Rating the Shows You've Attended

PrlJam27 wrote:

Come on, we got Alone, I've Got a Feeling, The Seeker, American in Me, Bleed for Me, Masters of War, Lion's Share, The New World, and Howard Zinn was there!!!!


Now that I think of it, I should have rated them epic rather than special.

I dunno, maybe I should upgrade them to average, but they were so rusty still. I don't think they really clicked until Reading on that tour.

Smarter_Than_U wrote:

Word up! Plus I was annoyed by the "Yankees suck" chants--I mean it it's a rock concert. I lost a lot of respect for Red Sox fans at those shows.

Crazy ass Boston hulligans!!!! Its not a baseball game, let along a sporting event.

Only 3 shows to rank for me:

Charlotte 2000 - Good. Had some good crowd interaction with Better Man (although they fucked up the beginning) and Black. Ending was amazing with I Got Shit, Last Kiss, Porch, and Yellow Ledbetter (the last two with Mike just completely jamming out).

Charlotte 2003 - Average. I may put the 2000 show over this one since that was my first, but from hearing other boots from the 2003 tour, this show just kind of blended in with the rest. In Hiding, Alive, and Sonic Reducer were the highlights to me, but this one just didn't match the intensity of the 2000 show.

Columbia 2008 - Special. Great setlist, awesome energy from the band and crowd. Just a great overall performance. To me, Alive was the highlight amongst a lot of other great songs.

Dublin 06 -Special
Berlin 06 - Good
Dusseldorf 07 - Special
Hurricane 07 - Good
Copenhagen 07 - Epic
Werchter 07 - Average

I think there are an awful lot of people rating shows as "Epic". I think you cannot compare them to other bands, because every show would then be Epic or Special, but only among other "Pearl Jam" shows. For example, for me, "EPIC" would define something that truly stood out, even among PJ shows. Some examples would be Mansfield 3 in 2003 (The Experiment), State College in 2003 (longest PJ show ever), Benaroya Hall 2003 (incredible acoustics), Gorge 2005 (acoustic set before main show), and any setting where you are lucky enough to see PJ in an intimate setting (The Vic, Easy Street Records, Mt. Baker Theater, the Showbox, Crocodile Cafe, ARO Space) especially the tour warm-up shows where they first play live all the songs for their new album. Based on that criteria, I have not been to any EPIC shows.

9/16/95 Austin - Special. opening acts Radiohead and the Ramones. My first show. 30 songs. Simply rocked! General admission with massive mosh pit.

7/22/98 Seattle - Good. Memorial Stadium. Pearl Jam playing in their hometown. The teeny-bop group "Hansen" was playing in Key Arena behind them. When the 1100 curfew came, Eddie said "well, it's curfew time, but I see that Hansen is still playing at the Key Arena, so we're going to keep playing." Could have been "special", but not quite. They were billed as having a "special guest", and rumors were flying that Chris Cornell was backstage and going to join them onstage for a few songs, but it never materialized.

5/30/2006 - Washington, DC - Good. After serving overseas for the seven years, it was great to be back in the USA and able to see Pearl Jam again, especially all the new songs from Avacado.

6/22/2008 - Washington, DC - Special. 31 songs. Crowd was amazing! Main setlist was good, but encores made it Special. 90 minute encore! I was expecting a 4 song first encore followed by a 3 song second encore, but instead got 7 and 6 songs in the encores. Played multiple songs even after houselights came on. Versions of Black and RVM were amazing.

On a sidebar, I just missed an "EPIC" back in October, 1998. I was living in Seattle at the time, and was actually at the Crocodile Cafe during the day on October 10th. For those of you who don't know, the Croc is TINY. I could have still gotten tickets to Cheap Trick that night, but my wife had a headache, so we went home instead. Little did we know that Pearl Jam made a surprise appearance opening for Cheap Trick that night at the Croc. They played 10 songs, and it would have been EPIC. Ahhh, the one that got away.

Vancouver Lollapalooza 92 - crap
Vancouver with Uncle Neil in 93 -total crap
Vancouver 98 -complete shite
Seattle 02 -garbage
Vanouver 03 - so lame
Gorge 06 x2 - Boring and a bit cold

One day I will get to see one of those epic east coast shows

cuyler41 wrote:

Vancouver Lollapalooza 92 - crap
Vancouver with Uncle Neil in 93 -total crap
Vancouver 98 -complete shite
Seattle 02 -garbage
Vanouver 03 - so lame
Gorge 06 x2 - Boring and a bit cold

One day I will get to see one of those epic east coast shows

Hey-- you left coast folks had that one show in Seattle in 2000 that was apparently pretty good -- be happy with that suckers!

smithnic wrote:

And you're a fan?? Why do you go? I've never in 22 shows seen a bad show. Why was it complete shit?

it's a joke

thunderDAN wrote:

it's a joke

what he said, I was just kidding, for me all PJ shows are epic!

merlin401 wrote:

Curious to see how people would rate the shows they've personally attended on the following scale. Try not to be biased!

The scale is this:
EPIC - Shows that are remembered forever even by the people who didn't go to them (think Randalls Island, etc) (maybe 1% of shows)
SPECIAL - The rare unusually amazing/rare/unique shows from each tour (maybe 5-10% of shows)
GOOD - The above average shows, (probably I'd say 35% of shows)
AVERAGE - Good, but overall its going to be a show that blends in with a lot of other shows on the tour (another 35% or so)
SUBPAR - Still great but for a Pearl Jam show nothing that was particularly inspiring (bottom 20% of shows)


Obviously this works best for people like me who haven't seen 50 billion shows. But whoever wants to play along, I'd love to see how people rate the shows they've been to as honestly as possible.
[/B]

9/22/96-Toledo-SPECIAL (for me anyhow, 1st show...probably more of a Good)
8/17/98-Indy-GOOD (better than average due to the Clinton video)
9/6/98-Knoxville-GOOD (better than average due to Hard to Imagine)
8/18/00-Indy-AVERAGE
8/20/00-Cincinnati-GOOD
8/21/00-Columbus-GOOD
10/07/00-Detroit-GOOD
4/21/03-Lexington-AVERAGE
4/25/03-Cleveland-GOOD (Sonic Reducer)
6/22/03-Indy-SPECIAL (great Gimme some truth...and Yellow Led, underrated show)
6/24/03-Columbus-GOOD (improv and Footsteps make it better than average)
10/2/04-Toledo-SPECIAL (Neil Young...Peter Frampton...)
9/11/05-Kitchener-AVERAGE
12/9/05-Mexico City-GOOD (Special for me though...met Mike & Jeff)
12/10/05-Mexico City-GOOD
5/20/06-Cleveland-GOOD (Got to hear Stone sing again)
5/22/06-Detroit-SPECIAL (Encore #2 kicked some serious @$$!)
6/23/06-Pittsburgh-GOOD
6/24/06-Cincy-SPECIAL (People liek to cut this show down, but the atmosphere was awesome and you could tell Ed was into it..special evening in my book)
8/5/07-Chicago(Lolla)-GOOD (saved from average by Education & Dennis Rodman)
6/14/08-Manchester(Bonnaroo)-EPIC (finally got to see 1 of these!!)