thinking about previous times I’ve seen them, the only things that look slightly disappointing from the current US setlists are:
1) There are more repeats on the 2 shows per city dates - eg in London 2022 there were only 2 repeated songs, and similar last year in Austin, Fort Worth etc. Would be great if they played all 11 Dark Matter songs (including Won’t Tell and Got to Give) over the 2 shows but just 6 on one night and 5 on the other 
2) I think the band is right playing Alive, Even Flow, Black, Porch, Given to Fly, Corduroy etc on most shows as these are their most famous songs and there will be fans who have never seen them before. But I really think they should reduce the number of times Daughter, Small Town and Do the Evolution are played. Great songs but they really do feel a bit overplayed now. 

These are only minor quibbles though and I would still see the band play even if the set list was 75% the same every night! 

Douglas12373

Anyone complaining about the teleprompter is clearly under 40. Also, wtf cares? How does it affect the show in any way other than Ed actually singing the right lyrics?

spankyMP

Douglas12373 said:

Anyone complaining about the teleprompter is clearly under 40. Also, wtf cares? How does it affect the show in any way other than Ed actually singing the right lyrics?

Teleprompter is a good thing. As great as the Austin shows were last year and how great Ed sounded, he flubbed a lot of lyrics...a lot

LukinAtU

RS65573 said:

RW8297 said:

I think it would be awesome if they played no repeats in the cities where they had 2 gigs. Like Metallica do. Guess 5 + 6 Dark Matter songs each night would be enough. But it is what it is.

100%

concur

Johnny Abruzzo

The constant whining about setlists is a mix of annoying and entertaining.

The_Giant_Midget

Went to 4 shows so far, both LV & LA and have Ohana upcoming in Sept...I wrote this in one of my fanviews but I think after seeing shows on this tour the answer is doing special fanclub type shows for the hardcore fans. I know it most likely won't happen again like they did in the Vic Theatre but it would alleviate a lot of this setlist debate stuff.

The shows were incredible and I love hearing the the new stuff + the hits, but I understand the sentiment from those who go to multiple shows every tour - you're going to want to hear the unexpected stuff and with the band now very much in the limelight again since Dark Matter got a major push it's not going to happen to the extent that we want. I noticed it especially at the Forum that there were a lot of "casuals" there, which is completely fine and im glad the band is breaking through again in 2024 - but those fans are clearly going to want the hits and the band knows they'll have to satisfy that. 

On the other hand now with 12 studio albums + Lost Dogs theres obviously going to be a lot of omissions in these 24-26 song setlists and that's why a lot of albums aren't getting much love the last few tours. In my mind the only remedy is to maybe announce when the tour drops that certain shows within cities will be more fan club friendly, this can work especially with multiple nights in bigger cities. I know MMJ did the It Still Moves full album tour recently and they put an asterisk on the shows that they planned on playing the entire album. Or the other option could be "an evening with PJ" sort of show at the ballparks since those are more destination shows anyway and the band can play closer to 30 songs those nights and the arena shows can have the opener + 2 hour show.

In summation, I know this is farfetched but this band isn't a legacy act at all and they have tons of fans traveling to see their 20th, 50th, 100th etc show. In my mind its the best solution to appease the large number of casual fans who attend shows and for us who post here who camp out for merch or stay up all night tracking setlists for shows we can't attend. 

spankyMP

Johnny Abruzzo said:

The constant whining about setlists is a mix of annoying and entertaining.

Right? We get so much. Let's just continue to enjoy the ride!

CROJAM95

I love getting the hits, sure one or two on consecutive nights is not ideal...... Ten/vs/vitalogy  still kill live 

Im always hoping for 1 or 2  rareties on a particular night, but ive been trying to be a sponge at these shows and FEEL great....they always deliver