1. Hail, Hail 2. Education 3. W.M.A. 4. Grievance 5. Dance of the Clairvoyants 6. Corduroy 7. Never Destination 8. Swallowed Whole 9. Unemployable 10. Immortality 11. Wishlist 12. Even Flow 13. Got to Give 14. Rats ------------ 15. Sleeping by Myself 16. Low Light 17. Of the Girl 18. Won't Tell 19. Nothingman 20. Thumbing My Way 21. Off He Goes ------------ 22. Can't Keep 23. Johnny Guitar 24. Mankind 25. Let the Records Play 26. Force of Nature 27. Come Back 28. Black 29. Yellow Ledbetter
Athens 2006 / Milton Keynes 2014 / London 1&2 2022 / Seattle 1&2 2024 / Dublin 2024 / Manchester 2024 / New Orleans 2025
Cowboy Mouth is so good. Pumped they are playing weekend 2. If your going to Jazzfest to see PJ, do yourself a favor and make sure you catch the CM set
I don't know if you've noticed but, and even if you haven't, but the papers tell ya how I've taken to carrying a bottle around wherever I go.
And, I really take two, I take this one (wine bottle) and I take that one (water bottle) and maybe I'll take a drink of this one, and maybe I'll take a drink of that one.
Maybe I'll be sober.
Maybe I'll be fucked up.
So lets just take me out of this for a second.
What would you rather see me take a drink of?
This one? (water, cheers, lots of boo's some "NO'S")
Or this one? (wine, the crowd goes apeshit...)
Cheers..."
- Eddie Vedder to the UNO Lakefront Arena crowd on Night 2 11/17/1993 before "Even Flow"
If you thought Night 1 of the 3 night run was over the top, Night 2 took it to a completely different level.
It was as if the band went back to the studio that night and came back to the Lakefront Arena on November 17th a completely different being.
It was night and day. Ying and yang. Bi-polar even.
By Night 2, Eddie had dropped the "Mitch Hedberg meets Kurt Vonnegut" standup act between songs. In fact, he himself didn't seem to be all that present this night, as if the strenuous life he had built around him was finally catching up. The anger had become all encompassing. If Night 1 hadn't made it abundantly clear already, Eddie Vedder was a lit fuse waiting to pop.
According to some users on Youtube who went to this particular show, the whole building was completely GA, so who knows how many people were actually on the floor..
Thanks to the taper and bootleg community, we have video of N2 with multiple different camera angels and audio from different taper sources.
N2 started off slow, the same as the previous night's Release, with Oceans. This is fitting in NOLA history at this point, as this had been the 2nd time in 5 shows that Oceans opened a show, the first being the aforementioned Tipitina's show that had happened in Spring 1992.
Eddie then mumbles "alright, here we go..." followed by some inaudible mumbling. The band launches into "Why Go", the first repeat song of the 3 night run. Eddie then does his signature "hey, hey, hey" in the Why Go intro. Eddie says "hey" 52 times (i counted lol) while standing stoic behind the mic. The band isn't even sure when to come in as Eddie just angrily keeps the intro going.
As "Why Go" ends, Eddie says "We ain't going fucking nowhere.."
They then go into another 12-string bass song, "Jeremy," the second repeat song of the run. During the "how could I forget" lyric, Eddie changes it to "how am I supposed to forget?" confusing himself and causing him to immediately scream "DADDY DIDN'T GIVE AFFECTION" in a jumbled mess that clearly shows he was impaired already. He eventually found his way back to the correct lyrics. The outro of this version of Jeremy is actually sublime and shows how unified the band were through music, even though they were all going through something personally. Stone and Mike let their guitars ring out, while Dave builds up the drums through Eddies powerful voice. If you watch one song from this night, it should be this one.
With nothing to say, and while he seems to be messing with his jacket or hand, the band launches into State of Love and Trust, another repeat offender. Eddie comes to life, and when they reach the "and the barrel shakes...." part of the song, Eddie makes a finger gun again, points it at the crowd, then proceeds to put it in his mouth during the "trigger shakes, aimed right at my head" part and the proceeds to scream "HELP ME FROM MYSELF." When Mike goes into the solo, Eddie smugly turns around and heads towards his wine and takes a swig. He returns to the mic just before the scream and sprays wine all over the first few rows of fans, covering his eyes while doing it.
SoLAT is over, and Eddie is now hunched over and kicking at something. Stone comes over to see whats up. Eddie then tells Stone to give him a second and he proceeds to give the quote that opens this post to the crowd.
The band rips into an electric Even Flow and Eddie starts to come alive after being stoic for most of the night so far.
After "Even Flow," Eddie again raises the wine and water bottle to cheers from the crowd for the wine. Without saying anything, the band goes into Glorified G.
Nothing is said between Glorified G and Daughter either. Eddie actually keeps his hand in his pocket, or tied up in his shirt throughout most of the song. Eddie tags "Release" onto the end of Daughter, which i'm not sure has ever been done before. It's actually a really cool mashup. He ends the song with inaudible mumbling, but what can be made out is "get out of my life. You fucking cunt" which he continues to repeat until the band fades out.
The band jumps into "Go" with no comments from Ed. "Animal" is played with still no comments from ed. Two of the more aggressive tracks from Vs. that basically speak for themselves.
Footsteps is played for the first time on the run, but was common during this era of Vs. touring. On this night Ed says it's a "request" and something along the lines of "if you feel it(?)" and then mumbles something else before continuing to remain incredibly still and holding his arms around his chest for the duration of the performance.
The band goes into Alive with again no comments from Ed who hangs his head really low between songs.. At this point I can only imagine this man is drunk and tired. Ed does the "is something wrong she said?" without any added aggression on this night. Ed turns the fire on for the last "I'M STILL ALIVE" and might even be a confirmation for him in that exact moment as he spends the next 20 seconds head banging with Jeff while Mike does the outro solo.
The band then solemnly goes into "Garden." Mike adds a little flair on the guitar to end the song.
Next up, Eddie calmly says "take a bottle, drink it down. Pass it around." Probably jumping the gun for what was to come later in the set.
Eddie then gives us the best, most inspirational quote of the night before blasting into an exciting "Porch":
"Hate your parents. Hate your friends. Living here is the best revenge."
At one point during the solo, Ed walks over to stage right on Mikes side and starts playing with the mic cord, waving it back and forth as if he's fanning the flames of the band.
During the outro, Ed improvs what can only be taken as a warning for what would happen later in the night: "trust me... don't toss me around... trust me... it's not a good time right now.... FUCK with me? I'll fuck with you (???).... Believe me.... I'M TELLING YOU FIRST!"
The band ends the first "set" with Eddie wrapping the mic cable around his neck, acting as if he hung himself. A common theme throughout this 3 night run.
The band eventually makes their way back to the stage. Ed recognizes a fan in the crowd and tells someone else to "get that guy a beer. he was here last night..."
They then go into "Rats", the first time this song was unleashed on New Orleans. Eddie stay in the "Ben" by Michael Jackson tag for a good second during the outro. Mike trys to rip a massive solo and throws the band off at the end. He wanted to keep going.
Eddie then sings a few lines of the verses of Ben by MJ.
To end this tag, Ed says "Fuck that."
The band launches into "Blood" and Ed goes all out. The band ends the song with Eddie spinning around in circles, and then proceeds to spit all over the front row.
Eddie finally decides to go vocal by picking up the same bottle of wine previously mentioned.
"Jeff and I have decided that this is the best bottle of wine we've had this tour. So, uh, that means we're gunna stick around and play for a little bit longer."
Some crew members bring out a Hammond B3 organ, to which Ed turns around and says "Whats this?!" He then walks over in a drunken stupor to take a gander at it.
"You know what this means? This must mean our friend Brendan O' Brian is in town.. and he's gunna play, uh, this is called a B3 Organ, hes gunna play uh.... So who was here last night? Anybody? I recognize you, i saw you, oh you weren't here last night. Whos coming tomorrow? If you need tickets I got some extra."
The whole band gets behind the organ to help Brendan get settled. Ed even wraps him in a shawl while drunkinly hugging on him.
Something happens with the organ and Eddie says "The Machine is not working...."
"People always want advice for young bands... don't ever have a keyboard player...." I wonder what Boom and Josh think of this?
Mike then grabs the mic and says "Yeah... but how bout that Cape though? It's killer...."
Victoria Williams eventually enters the stage after the technical difficulties. Blackie Onnases (RIP), drummer for Urge Overkill, also joins Dave on drums for this one.
"we've only played this song one other time... Victoria wrote this song and its called Crazy Mary"
The band then goes into Crazy Mary with some very special guests for only the second time in their history. The 1st was about 3 weeks before this in Portland. Eddie and Victoria share verses with Eddie taking the first and Victoria taking the second.
The band goes into Indifference, still with BoB on Organ, possibly the first time this might have been done.
Eddie tells the crowd to "take care."
But the band comes out for a second encore, unloading "Leash" on the crowd. "Alright, one more. Let's do this. Are y'all ready?"
It would be after this show that Eddie and reining American League Cy Young award winning pitcher "Black" Jack McDowell would visit Bourbon street and get themselves into quite the mess.
Eddie was arrested at 4:25am on misdemeanor charges of public drunkenness and disturbing the peace after getting into a fight with one Jack Goreman. This is REALLY hard to do on Bourbon street, haha.
According to Jack McDowell while being interviewed on the "Live on 4 Legs Podcast", "We went into this place... I was sitting off to the side, and then all of a sudden this guy is in Ed's face, getting all over him and he walked away, but this guy kept following him around and yelling at him and getting in his face... and we just kept walking away from the dude."
Jack goes into more detail from what he remembers of the night:
"I don't even know what the anger issues were, and why the guy was all over him yelling at him and stuff. After 20 minutes of this going on, we're like lets get out of here. We walk out of the place and the guy that was all over Ed comes out after him and starts to swing to try and hit him in the face. I got up to him and got him in the face good, But then a dude who worked at the place came up and smoked me in the back of the head and I fell into this car. We didn't even know what was going on, it was super weird stuff. The dude that hit me ended up getting arrested down the road. He tried to sue Eddie for what happened. He went to court and they immediately arrested him because he had done some other crime and hadn't shown up to court for it."
Ed would spend the night in Jail and make national headlines, only furthering his aura of the "drunken grunge guy."
Pearl Jam would take the next night off from performing, only to take the stage yet again in New Orleans on the 19th.
Pearl Jam would cement their reputation in the city of New Orleans with this one event that is still talked about to this day, even by Ed himself who would reference it multiple times at shows in NOLA after the fact.
SandyRavage said: Victoria Williams eventually enters the stage after the technical difficulties. Blackie Onnases (RIP), drummer for Urge Overkill, also joins Dave on drums for this one.
"we've only played this song one other time... Victoria wrote this song and its called Crazy Mary"
The band then goes into Crazy Mary with some very special guests for only the second time in their history. The 1st was about 3 weeks before this in Portland. Eddie and Victoria share verses with Eddie taking the first and Victoria taking the second.
How awesome would that be?! To reunite on stage with Victoria after all these years Thank you for sharing all those great stories!
Post edited by Pap on
Athens 2006 / Milton Keynes 2014 / London 1&2 2022 / Seattle 1&2 2024 / Dublin 2024 / Manchester 2024 / New Orleans 2025
"Aye, before we go, will you guys do me something?
I'm asking a lot, I know. But you know what? I wanna show... What I want you to do, I want you to spit on me. Just spit on my face.
I wanna show you how a man takes a good spit right in the face.
Come on! This is how you take it! Come on, MORE! SPIT!
A real man can take spit in the face....
....And good guys where black."
- Eddie Vedder to the UNO Lakefront Arena crowd before "Porch" the night after he was arrested 11/19/1993.
"Hey. Quit it! I've been hit with enough shit this week!
We actually thought, for about 5 minutes we actually thought about cancelling this show, just like fuck, 'fuck that guy, fuck these people.'
But, uh, we knew he wasn't a representative of you. So, uh, alright let's do it.
- Eddie to the UNO Lakefront crowd before the encore
November 19th brought an added edge to an already explosive 3 night run in NOLA.
The band had spent the day off on the 18th, probably writing and recording more parts of Vitalogy. But come the night of the 19th, I think Ed and the band were ready to put on an amazing show, and then get as far away from New Orleans as they could.
The previously mentioned Jack McDowell attended this show as well and recalls the interesting way in which the band decided to make their first public appearance since Eddies arrest, a little under 18 hours before.
Speaking to LiveOn4Legs podcast, Mcdowell said:
"When he (Ed) came out, everyone kinda knew already that he had been arrested and he might not be able to make the show and all this, and they put him on a lay down thing and rolled him out like he was dead or something. I was like 'oh that's crazy' and then he got up and started singing..."
Eddie would later dedicate a song to Jack during the show.
While unfortunately there isn't video of this show, (or maybe there is and we just haven't found it yet...) there is a fan recorded audio bootleg to accompany the other 2 nights of this show.
The band walks out to massive rounds of applause. I can only assume from the way they rolled Eddie out. Eddie casually and in a very drunken accent says "Lets do this..."
The band breaks into a FAST and ANGRY rendition of "Go," going extremely left of the previous 2 nights openers of "Release" and "Oceans." You can only imagine the energy in the room at that moment. Dave sounds like he's going to smash though his drum kit.
Eddie mumbles something really quickly, but it's inaudible to me. He sounds like he asks someone to get the light off, but i'm not certain. It sounds like "get that light off me...."
The band goes into "Animal" with Eddie truly almost blowing his voice out during the "WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO HURT ME?" part. The first of many subtle references of the previous night.
The band goes into "Once" with Eddie giving a pretty feral scream during the intro that isn't present on the recorded version. 3 very angsty tracks back to back to back. The breakdown gets am amazing jammy section after the solo that I honestly have never heard PJ recreate. It almost sounds Alice in Chains-y or even like a metal band breakdown. Eddie takes this moment to start singing "W.M.A." No-doubt in reference to what had happened the previous night. "W.M.A." up until this point had only been tagged onto "Daughter" or "Porch" or played as a full song, but never on "Once." The band finds their way back into "Once" and end it with Eddie yet again almost blowing his voice out.
Eddie introduces the next song: "This song is called Dissident" and the band launches into the song with no further comments from Ed.
Next comes "Jeremy." Eddie's last "OHHHHH" towards the end of the song is MASSIVE.
The band then cuts into "Deep" which was common at the time as they both use 12-string bass. Ed's vocal performance on this one is yet again stellar as he goes all out. "Deep" fades out with an interesting cacophony as one of the guitars almost sounds like its a bird.
By this point in the setlist, all songs are coming one after the other with absolutely zero talking or mention of what had happened the previous night. Eddie breaks that silence with yet another quotable phrase, this time one that might be giving insight into the "love" that he has for performing:
"anybody thinks that love is easy? Fuck you. You're wrong. Anybody thinks that love is worth it? Congratulations, you're right. this is 'State of Love & Trust.'"
SoLAT is played and boy is it a barn-burner.
Eddie takes a second after SoLAT then sings the first few lines of the final verse of "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" by Billy Joel:
"A bottle of Red, a bottle of White, whatever kind of mood you're in tonight"
The band then rip into "Glorified G." Another stellar performance from Ed.
Daughter is played next, and on this night receives an "Across The Universe" tag from the Beatles, but not before a little interesting vocalizing from Eddie. On this night, Eddie even adds the "Jah Guru Deva Om" prayer from the song at the beginning, but on his last "nothing's gonna change my world," he decides to give a list of the things that aren't going to change him:
"Not my boss. Not my mom. Not my friends. Not my enemies. Not my lord. Not my self. Not my anything.
Nothings gonna change my world.
Nothing."
Ed then sings some inaudible lines of a song, which brings the band into "Even Flow." The middle section of the song is very interesting and different.
Ed then gets a little more vocal about the night before while introducing the song "Rats."
"This song, this next one, it's a good song for New Orleans I think. It's called 'Rats.' I know you got 'em here! I even met a couple...."
"Rats" gets screamy at the end as it usually did around this time.
Before "Blood" Ed says: "this song is dedicated to me..."
Mike continues playing at the end, almost like he doesn't want the song to end.
Ed finally decides to wax poetically from the front of the stage:
"So, uh. We appreciate you letting us hang out in New Orleans for awhile. Nice place. Nice place. About 99% of you have all been really, really cool. I don't usually do this, but this is the first shows we've played with this band, Urge Overkill, we wanna give them a big hand will ya? From Chicago! And uh, from this show, from whenever, whenever we play New Orleans, this song is gonna be for my friend Jack.."
The band then jumps into "Alive."
Ed belts out a massive "YEAH!" to start the song. He also brings back the aggression he had on Night 1:
"Is something wrong she said?
Of course there is you fucking CUCK!"
A curse word i've never heard Ed use before! The band lets their instruments ring out and leave the stage.
They return to a raucous crowd as they break into "Why Go." Eddie is more reserve this night, only doing the signature "Hey" in the intro 37 times instead of the previous nights 52.
To introduce the next song, Eddie gives the classic "drop the leash, drop the leash, get outta my fuckin' face" and then proceeds to unleash one of the most INSANE screams i've ever heard from him.
"Leash" ends and Ed asks Keith to turn the lights down, and to potentially bring him something? Eddie says "this is for you guys." then proceeds to play "Black." This would be the first and only time on this 3 night run that "Black" would be played, and NOLA's first "Black" since the Tipitina's show in Spring of 1992, or a 3 "NOLA show" gap. "We belong together...." helps PJ fade out of "Black."
"Rearviewmirror" is played next. Eddie changes some of the lyrics in the second verse, but it's hard to make out what he actually says.
After RVM on this night, Eddie again references Victoria Williams: "take a bottle, drink it down. Pass it around."
He then gives the quote that introduces this post, before ripping into a MASSIVE "Porch" and if you were to listen to one song from this night, I think it should be this one, just given the pure intensity level by the band. The solo mike gives is absolutely insane. The band keeps building and building and it sounds like they're never gonna come down, while Ed just screams his ass off. Porch gets a "Tearing" tag, no doubt again referencing the night before. Ed also adds another tag of a song i'm not familiar with:
"How could you. How could I care. How could I fight for you, when you don't care? How could I love you, when you don't care? How could I fight for you, when you don't care?"
Eddie ends the song screaming his lungs out yet again while the band becomes one big noise. The band walks off the stage again as Mikes guitar feeds back.
The band eventually returns to the stage, but theres a tape cut in the bootleg when Ed addresses the crowd, so it's hard to tell what he said.
What can be made out is the second quote that introduces this post.
The band rip into "Baba O' Riley" by the Who for the 3rd time in NOLA history.
The band leave the stage, and eventually come back for yet another audible of "Indifference." A complete difference in setlists from the previous nights as the show started crazy and ended rather calm.
"You guys take care of yourselves. See you around."
Over the 3 nights, all songs from Vs. and Ten were played in some capacity, except "Elderly Women."
Pearl Jam would not return to New Orleans for almost 2 years, and when they finally did, they would be at odd's with corporate titan Ticketmaster. They would also remember the studio Daniel Lanois rented to them, as they were in the writing phase of "No Code" by that point...
Comments
1. Hail, Hail
2. Education
3. W.M.A.
4. Grievance
5. Dance of the Clairvoyants
6. Corduroy
7. Never Destination
8. Swallowed Whole
9. Unemployable
10. Immortality
11. Wishlist
12. Even Flow
13. Got to Give
14. Rats
------------
15. Sleeping by Myself
16. Low Light
17. Of the Girl
18. Won't Tell
19. Nothingman
20. Thumbing My Way
21. Off He Goes
------------
22. Can't Keep
23. Johnny Guitar
24. Mankind
25. Let the Records Play
26. Force of Nature
27. Come Back
28. Black
29. Yellow Ledbetter
Shaindli1 said: @SandyRavage I'm still waiting for the rest of the history lesson!
"I don't know... shushhhhh shusshhhhhhh
I don't know if you've noticed but, and even if you haven't, but the papers tell ya how I've taken to carrying a bottle around wherever I go.
And, I really take two, I take this one (wine bottle) and I take that one (water bottle) and maybe I'll take a drink of this one, and maybe I'll take a drink of that one.
Maybe I'll be sober.
Maybe I'll be fucked up.
So lets just take me out of this for a second.
What would you rather see me take a drink of?
This one? (water, cheers, lots of boo's some "NO'S")
Or this one? (wine, the crowd goes apeshit...)
Cheers..."
- Eddie Vedder to the UNO Lakefront Arena crowd on Night 2 11/17/1993 before "Even Flow"If you thought Night 1 of the 3 night run was over the top, Night 2 took it to a completely different level.
It was as if the band went back to the studio that night and came back to the Lakefront Arena on November 17th a completely different being.
It was night and day.
Ying and yang.
Bi-polar even.
By Night 2, Eddie had dropped the "Mitch Hedberg meets Kurt Vonnegut" standup act between songs. In fact, he himself didn't seem to be all that present this night, as if the strenuous life he had built around him was finally catching up. The anger had become all encompassing. If Night 1 hadn't made it abundantly clear already, Eddie Vedder was a lit fuse waiting to pop.
According to some users on Youtube who went to this particular show, the whole building was completely GA, so who knows how many people were actually on the floor..
Thanks to the taper and bootleg community, we have video of N2 with multiple different camera angels and audio from different taper sources.
N2 started off slow, the same as the previous night's Release, with Oceans. This is fitting in NOLA history at this point, as this had been the 2nd time in 5 shows that Oceans opened a show, the first being the aforementioned Tipitina's show that had happened in Spring 1992.
Eddie then mumbles "alright, here we go..." followed by some inaudible mumbling. The band launches into "Why Go", the first repeat song of the 3 night run. Eddie then does his signature "hey, hey, hey" in the Why Go intro. Eddie says "hey" 52 times (i counted lol) while standing stoic behind the mic. The band isn't even sure when to come in as Eddie just angrily keeps the intro going.
As "Why Go" ends, Eddie says "We ain't going fucking nowhere.."
They then go into another 12-string bass song, "Jeremy," the second repeat song of the run. During the "how could I forget" lyric, Eddie changes it to "how am I supposed to forget?" confusing himself and causing him to immediately scream "DADDY DIDN'T GIVE AFFECTION" in a jumbled mess that clearly shows he was impaired already. He eventually found his way back to the correct lyrics. The outro of this version of Jeremy is actually sublime and shows how unified the band were through music, even though they were all going through something personally. Stone and Mike let their guitars ring out, while Dave builds up the drums through Eddies powerful voice. If you watch one song from this night, it should be this one.
With nothing to say, and while he seems to be messing with his jacket or hand, the band launches into State of Love and Trust, another repeat offender. Eddie comes to life, and when they reach the "and the barrel shakes...." part of the song, Eddie makes a finger gun again, points it at the crowd, then proceeds to put it in his mouth during the "trigger shakes, aimed right at my head" part and the proceeds to scream "HELP ME FROM MYSELF." When Mike goes into the solo, Eddie smugly turns around and heads towards his wine and takes a swig. He returns to the mic just before the scream and sprays wine all over the first few rows of fans, covering his eyes while doing it.
SoLAT is over, and Eddie is now hunched over and kicking at something. Stone comes over to see whats up. Eddie then tells Stone to give him a second and he proceeds to give the quote that opens this post to the crowd.
The band rips into an electric Even Flow and Eddie starts to come alive after being stoic for most of the night so far.
After "Even Flow," Eddie again raises the wine and water bottle to cheers from the crowd for the wine. Without saying anything, the band goes into Glorified G.
Nothing is said between Glorified G and Daughter either. Eddie actually keeps his hand in his pocket, or tied up in his shirt throughout most of the song. Eddie tags "Release" onto the end of Daughter, which i'm not sure has ever been done before. It's actually a really cool mashup. He ends the song with inaudible mumbling, but what can be made out is "get out of my life. You fucking cunt" which he continues to repeat until the band fades out.
The band jumps into "Go" with no comments from Ed. "Animal" is played with still no comments from ed. Two of the more aggressive tracks from Vs. that basically speak for themselves.
Footsteps is played for the first time on the run, but was common during this era of Vs. touring. On this night Ed says it's a "request" and something along the lines of "if you feel it(?)" and then mumbles something else before continuing to remain incredibly still and holding his arms around his chest for the duration of the performance.
The band goes into Alive with again no comments from Ed who hangs his head really low between songs.. At this point I can only imagine this man is drunk and tired. Ed does the "is something wrong she said?" without any added aggression on this night. Ed turns the fire on for the last "I'M STILL ALIVE" and might even be a confirmation for him in that exact moment as he spends the next 20 seconds head banging with Jeff while Mike does the outro solo.
The band then solemnly goes into "Garden." Mike adds a little flair on the guitar to end the song.
Next up, Eddie calmly says "take a bottle, drink it down. Pass it around." Probably jumping the gun for what was to come later in the set.
Eddie then gives us the best, most inspirational quote of the night before blasting into an exciting "Porch":
"Hate your parents. Hate your friends. Living here is the best revenge."
At one point during the solo, Ed walks over to stage right on Mikes side and starts playing with the mic cord, waving it back and forth as if he's fanning the flames of the band.
During the outro, Ed improvs what can only be taken as a warning for what would happen later in the night: "trust me... don't toss me around... trust me... it's not a good time right now.... FUCK with me? I'll fuck with you (???).... Believe me.... I'M TELLING YOU FIRST!"
The band ends the first "set" with Eddie wrapping the mic cable around his neck, acting as if he hung himself. A common theme throughout this 3 night run.
The band eventually makes their way back to the stage. Ed recognizes a fan in the crowd and tells someone else to "get that guy a beer. he was here last night..."
They then go into "Rats", the first time this song was unleashed on New Orleans. Eddie stay in the "Ben" by Michael Jackson tag for a good second during the outro. Mike trys to rip a massive solo and throws the band off at the end. He wanted to keep going.
Eddie then sings a few lines of the verses of Ben by MJ.
To end this tag, Ed says "Fuck that."
The band launches into "Blood" and Ed goes all out. The band ends the song with Eddie spinning around in circles, and then proceeds to spit all over the front row.
Eddie finally decides to go vocal by picking up the same bottle of wine previously mentioned.
"Jeff and I have decided that this is the best bottle of wine we've had this tour. So, uh, that means we're gunna stick around and play for a little bit longer."
Some crew members bring out a Hammond B3 organ, to which Ed turns around and says "Whats this?!" He then walks over in a drunken stupor to take a gander at it.
"You know what this means? This must mean our friend Brendan O' Brian is in town.. and he's gunna play, uh, this is called a B3 Organ, hes gunna play uh.... So who was here last night? Anybody? I recognize you, i saw you, oh you weren't here last night. Whos coming tomorrow? If you need tickets I got some extra."
The whole band gets behind the organ to help Brendan get settled. Ed even wraps him in a shawl while drunkinly hugging on him.
Something happens with the organ and Eddie says "The Machine is not working...."
"People always want advice for young bands... don't ever have a keyboard player...." I wonder what Boom and Josh think of this?
Mike then grabs the mic and says "Yeah... but how bout that Cape though? It's killer...."
Victoria Williams eventually enters the stage after the technical difficulties. Blackie Onnases (RIP), drummer for Urge Overkill, also joins Dave on drums for this one.
"we've only played this song one other time... Victoria wrote this song and its called Crazy Mary"
The band then goes into Crazy Mary with some very special guests for only the second time in their history. The 1st was about 3 weeks before this in Portland. Eddie and Victoria share verses with Eddie taking the first and Victoria taking the second.
The band goes into Indifference, still with BoB on Organ, possibly the first time this might have been done.
Eddie tells the crowd to "take care."
But the band comes out for a second encore, unloading "Leash" on the crowd. "Alright, one more. Let's do this. Are y'all ready?"
Eddie goes feral.
"See you guys around. Thanks for having us..."
The band leaves the stage and the video cuts.
It would be after this show that Eddie and reining American League Cy Young award winning pitcher "Black" Jack McDowell would visit Bourbon street and get themselves into quite the mess.
Eddie was arrested at 4:25am on misdemeanor charges of public drunkenness and disturbing the peace after getting into a fight with one Jack Goreman. This is REALLY hard to do on Bourbon street, haha.
According to Jack McDowell while being interviewed on the "Live on 4 Legs Podcast", "We went into this place... I was sitting off to the side, and then all of a sudden this guy is in Ed's face, getting all over him and he walked away, but this guy kept following him around and yelling at him and getting in his face... and we just kept walking away from the dude."
Jack goes into more detail from what he remembers of the night:
"I don't even know what the anger issues were, and why the guy was all over him yelling at him and stuff. After 20 minutes of this going on, we're like lets get out of here. We walk out of the place and the guy that was all over Ed comes out after him and starts to swing to try and hit him in the face. I got up to him and got him in the face good, But then a dude who worked at the place came up and smoked me in the back of the head and I fell into this car. We didn't even know what was going on, it was super weird stuff. The dude that hit me ended up getting arrested down the road. He tried to sue Eddie for what happened. He went to court and they immediately arrested him because he had done some other crime and hadn't shown up to court for it."
Ed would spend the night in Jail and make national headlines, only furthering his aura of the "drunken grunge guy."
Pearl Jam would take the next night off from performing, only to take the stage yet again in New Orleans on the 19th.
Pearl Jam would cement their reputation in the city of New Orleans with this one event that is still talked about to this day, even by Ed himself who would reference it multiple times at shows in NOLA after the fact.
"Aye, before we go, will you guys do me something?
I'm asking a lot, I know. But you know what? I wanna show... What I want you to do, I want you to spit on me. Just spit on my face.
I wanna show you how a man takes a good spit right in the face.
Come on! This is how you take it! Come on, MORE! SPIT!
A real man can take spit in the face....
....And good guys where black."
- Eddie Vedder to the UNO Lakefront Arena crowd before "Porch" the night after he was arrested 11/19/1993."Hey. Quit it! I've been hit with enough shit this week!
We actually thought, for about 5 minutes we actually thought about cancelling this show, just like fuck, 'fuck that guy, fuck these people.'
- Eddie to the UNO Lakefront crowd before the encoreBut, uh, we knew he wasn't a representative of you. So, uh, alright let's do it.
November 19th brought an added edge to an already explosive 3 night run in NOLA.
The band had spent the day off on the 18th, probably writing and recording more parts of Vitalogy. But come the night of the 19th, I think Ed and the band were ready to put on an amazing show, and then get as far away from New Orleans as they could.
The previously mentioned Jack McDowell attended this show as well and recalls the interesting way in which the band decided to make their first public appearance since Eddies arrest, a little under 18 hours before.
Speaking to LiveOn4Legs podcast, Mcdowell said:
"When he (Ed) came out, everyone kinda knew already that he had been arrested and he might not be able to make the show and all this, and they put him on a lay down thing and rolled him out like he was dead or something. I was like 'oh that's crazy' and then he got up and started singing..."
Eddie would later dedicate a song to Jack during the show.
While unfortunately there isn't video of this show, (or maybe there is and we just haven't found it yet...) there is a fan recorded audio bootleg to accompany the other 2 nights of this show.
The band walks out to massive rounds of applause. I can only assume from the way they rolled Eddie out. Eddie casually and in a very drunken accent says "Lets do this..."
The band breaks into a FAST and ANGRY rendition of "Go," going extremely left of the previous 2 nights openers of "Release" and "Oceans." You can only imagine the energy in the room at that moment. Dave sounds like he's going to smash though his drum kit.
Eddie mumbles something really quickly, but it's inaudible to me. He sounds like he asks someone to get the light off, but i'm not certain. It sounds like "get that light off me...."
The band goes into "Animal" with Eddie truly almost blowing his voice out during the "WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO HURT ME?" part. The first of many subtle references of the previous night.
The band goes into "Once" with Eddie giving a pretty feral scream during the intro that isn't present on the recorded version. 3 very angsty tracks back to back to back. The breakdown gets am amazing jammy section after the solo that I honestly have never heard PJ recreate. It almost sounds Alice in Chains-y or even like a metal band breakdown. Eddie takes this moment to start singing "W.M.A." No-doubt in reference to what had happened the previous night. "W.M.A." up until this point had only been tagged onto "Daughter" or "Porch" or played as a full song, but never on "Once." The band finds their way back into "Once" and end it with Eddie yet again almost blowing his voice out.
Eddie introduces the next song: "This song is called Dissident" and the band launches into the song with no further comments from Ed.
Next comes "Jeremy." Eddie's last "OHHHHH" towards the end of the song is MASSIVE.
The band then cuts into "Deep" which was common at the time as they both use 12-string bass. Ed's vocal performance on this one is yet again stellar as he goes all out. "Deep" fades out with an interesting cacophony as one of the guitars almost sounds like its a bird.
By this point in the setlist, all songs are coming one after the other with absolutely zero talking or mention of what had happened the previous night. Eddie breaks that silence with yet another quotable phrase, this time one that might be giving insight into the "love" that he has for performing:
"anybody thinks that love is easy? Fuck you. You're wrong. Anybody thinks that love is worth it? Congratulations, you're right. this is 'State of Love & Trust.'"
SoLAT is played and boy is it a barn-burner.
Eddie takes a second after SoLAT then sings the first few lines of the final verse of "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" by Billy Joel:
"A bottle of Red, a bottle of White, whatever kind of mood you're in tonight"
The band then rip into "Glorified G." Another stellar performance from Ed.
Daughter is played next, and on this night receives an "Across The Universe" tag from the Beatles, but not before a little interesting vocalizing from Eddie. On this night, Eddie even adds the "Jah Guru Deva Om" prayer from the song at the beginning, but on his last "nothing's gonna change my world," he decides to give a list of the things that aren't going to change him:
"Not my boss.
Not my mom.
Not my friends.
Not my enemies.
Not my lord.
Not my self.
Not my anything.
Nothings gonna change my world.
Nothing."
Ed then sings some inaudible lines of a song, which brings the band into "Even Flow." The middle section of the song is very interesting and different.
Ed then gets a little more vocal about the night before while introducing the song "Rats."
"This song, this next one, it's a good song for New Orleans I think. It's called 'Rats.' I know you got 'em here! I even met a couple...."
"Rats" gets screamy at the end as it usually did around this time.
Before "Blood" Ed says: "this song is dedicated to me..."
Mike continues playing at the end, almost like he doesn't want the song to end.
Ed finally decides to wax poetically from the front of the stage:
"So, uh. We appreciate you letting us hang out in New Orleans for awhile. Nice place. Nice place. About 99% of you have all been really, really cool. I don't usually do this, but this is the first shows we've played with this band, Urge Overkill, we wanna give them a big hand will ya? From Chicago! And uh, from this show, from whenever, whenever we play New Orleans, this song is gonna be for my friend Jack.."
The band then jumps into "Alive."
Ed belts out a massive "YEAH!" to start the song. He also brings back the aggression he had on Night 1:
"Is something wrong she said?
Of course there is you fucking CUCK!"
A curse word i've never heard Ed use before! The band lets their instruments ring out and leave the stage.
They return to a raucous crowd as they break into "Why Go." Eddie is more reserve this night, only doing the signature "Hey" in the intro 37 times instead of the previous nights 52.
To introduce the next song, Eddie gives the classic "drop the leash, drop the leash, get outta my fuckin' face" and then proceeds to unleash one of the most INSANE screams i've ever heard from him.
"Leash" ends and Ed asks Keith to turn the lights down, and to potentially bring him something? Eddie says "this is for you guys." then proceeds to play "Black." This would be the first and only time on this 3 night run that "Black" would be played, and NOLA's first "Black" since the Tipitina's show in Spring of 1992, or a 3 "NOLA show" gap. "We belong together...." helps PJ fade out of "Black."
"Rearviewmirror" is played next. Eddie changes some of the lyrics in the second verse, but it's hard to make out what he actually says.
After RVM on this night, Eddie again references Victoria Williams: "take a bottle, drink it down. Pass it around."
He then gives the quote that introduces this post, before ripping into a MASSIVE "Porch" and if you were to listen to one song from this night, I think it should be this one, just given the pure intensity level by the band. The solo mike gives is absolutely insane. The band keeps building and building and it sounds like they're never gonna come down, while Ed just screams his ass off. Porch gets a "Tearing" tag, no doubt again referencing the night before. Ed also adds another tag of a song i'm not familiar with:
"How could you. How could I care. How could I fight for you, when you don't care? How could I love you, when you don't care? How could I fight for you, when you don't care?"
Eddie ends the song screaming his lungs out yet again while the band becomes one big noise. The band walks off the stage again as Mikes guitar feeds back.
The band eventually returns to the stage, but theres a tape cut in the bootleg when Ed addresses the crowd, so it's hard to tell what he said.
What can be made out is the second quote that introduces this post.
The band rip into "Baba O' Riley" by the Who for the 3rd time in NOLA history.
The band leave the stage, and eventually come back for yet another audible of "Indifference." A complete difference in setlists from the previous nights as the show started crazy and ended rather calm.
"You guys take care of yourselves. See you around."
Over the 3 nights, all songs from Vs. and Ten were played in some capacity, except "Elderly Women."
Pearl Jam would not return to New Orleans for almost 2 years, and when they finally did, they would be at odd's with corporate titan Ticketmaster. They would also remember the studio Daniel Lanois rented to them, as they were in the writing phase of "No Code" by that point...
But that is a story for another time....