*** San Diego Fanviews 7/7 Here ***

First off, there WAS a preset- Ed played Soon Forget then announced Sonic Youth.

Secondly, this was my 11th time seeing this band. Of the 30 or so songs played tonight (including the preset), SIX were songs I had never heard live. SIX! And only one of those was from the new album. Four of the rest were songs I'd heard only once. To put this in perspective, seeing the Petty/PJ shows in St. Paul, in two nights of hearing Petty, I only heard three songs on the second night that I didn't hear on the first night. Yet another reason why this band is fan-fucking-tastic.

And I- just right now- realized they played 10 songs from the new record. It certainly didn't feel like they played 10 songs from Avocado- everything meshed incredibly well.

Oceans was great to hear for the first time. I had hoped that being at this show would yield me some interesting set choices, and hearing this right off the bat got me stoked instantly. I had said from the moment I bought my tickets that this show was going to be something special- I just felt it. And hearing Oceans as the opener gave me hope...

Severed Hand is in a tght battle with Inside Job as my favorite track on Pearl Jam, so I was more than excited to hear this next. There was no pre-recorded intro, either.

I hadn't seen Brain of J since my very first show back in 1998 and I was dying to hear it again. Thank you PJ for making that happen tonight.

LBC featured the 'Let the show begin' lyric, and Boom got a deservedly nice ovation.

If there was a "low" point to this show for me, it was the Gone/EFlow/Unemployable trilogy. The drum solo in EFlow was longer than I'd yet heard and Matt was going crazy. Good stuff, there.

Wasted Reprise into Betterman was a nice segue. The crowd singalong here was the first sign for me that this crowd was something unique. Save It For Later was great.

Satan's Bed! I had been telling my neighbor that in the next three shows I needed to hear this and Rats. He turned to me and gave me a high five at the start. It's always great at shows to share these kind of moments with complete strangers, bonded by appreciation for this band.

After that we were right into an awesome Not For You. The Modern Girl tag was really appreciated by my companion, who is a big S-K fan.

I had figured we were going to get You Are after hearing the guitar tech test the pedals during the break between SY and PJ. And I loved it- one of my favorite songs on Riot Act.

I wouldn't put the improv after Life Wasted- it was more an intro to RVM than a conclusion to LW, Ed repeating "I'll never go back again" over the first notes of RVM before going into the riff. Ed also sang during the first part of the mid-section jam, but I couldn't make out anything he was sayng from where I was. Speaking of, that jam was sick. Just plain sick.

Now, I cannot possibly put into words how moving the introduction to Long Road was. By the time they were starting the song I was choked up. When they came back out for the first encore, they all sat down and Ed said that he'd like to tell us a story. He asked for a show of hands of how many people have had a teacher who has had a large influence on their life. He then said that he too had one and that this was the story he wanted to share. The band and Neil were working on Mirrorball when Ed got the call that this teacher had passed away. He said that even though the band and Neil were in the room, he had to go in another room and sort out his thoughts. He said he needed to have a conversation though, and he was having it through his guitar. He started strumming the first note, stating that hey, it sunds like a school bell. He just kept doing that over and over... At this point Matt quietly started the drum part to the song. Ed continued and said that after a while, eventually the band and Neil came in to check on him, and without any of them saying a word, they all sat down, picked up their instruments, and in that moment....

"We all walk the long road..."

Absolutely. Fucking. Amazing. This was a moment. It wasn't manufactured. It was real. Real emotion. Real love. Simply beautiful.

Come Back was a fitting follow up, and I think they're finding the right groove with it.

Crazy Mary was, well, crazy. Boom got more time to solo and the band stayed around him for the majority of his spotlight moment. Mike's solo wasn't the greatest I've heard from him on this song, but the band built the song up to a magnificent crescendo during it.

Crown of Thorns! What can you say... you know it's a special show when you hear this song. I've been lucky enough to hear it twice now this year- in Chicago and tonight.

Speaking of Chicago- those of you who think the Alive from Chicago II was fantastic- you NEED to hear this one. That's all I'll say. Stage antics saw Ed atop one speaker stack stage left, with Stone soloing right below him, and Mike opposite stage atop his own speaker stack. Visually incredible.

Last Kiss featured Ed climbing a rope ladder at the back of the stage, getting a good 15-10 feet above the ground while singing to the club in the back. Jeff, ever the mother hen, sent a stagehand over to hold the ladder to keep it sturdy.

It was great to hear Leash after all the hype. Ed finished the song on his nees, arms outstretched, flipping everyone off with a big smile on his face.

Speaking of, all of the folks I went to the show with agreed that this is the most fun any of us have ever seen Ed have at a show. He was smiling all night, jumping all around, genuinely seeming to enjoy himself. Even Stone and Jeff were more animated tonight that I've ever seen them.

Up next was the moment I'd been waiting for- you knew it had to happen, and Ed specifically said they were saving it for the west coast- Big Wave! And it was glorious.

After all this, RITFW and YL were almost an afterthought. I say almost because the jamming in RITFW was intense (even with Kelly Slater, whom I think Ed oversold to the crowd), and Mike's Star Spangled Banner tag was inspired, but you knew this was the end. Ed noted what everyone else in the arena had to be thnking by altering the "I don't want to stay" line in YL to "I don't want to leave..."


This WAS a special show. I'll be at the next LA shows, and if they even come anywhere near to this show, those will be considered great shows. This show was twenty kinds of awesomeness, plain and simple. I really think this might be the best Pearl Jam show I've ever seen. When the aftershow hype dies down, I'll reassess, but in the very least, it's top 3, no doubt.

Amazing. A simply amazing evening with an amazing band with amazing fans.

God I love this band.

AndySlash wrote:

This show was twenty kinds of awesomeness, plain and simple. I really think this might be the best Pearl Jam show I've ever seen. When the aftershow hype dies down, I'll reassess, but in the very least, it's top 3, no doubt.

Amazing. A simply amazing evening with an amazing band with amazing fans.

God I love this band.

Dude ~ if you don't write for a living, you ought to. I'll be re-reading your review all day. Sharing moments with your neighbor. I love when that happens. I'd been reading about the set up for LR on other threads and was dying to know what was said.

I'm glad I read it in your review. Feel like I was there with you friend. If only...

Enjoy LA! I'll be looking for your review.

Wow, sounds like a great show...wish I could have been there..

1vs5 wrote:

great review Andy. Might be one of the best I've ever read.
Thx...made me really feel the show.

Nice job!!

great writeup man, i can't say that was THE greatest pj show i've ever seen (11/95 at the sports arena still takes the title) but that doesn't matter, i hadn't seen them in years and this show did not disappoint to say the very least. missed the pre-set because my buddy choked and got to my place late, arrgh, 'soon forget' one of my favorites too. i don't have time for a full fanview (going to europe tomorrow!) but i will add a couple of things:

oceans was such a cooler opener and really special to me since they opened the second san diego show in '95 with it, and i still remember that moment vividly, very transcendent...

'brain of j' rocked, mike on top of his game, Ed showing that his vocals were going to be fine despite whatever ailed him in vegas... this song also showed up early the only other time they played this venue in '98, and i'm sure he's aware of the irony of singing 'who's got the brain of JFK and what's it mean to us now?' in the exact location that JFK himself gave a commencement speech in 1963 (aztec bowl then, cox arena now)...

betterman was amazing, the crowd singing the opening lines on pitch at full-throat, ed genuinely moved by the moment of his early Bad Radio song being sung back to him in the city he wrote it in... he stopped before the second verse, almost stunned, and said 'that is fucking beautiful'...

so many other moments, a couple of lulls in the new material but few and far between, and the new rockers absolutely killed. it's incredible how they've managed to breathe new life into the 'human jukebox' songs like evenflow and alive, especially alive, it was awesome, nothing like the past couple of times i've seen them when ed seemed to be going thru the motions a little on those...

Ed talked about the Vegas show the night before being a 'tough gig', and how the LA crowds 'had their work cut out for them'... later joking about it, saying how he bad-mouthed last night's crowd and was talking sh!t on the next show's crowd before it has even happened yet! : ) and that he'll never say anything bad about us... very sweet and genuine...

discussion about Clayton E. Liggett (not postive on last name), a teacher Ed had growing up here, and that the band has a role in getting a theater in Encintas named after, very touching and a great lead-in to Long Road, absolutely mindblowing...

the lead-in to Crown of Thorns was a mention of his hometowns of Chicago, San Diego and Seattle, and 'maybe some of you will know this one'... ah, Singles soundtrack, somewhere Andrew Wood was smiling... so cool for me especially since i'm from seattle and san diego is my adopted hometown...

Mike was also pretty on-fire this show, Ed mentioning that 'it's science, i just lit my cigarette off Mike's hand" after a particularly firey solo...

i thought i heard a tag of chicago's '25 or 6 to 4'... can't remember if it was in the 'not for you' tag or in another song? it wasn't a full tag w/vocals, just mike strumming the opening riff...

incredible that they can get away with not playing their 'stairway' (black), no one felt cheated at all, and even though i sorely missed hearing it and Porch, Lukin, I Got Shit, etc., i obviously didn't feel cheated in the slightest. what a blast. if there was any doubt that PJ is the reigning 'World's Greatest Rock n' Roll Band', tonight reconfirmed it.


good luck with the rest of the tour everyone! Gorge is going to be unreal, and don't overlook Santa Barbara, i think that might be a really good one too.

looks like it was an awesome show!!!

OK this show was truly incredible. The band was "on" tonight and sounded so tight. Beginning with Oceans was great as this is San Diego and surfing is such a big part of our lives. Then they started rockin with Severed Hand and Coduroy! Brain of JFK was awseome and it just kept getting better and better. The dedication to Clayton Liggett really touched me as I was in that Drama class with Eddie at San Dieguito High school and I kept yelling Claytons name but I couldn't get Ed to hear me. After this he started playing Long Road and it brought a tear to my eye. Having been friends with Ed in Jr. High and High school it was really great to see him so happy and it seemed he was really enjoying the show as much as we were. So a couple of favorite highlight songs were Evenflow, a great drum solo from Matt Cameron! Rearview Mirror, probably the best version I have ever heard with an incredible jam session! Crazy Mary with Mr. Gospar JAMMIMG on that organ! Long Road of course with so much feeling from Ed. Bringing out Kelly Slater (7 time World Champion surfer) to play on Rockin in the free world was fun. Leash, Crown of Thorns, Satans Bed AWESOME! And I was so glad they played Yellow Ledbetter because I took my nephew with me and it was the one song he had never heard them play live so he was soo stoked! The crowd was great the music was great I couldn't have planned it better myself. So heres to you PJ thanks for a memorable show and I will see you at The Gorge in two weeks!

Awesome show. I cannot put into words how great the crowd was.

Someone might need to help me with this one as I don't remember it word for word, but after finishing off a good amount of wine Ed went to the microphone and said something along the lines of "You would think that after this (drinking so much) that it's the wine talking, but it's us (talking)..it's you (talking)..." He then proceeded to put the wine bottle up to the microphone for a few seconds to prove that it wasn't the wine talking. A hilarious fucking moment for sure...

Great show. Not too sure if I even want to attempt L.A. because I want to keep this memory fresh for a long, long, long time.

-Adam

awesome show in san diego. beings as how im from th east coast, i wanted to see how it was done on the west coast. aside from a little tailgaiting problem, it was excellent. the guys i rode with locked their keys in the car, so we waited like an hour and a half for tripple A. in the mean time matt camerons cousin and some of eddies friends were parked there and tlked to us on the way out. it was pretty cool.

over all, on of my best shows out of 10. good job san diego.

sounds like an amazing show, thanks for the reviews keep em coming.

How can LA follow this show? can't wait until tomorrow!!!!!!!!!