**Ed Solo Toronto1 8/12/08 Fanviews

babsmc wrote:

thanks polaris. yeah i'm in the 2nd row gallery, so i think it should be good.
but i'd love to be closer.

what about cameras? did they check bags for cameras? thinking of taking mine but don't want to be an a-hole and lose it either.

dasling wrote:

The show delivered by Eddie Vedder itself was really quite good side from some of Eddie’s foolish banter and stammering rhetoric which became just that - foolish (maybe it's a when in Rome thing sometimes). For example: the joke about the homeless disabled guy was a bit much i thought. But as touched on at the top of this, when it came to the music, it was delivered in rock solid form as always, especially considering this fairly maiden voyage set-up combined with the profile of those who somehow managed to get tickets....

The crowd, sadly, was a touch on the clownish side, very suburbanite small town hero types.. men with frosted tips, foe-hawks, heavy on the cologne, etc... with some girls to match. This was about half, and managed to flat out dwarf the other half of normal people who like music. This audience seemed to have absolutely no idea what being in Massey hall is like nor were they versed in how to act a level above old Molson park standards. In fact i had to assume they all thought they were in some kind of old dump with Massey not being brand new, nor is it where the leafs play sub-500 hockey seasons... [(sundin's a bumb (first time caller, tony from woodbridge)]. As such, these gathering of visitors to Toronto used this venue as a chance to be heard and not listen, blurting out very stupid things; so bad that that one couple of obviously gay (but haven't come to grips with it) yelled "happy birthday -insert name" and "thanks - insert name" responses to each other whenever there was just a little silence which was not often. The crowd's A.D.D also came through in spades whenever Eddie spoke for more than about 20 seconds which made anything Eddie was trying to say that much harder and awkward for him and for the 50% normal crowd which felt like 5% of the total against the "look at me" no "look at me" mentality crowd in attendance. It was like the cast of the Growing up Gotti (a reality tv show) and all their people got half the tickets for the show, leaving the other half hopeless and helpless against the waves of idiocy around them.

On a not surprising high-note, Eddie paid very appropriate respect to the hall itself and to its traditions. Again, this basically went on deaf ears aside from applauding that followed because hey, Eddie just said something i think. at one point Eddie mentioned Bruce Springsteen’s name as part of a story i was barely able to hear over the noise of people yelling, then getting yelled at for yelling by other audience members, cont'd... anyway, during said story a young man in the crowd heard the word "Springsteen" and screamed out "THE BOSS, YEAH!!!!" thereby muting out the next part for all others and it seemed no one in this crowd could resist keeping the yelling streak alive.

Again to his credit, Eddie forced the crowd of yellers and hit seekers to sit through some anti-war folk and some less catchy stuff from varied other artist as you know, which holds his integrity intact, as always delivering the message he believes in regardless of who and where. It's about the music but sometimes it gets pretty hard to suffer through that level of BS to get to it in a live setting. Maybe it's just me - seriously.

God bless the man.

10 PJ shows
1 Eddie at Massey

mjb wrote:

I saw that dude...on the aisle, big guy, green shirt? He was screaming his lungs out before Ed came out? Looked like he was gonna jump? I had a similar dude beside me in LA - he was saying how Ed was his jesus and stuff and it was the most incredible night of his life - he told me how he spent all kinds of money he didn't have to be there but his wife told him if it meant that much to him he should go...buddy then proceeded to miss 3/4 of the show at the bar. Security had to escort him back to his seat he was so drunk (as opposed to putting the dude in a cab, what they should have done). He then started to sob uncontrollably. Good times. I was actually fearful for our safety. $500 in the upper balcony at the Wiltern well spent, eh?