*** London, UK, SBE Fanviews Here 8/11/09 ***

DEMON CLEANER wrote:

yes i can say it was a great show but not the best ive seen,me thinks the astoria just about edged it.

tremors wrote:

Obviously there is a massive personal experience element for each of us, tied up with our mood when it starts (I got dropped off about 1 hr before the gig and strolled in so was pretty damn mellow and receptive) what the songs mean to us, or whatever we look to our music to do for us. There are many bands I like just for the overall sound of the thing; pearl jam for me is much more personal, connected with the significant meaning in 90% of the songs, which have helped me enormously in dealing with difficult times.

My experience last night was on another level from anything I've ever been through, either musically or otherwise. I've had some terribly intense living nightmares, but this was the antithesis, the intense wonderful dream. The symbolism of it, the meaning of the songs was important, but crucially the FLOW of the show for me, where for whatever reason each song connected and hit me deeper and deeper than the one before, until i was almost completely intoxicated (the fact my ex kept delivering me up beer upon beer may also have helped this hehehe!). My memory of alive and betterman has completely gone, and it's not just the beer - it was just too deep - I can't remember any thing, I'm just staring! I'm blank. It opened me up. Ed's t-shirt looked a bit like it might say pearl jam, but when he took of his shirt it just said FEAR didn't it? He looked really fragile to me, enveloped in his own words and sound. What I respect most about ed performing is I don't believe he goes for the 'script' of the song, but rather tries to connect back with the essential feeling or emotion which generated it. So he seemed shaky in parts, but I read this as his taking off his armour as he always does. Hence in general when he fucks up his lines it often suggests to me he is very wrapped up in his own demons, and being true, rather than seeking polish and perfection. Last night I think I only recall one lyrical 'error' actually - a bit of inside job?

For whatever reason, the occasion, the flow of the setlist, the meaning for me, and I guess the rhythm of the whole evening meant that I had a deeply significant experience, which went WAY beyond the other 4 PJ shows I have seen.

This was also helped by

my view from level 2 - I've never seen the band so clearly even when scrabbling round in the pit close to the stage at wembley 2000. Yesterday the position was tremendous and meant my visual connection was completely sustained. Granted, I am not the kind of guy who will fist fight to be in the front row to get the best view, and queue for 5 hours before. The beauty of SBE was once you were in you were sitting pretty.

The sound - in my ears this was easily the fullest, clearest richest sound of any gig I've attended. It was reverberating off the walls for chrissake! The audience singing and band sound seemed to be collecting right around where the front of the pit was, slightly concave focus. I guess it's true that ed's vocals were somewhat under the mix at times, but sometimes this was because he was being drowned out by the fucking shepherd's bush empire completely engulfing him. In the arena shows I've seen, everything seems very 'horizontal' - the band project out their sound; it disperses out into the the venue, some sound comes back from the audience. It's linear.

Last night seemed more like a 'pool', where the band and audience sound was collecting together, purely by virtue of being in a smaller, packed out, curved room. That lies at the heart of what distinguished this gig for me. It was almost like a theatre play which is 'in the round', with the actors in the middle of the audience. You get a different effect if the walls aren't nearly so close - if you are in the middle of a 'hangar'. (I've no notion of what astoria or vic were like, i've seen no footage or photos, only sound).

Anyway - I'm not an expert in acoustics, I just know what I saw and heard last night.

The shows I've attended before are Wembley 2000 (x2) - good sound, little quiet on night 1
Dublin 2006 - Great atmosphere,setlist, my favourite gig until SBE, but I was too far back to see and hear at the SBE level.

Wembley 2007 - sound ridiculously loud, sometimes distorting, preferred that to 2000 actually, but was almost too much, not really so refined, bass drum shaking my heart around!

The sound I heard last night was similar to listening on my own hi fi - it was 3 dimensional and rich and whole - (I was just off-centre level 2).

Anyway, sorry to go on and on, I know you guys despair at my overly lengthy posts.

This may shock some people, but I am seeing the band both nights in Seattle in September, and I really don't think me seeing PJ next week in London could add to SBE last night taken together with the 2 seattle, but in fact only detract from the specialness. FOr this reason I have decided I won't be using my 2 fanclub tickets to London 02 (18th August). You guys will know better than me, but I believe it is sometimes possible to get the tenclub to transfer these tickets over to other members. I'm not London based and won't be there next week, so I can't help out in person. If anyone wants me to try and transfer my seats to next week's london show to them, then I will gladly do so, if the tenclub can sort it out. I just want to recoup the face value I paid. (The last 2 days in london have cleaned me out! sometimes a £25 taxi ride makes a lot of sense!) I've no idea what demand would be for my tickets, but PM me if you are interested and I'll try and do my bit to sort it out. I don't know how the allocation / transfer thing works or if this is possible, and this would have been the first year I would have benefited from any seniority or no. my tenclub number is 190xxx - is that how you say it? Help me out here guys, I'm not the professional fanclub member!

Anyway. As I implied before my 4 word review of SBE would simply be

'god bless pearl jam!'

Ron The Shelf wrote:

I just feel the sense of occasion surrounding the Astoria gig was more intense and I feel the band's performance that night reflected that. It is a pity that many here feel that if we don't pay total homage or if we dare to voice our opinions that somehow makes us lesser fans. I think the opposite is true. Once you lose your objectivity it just becomes blind acceptance (as someone once sang! lol). If anyone wants to debate the pro's and cons over a few beers in Berlin on Friday or Saturday come say hello!

facepollution wrote:

Ron The Shelf wrote:

I just feel the sense of occasion surrounding the Astoria gig was more intense and I feel the band's performance that night reflected that. It is a pity that many here feel that if we don't pay total homage or if we dare to voice our opinions that somehow makes us lesser fans. I think the opposite is true. Once you lose your objectivity it just becomes blind acceptance (as someone once sang! lol). If anyone wants to debate the pro's and cons over a few beers in Berlin on Friday or Saturday come say hello!

With respect, I think it's a pity that some people are arrogant enough to believe that their personal experience is somehow fact. I'm not blindly accepting anything. The Astoria gig was great for a number of reasons, not least because they hadn't played here in six years. But, it was a short show, probably a bit too much new material for my liking too. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but last night's show had a better set list in my opinion. I think the band and audience seemed really into it, there were some truly incredible moments, the sound was great from where I was standing, what's not to like?

I think it's odd that you would talk about blind acceptance and losing objectivity when you are putting forth nothing other than your own experience and opinion.

facepollution wrote:

Ron The Shelf wrote:

I just feel the sense of occasion surrounding the Astoria gig was more intense and I feel the band's performance that night reflected that. It is a pity that many here feel that if we don't pay total homage or if we dare to voice our opinions that somehow makes us lesser fans. I think the opposite is true. Once you lose your objectivity it just becomes blind acceptance (as someone once sang! lol). If anyone wants to debate the pro's and cons over a few beers in Berlin on Friday or Saturday come say hello!

With respect, I think it's a pity that some people are arrogant enough to believe that their personal experience is somehow fact. I'm not blindly accepting anything. The Astoria gig was great for a number of reasons, not least because they hadn't played here in six years. But, it was a short show, probably a bit too much new material for my liking too. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but last night's show had a better set list in my opinion. I think the band and audience seemed really into it, there were some truly incredible moments, the sound was great from where I was standing, what's not to like?

I think it's odd that you would talk about blind acceptance and losing objectivity when you are putting forth nothing other than your own experience and opinion.