**Irving Review - Two hour Work Product**

worldwide suicide, life wasted, severed hand, marker, come back, garden, evenflow, insignificance, given to fly, army reserve, gone, why go, present tense, do the evolution, improv about NYC, comatose

man of the hour, elderly woman, state of love and trust, porch

alive, yellow ledbetter

Playing for a little under 2 hours (9:15 - 11:05), Pearl Jam condensed their stadium filling energy into a venue 1/2 the size of your high school gym. While the show was shorter than what we've become accoustomed to, it was smartly balanced, crisp, and trimphuantly intense. The set list itself was very well chosen, in my view - a blend primarily consisting of rejuvinated ten era songs with standouts from the new album, and a representative from each album in between, save Riot Act.

Five straight songs off the new album initially, and it was great to see the crowd so into them. WWS and Life Wasted rocked, and embraced by fans last night, Marker and Come Back were highlights, played with solid effort and emotion on the bands part, which was reciprocated by the audience.

Garden served as the transition into their vintage material, but sounded like a new song - unrecognizable at the outset with its new intro, building to a rolling singalong chorus that filled the entire building -

I will walk...with my hands bound
I will walk...with my face blood
I will walk...with my shadow flag
Into your Garden, Garden of Stone

Even Flow was again played with a reckless abandon that makes you feel like the band is back with a renewed purpose. Insignificace had my wife, a high school teacher more appreciative of the lighter PJ songs than the hard rockers, bouncing around in front of me. It served as a nice intro to sequence that I'd call the sweet spot of the night, batting leadoff and closed out by my two alternating personal anthems.

Given to Fly sounded more like the Yield studio cut, reaching that zenith with tightness that has been missing in recent tours. They had the the floor shaking (literally, like that place in Portland I always forget the name of) - the audience bounced around in unison, fists victouriously raised in the air, promising to perservere - "and he still gives his love...he just gives it away" with white lights honed on the selfless mass, a reflection of the said soul that has been given to fly. The reworked Gone (much better than either AC or the album version, and the single song I walked away being more into), blended seamlessly into this sweet spot, preceeded by Army Reserve on the front end, and Why Go on the back, which was tremendous to hear again live, probably one of the most overlooked songs in their catalog. The lone No Code representative Present Tense closed out the sweet spot, and was a gift very much appreciated by the crowd, which culminated by pushing us into the present tense with its consolidating jam at the end.

No time was wasted as a potential "now what do we do?" lull was forstalled by a rocking DTE (with flying Stone solo), followed up by a improv that I remember as describing a walk around New York City - Ed was showing his love for the best city in the world with this one. Comatose was next, and shined with energy that rivaled last exit live, much better than recent album rockers 'breakherfall', 'gods' dice' or 'save you' (all of which could be shelved). They ended the first set leaving you ravagedly hungry for more.

Coming back for the first encore, Man of the Hour, the lone output of the band inbetween Riot Act and Pearl Jam (much like in my mind the "Merkinball" duo which sandwhiched Vitalogy and No Code), was a crowd pleaser, introduced by Ed as a song about a man who belonged in NYC (or something to that effect). Elderly Woman, very possibly had every single person in that half gymnasium screaming at the top of thier lungs. Very high note "Helloooo -my god its been so long, never dreamed you'd re-turn..." My only regret being that the crew failed to shine the lights on the crowd at this point.

Then Eddie asked the crowd, "so this being a democracy, we're going to have a little vote - would you rather hear a campfire version of betterman" (kind of pitched like he didn't want to play it) " or State of Love and Trust". SOLAT won in a landslide. After which they rolled right into an extended intro to Porch, tight jam in the middle, pulling everything back at the end with Eddie in the crowd, proped up by fans in the front, singing the "yeah, hey, hey, hey, yeah, hey hey" vocals towards the end. It was awesome.

After a brief break (not a soul in the place leaving), they came back and rocked an Alive...full with the crowd singing the "hey....hey.....hey" during Mike's solo at the end of the song. The crowd started chanting "thank you" - not the small type of chant, a whole building chant. Ed responed by introducing the final song as apporpriately titled "you're welcome"...and Mike proceeded to drop the opening notes of Yellow Ledbetter. Great hand clapping towards the end.

Again, the set was shorter...but better in my view. I was at the garden shows last tour (great wishlist tag), jones beach (daughter tag). This show was definately the best I have ever seen. Maybe they could have played wishlist with the tag, a betterman, and/or in my tree. But all in all, an incredible effort.