Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened! Your highlights from the Dark Matter Tour

Johnny Abruzzo · September 16

Thought I'd try to gather up some highlights from my 5 shows in 2024.

Phila 9/7/24: Double Rainbow!!! and Long Road opener. It was probably just up in the "openers rotation" but the "Schwarbomb" Double Rainbow and Long Road felt like a tribute to the tragically killed Gaudreau brothers.
Vegas 5/16/24 & 5/18/24: In the 1st show, Eddie gives $500 to a woman in the pit, asks her if she can try and double it at the tables and bring it back on Saturday. At the 2nd show he mentions this and a group of people in the pit have matching "ALL IN" t-shirts. She passes up a note that she tried to double the money but the casinos won, as they tend to do. But she raised a bunch of money from fans and presented it to Eddie in an envelope to donate to the Vedders' EB Foundation. I donated when I got home.
Phila 9/9/24: RATS - Coincidence? Eddie gives an anecdote about The Spectrum shows - the place had not been maintained and there were Rats running asunder - and looky here there are four people holding up R A T S signs, and the crowd breaks into a RATS chant. The band busts it out right before Alive and it's way on point!
Phila 9/7/24: Red Mosquito super crowd sing-along - who knew 20,000 people or whatever all knew the words to some song in the middle of No Code?!? PHILLY!!!
Vegas 5/16/24: Hard To Imagine/Black - The 2nd song of the night - the crowd was so super into H2I and that amazing last 2 minutes. I knew right then it was a great choice to travel to Vegas for these shows! Then for the 3rd song, a shocking early appearance of Black and probably the best version I've ever seen, with Mike blasting out an epic (epic I say!) solo in my first "GA Mike Side" show.
Vegas 5/16/24: Waiting for Stevie! I was really stoked to hear this epic quintessential track and it really didn't disappoint! Some time during the night I got a "point" from Mike up there in GA Mike Side - let's just say it was during Stevie to make the story better.
Vegas 5/18/24: Of The Girl opener - I was talking to everyone around us in GA - what's the opener? I said I was hoping for Of The Girl as I hadn't seen it before and that's what they played. Yay!
Phila 9/7/24: Brain of J - I've seen this before but goddam this really rocked! PJ just keeps a big old lead foot on the gas in Philly.
Baltimore 9/12/24: First Can't Keep in 10 years! It was my personal first Can't Keep and an awesome surprise! (well not if you peaked at the setlist thread since somebody posted blatant clues about it, but whatever)
Phila 9/9/24: Dobbs Tribute - The poster to the J R Dobbs show from 1991 or something is projected onto the enormous screen and Pearl Jam gives us ALONE to commemorate it! The guy next to me (an out-of-towner, like a ton of the people there) and I improvise the "I can't help myself myself" bridge from the Go single version
Vegas 5/16/24 & 5/18/24: Setting Sun closers - I really love this Dark Matter song and it's so cool to close out the show with it. Hope they bring that back to the "closers rotation."

Honorable Mention: Opening Band Deep Sea Diver - my new music jawn - I hung out with Vegas resident and cool guy Wayne in GA and he said they were gonna be great, and he was right!