We were fortunate enough to make it down to Philadelphia for the final event at the Philly Spectrum on Saturday – a three-and-a-half hour marathon Pearl Jam concert that I won’t soon forget. Witnessing a show like last night’s killed any remorse I had for missing the first three shows of their four-show stand at the legendary Broad Street venue. The Rocky music lead-in that the band came out to was the perfect introduction to a match that was about to go until the final bell, leaving both fighters – the band and the fans – completely drained.

A show on Halloween night, paired with the World Series being in town and knowing that it was the last event in the Spectrum gave us more than enough optimism for something different. With a new album worth of material to play, I knew I’d hear some songs that I had never heard live before, but Pearl Jam really threw a couple of punches that none of us expected. After the one encore, Pearl Jam acknowledged Halloween by coming out onto the stage dressed as Devo and playing Whip It. I guess the Devo shirt that Eddie was wearing earlier in the night foreshadowed the moment, but seriously, who would’ve expected such a funny sight. The cover was actually really good, but I don’t think my laughter subsided until about halfway through the song. Great moment.

Another surprise was when Eddie took the stage…which an accordion. Pretty much anyone who owns, or owned, Vitalogy knew what was coming. While Bugs isn’t exactly the song that you get excited about hearing for the quality, it’s surprise inclusion in the set helped set the night apart from the twenty-plus shows I’d attended. Of course, two surprises aren’t really that crazy at a Pearl Jam show, so to make the night even more unique, the band played Sweet Lew for the first time, Out of My Mind for only the third time, and songs like Pilate, Crown of Thorns, Rats, and Satan’s Bed; all of which are the antitheses of the Cordoroys and Even Flows heard show after show.

The band was clearly having a blast on stage and just when you thought the show was coming close to an end, they kept going…and going…and going…until the confetti shot up into the air and the balloons dropped from the rafters. Of course, even that didn’t represent the end. While I could go a lifetime without hearing Yellow Ledbetter send us home, closing the Spectrum with a song that signaled the beginning of so many events at the soon-to-be-demolished venue – The Star-Spangled Banner – seemed fitting.

All-in-all, the only show that I can confidently say rivaled this one was State College in ’03. I’ll call it a split decision.

On my way out to Chicago, I was thinking about how my excitement levels for going to Pearl Jam shows had fallen off a bit. I wasn’t looking forward to fighting my way through the merchandise lines to snag a poster, I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with all of the obnoxious super fans (yes, there are MUCH crazier fans than Mundis and I), and I hadn’t really been listening to too much PJ in the lead-up to the trip. I was feeling like going to the shows had become more of a tradition than something truly exciting. After night two, though, I was reminded of why we travel all over the place to see these guys play.

Night one was a really good show, albeit a bit shorter than usual (about 2 hours and 15 minutes). It was Megan’s first PJ show, and Mundis won the ticket lottery – landing him in the tenth row – so it was a pretty exciting night from the beginning. We even checked out the pre-party down the road from the United Center, which was a lot less irritating than we thought it would be. The setlist included some songs that I had never heard live before (Needle and the Damage Done, The Fixer, Got Some, The Real Me, Supersonic), which is one of those things we always hope for in going to the shows. I think their new songs, The Fixer and Got Some are awesome live. They’re so full of energy and the crowd really responded well to both. I’m reserving my judgment of Supersonic until I get to hear it on the album. It just didn’t sound tight live…or maybe I just need to hear it to get used to it. Other than that, the show was a nice reminder of why I’ve spent so much time and money going to see them. The experience is worth it. Jeff also had us sing happy birthday to a friend of his who had passed away, which provided a lot of insight into his poster design for that night. We weren’t thrilled about the design until we learned more about the meaning behind it…the appreciation is much deeper now. Regardless, night one was a really nice show, and it left me excited for night two.

Night two was destined to be better than night one. Why? Well…because on my way to grab food and do some shopping we ran into Jeff Ament. I typically don’t bother famous people when I see them, and I didn’t want to bother Jeff, but I had to at least say hi. With Jeff being essentially the only person that Mundis would want to meet (Mundis was being a tourist and visiting the Field Museum instead), it would’ve been rude to not say anything. Jeff was totally cool with us interrupting his shopping excursion and kindly let me get a photo with him. We thanked him for an awesome show the night before, and moved along. I was nervous as hell, so I didn’t really know what to say, but it was nice of him to be so chill.

Then the show ended up being one of the best, if not the best show I’ve seen them play in the 22 times I’ve seen them. The first set was hands down the best I can remember. It had a very vintage PJ feel, with nothing but raw energy carrying the band. You could see that the band was having a blast on stage. While they didn’t play anything that I hadn’t heard before, there were 21 different songs from night one. Even songs that we’re typically sick of hearing were really good…almost like a fresh start. Better Man and Daughter were finally exciting to hear again. I can only hope that when PJ puts the bootlegs on sale, that it sounds as good as the show we thought we experienced. It was amazing. It was also cool to get a poster by the same artist who designed the Backspacer album art – Tom Tomorrow.

On my way out of the United Center on Monday, all I could do was think about how floored I was and how much fun the shows were. Getting posters wasn’t a problem, the crowds were awesome, the set lists were great, and the performances were amazing. It’s exactly what I needed to get me pumped for Halloween…when I’ll be traveling to Philly to see Pearl Jam rock the Spectrum!

In the 3+ years that I’ve lived in Pittsburgh, I’ve never gone to a “Skyblast” night at PNC Park. Skyblast is basically where the Pirates have crazy fireworks and some musical act play post-Pirates loss (or win…). Call me weird, but I’m just not into fireworks…and DEFINITELY not into them as much as your average Pittsburgher. Regardless, it was pretty cool.

The fireworks were 10 times better than the crappy 4th of July show, with fireworks going off on the Clemente Bridge, Highmark building, the outfield, etc. It was definitely a more impressive display than your simple barge-in-the-water thing last month.

For the musical guest, the Pirates brought in O.A.R., which was actually a nice change from the typical, washed-up-but-still-adored-in-Pittsburgh bands like Styx that are practically Gods here. Like Dimar said, “I know you think those bands suck, but there are a lot of people in Pittsburgh that think those bands are awesome”. Sorry, Styx…I forgot that Renegade will keep you paid for eternity thanks to Steeler fans inherited acceptance of it being thought of as an “awesome” song.

Anyway, I’m not an O.A.R. fan, but it was cool to at least see a band that was still somewhat relevant playing at PNC Park. I was actually impressed with them for the most part. Here’s a band that has 2 decently popular radio hits, both which are major departures from their normal sound, and they opted to save those songs for the end. Instead they played their reggae-inspired jam stuff for most of their hour-and-fifteen-minute set. Of course, they sort of HAD to jam a lot…

Why?

Well, because the lead singer lost his voice about 3 lines into the first song…maybe less. When the band first started, the sound was awful, but unlike John Legend’s sound guy, O.A.R. fixed the sound before the end of the first verse. Too bad he couldn’t restore the lead singer’s vocal cords. Picture Dicky Barrett from the Bosstones singing Crazy Game of Poker, and you’ve got what we heard. I was highly impressed with the band’s ability to jam in an attempt to carry the show without vocals. At one point, the keyboard player decided to give the words a shot, and he did a good enough job to get the crowd back into it, but it was still a tough scene to witness.

Regardless, the show was solid, and I’d rather see that 10 times over than the Zac Brown band. They’re a good group of musicians – nothing spectacular – but talented enough to hold my interest with their simple jams. The fact that they carried on says a lot about their fortitude, and the courage of Marc – the lead singer – to come back and sing anyway to finish the night was impressive. There aren’t a lot of bands that could continue on without a singer. I mean…what the hell would Pearl Jam do if Vedder lost his voice? Have Stone sing? Not a promising thought in the least. So, even with the human malfunction, I will say that O.A.R. put on a good show. All poppy, chart-climbing songs aside, they’re not bad and actually sound really good live. I sort of hope they get a chance to come back and redeem themselves soon…unlike the Pirates…who AGAIN were completely outplayed, outclassed, and shown what real baseball is in a 5-2 beat-down courtesy of the Cardinals.

Sound quality can make or break a performance…as demonstrated by the John Legend show last night at the Palace Theater in Greensburg.

When he came walking down one of the aisles singing Bob Marley’s Redemption Song, I was excited. Not giddy wannabe groupie excited, but optimistic that this show was going to be really intimate and truly highlight his voice – similar to the Vedder show we had seen recently. Unfortunately, the sound laid down to begin the show disappeared quickly as the full band joined in and Legend made his way to the stage.

Once the band started playing, the mix quality became something that I just couldn’t ignore. Here we were, trying to listen to an artist who’s voice is the focal point of his music, and we could barely hear him. While I’m sure the band was filled with phenomenal musicians, you would barely be able to tell with the way the audio was mixed. The vocals were drowned out by the bass drum level, the guitar player might as well have been playing air guitar since you couldn’t hear his solos, and the drummer’s solo was more fun to watch than listen to with the bass drowning out every nuance.

The few songs that Legend did solo with just the piano were really good, and I’m sure all of the songs on the stage monitors were awesome…just not what was delivered to the audience. I know it’s not the sound quality at the Palace, because I’ve seen Buddy Guy and Social Distortion there and those shows were really good. If I ever see John Legend again, I hope he has a new soundboard guy…otherwise, it won’t be worth the price of admission…despite his great stage presence, crowd interaction, and talent.

We took a little trip down to Baltimore this week, with our original goal being the procurement of an Adam Jones bobblehead from the O’s/Mets game. Naturally, Eddie Vedder decided it would be a good week to schedule some solo shows at the Lyric Opera House, too. Add in some bowling, a trip to the National Aquarium, and a drive up to York to visit Kree, and you’ve got one of those fun vacations that leave you completely drained.

Eddie Vedder kills the Lyric

While Mundis and I failed to land tickets to both Sunday and Monday’s shows, we did get to go to the second night…and it was awesome. Mundis initially thought that Monday’s show was better than both of the Chicago shows, and he very well could be right. The crowd was much better than the Chicago crowds, which could be a big part of our reasoning. While there were still the constant requests for songs, it was nowhere near as obnoxious as the drunken morons that ruined the crowds at the Auditorium shows in Chicago. Even the large guy who smelled like cheese sitting next to me couldn’t ruin such a good show.

As usual, Vedder was on. The Lyric, as a venue, simply made his voice sound that much better, too. He refrained from playing a lot of the songs that I hate hearing, and played a few that we didn’t hear when we were in Chicago last year. It was essentially the same exact concept as in Chicago, but with a varied playlist – same opening act, same backdrops, same stage set, etc., so there really isn’t much to add to our experience. Liam Finn was entertaining, and we even got to briefly meet him after his set. Nice guy…too bad Vedder going on cut our time together short.

If you haven’t seen Vedder solo, get a ticket…that is, if he ever tours solo again. I’m willing to say that I’ve enjoyed his solo shows more than nearly every Pearl Jam show that I’ve seen. Maybe it’s the jaded Pearl Jam fan in me…maybe it’s the intimate setting…who knows. He’s just so much clearer, and much more musically powerful, when he’s not fighting the noise around him. His personality opens up a bit more, and he’s a lot more entertaining than you would think if you had only seen him front Pearl Jam. It’s really all about the emotion shining through, though. Despite all of the drinking and smoking, he can still use his voice to carry a room like very few people.

National Aquarium

Fortunately, we had a day to waste in Baltimore between the Vedder show and the O’s game, so I used the random Tuesday to finally get back to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. I hadn’t been there since I was in high school, and I could never work out a way to get back…until now.

It was more or less exactly the way I remembered it, though, so it was fun…juuuuuuust not nearly as much fun as it was when I was a kid. I was also a little bummed that some of the sharks weren’t in the tanks…no hammerheads or threshers – the sharks were always my favorite. Fortunately the jellyfish exhibit, which happened to be the last thing we saw, was awesome! I can say that jellyfish officially freak me the hell out, but they’re wild to see in a closed environment. The price of admission seems a bit high, but it was still worth it, even if just for the nostalgia.

A night at Camden Yards

The original purpose of the trip was to take a trip to Camden Yards to see the Orioles, and more importantly, pick up the Adam Jones bobblehead (which is frickin’ awesome, btw). It was awesome to be at an Orioles game again. Fortunately, we had seats covered by the upper deck, so watching the O’s beat the Mets in the rain with Mundis, my Dad, and Megan went smoothly. We also got to see Matt Wieters’ first career home run! I’m 2-0 when attending O’s games the last two years…maybe I should go more often.

Last night we met up with Barbato & Kromer to check out The Black Keys show at the Three Rivers Arts Festival at the point.

As I stated last August after they played AE’s NAMU festival, I’m just not that impressed…which sucks, because I really like their studio stuff. The Black Keys live, though, is just a sloppy exhibition of noise. Simplicity can be amazing at times, but every song live is basically a run-on sentence filled with distortion and simple drums under an umbrella of ringing cymbal noise. Even the songs that I absolutely love get butchered with sub-par vocal performances and disjointed, overwhelmingly careless guitar playing. They just haven’t done justice to their own music – which is awesome in the studio – the two times that I’ve seen them.

What’s annoying is that while I’m 0-for-2 in the “will The Black Keys impress me?” challenge, a search on youtube will result in some good performances, like the following – which is one of the better performances I’ve seen and one of my favorite songs of theirs:

I love the hard-hitting, in-your-face approach…just not the execution. I’m totally cool with low-fi production, too, but I still need to feel it. For now, I’ll just continue rocking out to their CDs and wait until the next free live show to give them another chance. Third time has to be a charm, right?

Two things had me excited about going to the Kings of Leon show at Duquesne’s AJ Palumbo Center last night. First, they rocked at Lollapalooza a few years ago before My Morning Jacket and Pearl Jam took the stage, so I knew that they could put on a good show. The opportunity to see them in a small venue only added to that appeal. Second, unlike some of the so-called KoL “purists”, I thought their latest album was pretty damn good, so the hopes of hearing a song like “closer” had me really pumped.

We got there shortly after the opening band, The Walkmen, took the stage. They weren’t bad, but really didn’t do much to get the crowd going. The singer’s David Grey-esque vocals were solid, but they just didn’t have the energy I’ve come to expect from opening rock bands. Their sound was good…they just need to kill the boring it’s-cool-to-look-and-act-lame-as-hell stage presence.

Kings came out rocking, and I was pleasantly surprised by the variety in their set. Their willingness to stray away from their latest offerings and break out high-energy older stuff was awesome. Only By The Night is a solid album, but it probably couldn’t carry a show on its own legs. By playing fast, raw rockers from their first two albums, the show flew by and brought the perfect energy level for the younger college crowd. The hour-and-a-half setlist that delved into past records probably left newer fans feeling shorted, but the awesome set should have convinced those only listening to “Sex on Fire” on repeat to dig deeper, as some of their best live material comes from their previous albums.

Check ‘em out…

On Thursday, Megan and I took to the road to meet Mundis for the final outdoor show of the season at Pier Six – Cake with the Winterpills! We arrived at the venue around 7, but unfortunately had to wait until 8:30 for the opening band to take the stage. With the cold weather kicking in, signaling a hint of Fall in the air, most of the vendors weren’t open along the lawn side of the venue, so food and beer options were pretty limiting, and the crowd seemed much more sparse than the last time I was at Pier Six to see Cake in the warmer months.

Mundis’ friends were actually at the show to see the Winterpills, so we traded tickets for the opening band’s set, and chilled off to the side eating awful food. The Winterpills were decent. I’d like to take a listen to their stuff on CD because their sound was pretty laid back and ended up provided us with more of a background ambience for our conversations than highly engaging tunes that I could focus on. They had a  sort of mellow Death Cab for Cutie sound, but never really picked it up too much. I’ll wait to judge them until I get better acquainted with their stuff, but their live sound was sharp and they sounded good. They also get points for having tour posters, although, I didn’t pick either one up.

By the time Cake came on, the crowd had filled in and we were enjoying our seats in the 9th row, center. The show wasn’t the best Cake show I’d ever seen, but they were excellent as usual. The beginning of the show had some sound and lighting problems that obviously angered John McCrea, but once everything was fixed, the show went really well. Cake’s just such a good band. The songs are well-written, interestingly composed, and executed with near perfection. While the whole band is excellent, their guitarist and bass player just blow me away. The bass in a live setting makes you realize just how much it drives Cake’s music. The setlist highlights for me were definitely “War Pigs”, “Stickshifts & Safetybelts”, “Arco Arena”, “Mexico”, and “The Distance”, but in reality the entire show was solid. I even think we got to hear one new song, but that’s based solely on the idea that neither myself or anyone around seemed like they had heard it before. Regardless, it was pretty good.

Naturally, our seats put us right next to “that guy”. You know, the ultra-loud, obnoxiously drunk guy that keeps screaming the band’s name before the band takes the stage. The guy who spills beer on his girlfriend. The guy who doesn’t use deodorant, but wears a wife-beater shirt. Yeah…that guy. He sat right in front of Mundis. Interestingly enough, the last time we saw Cake, there was an issue with someone sitting near us having some fierce body odor. Anyway, aside from “that guy”, the crowd was alright. Cake brings an interesting mix of fans, which are more laid back for the most part, but still fun.

Anyway, this was my 4th Cake show, so I’d obviously recommend seeing them to anyone. My only recommendation would be to study up on your tree knowledge – that is, if you want a tree to plant. At one point, the band gave away a small Granny Smith apple tree to the first fan who could guess what kind of tree it was. Without the apples, it obviously made people’s guesses pretty poor, but eventually someone got it…and it wasn’t me. The girl who figured it out got to go up on stage and take the tree home if she promised to plant it and nurture it. It seems like this is their new thing at every show. Gotta love Cake – helping the environment by improving the air quality with both new trees and great sounds. It was definitely worth the trip.

With the Steelers and Ravens playing Monday night, Megan grabbed some tickets for the Citizen Cope show, and that became my Sunday night excursion. The show was at the Carnegie Library of Homestead Music Hall. The quaint 1,022-seat venue was a pretty cool little venue that would be perfect for any solo show – which was what was on the menu for my Sunday – a Citizen Cope acoustic show.

While I’m not a huge Cope fan, I attribute my lack of fandom to not having a lot of his music (not that there’s much). I do have one of his albums, The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, and it’s pretty decent. I absolutely his song, Sideways, but I always thought that a lot of his songs run together and don’t really change pace too much, which tends to give his music that “every song sounds the same” reputation with me. Of course, I’m going to revisit some of it now, after the show because there were definitely some great songs in the mix.

Anyway, the show was decent. He played for about an hour-and-a-half, but it was more than enough for me. As previously stated, a lot of Cope’s songs are pretty slow and simple, which are sometimes fine, but I felt like the show ran at a snails pace at times. He wasn’t really a vibrant performer and didn’t engage the crowd very much. He more or less stood up there with minimal movement, strummed simply structured songs, and sang. While his voice was actually excellent and many of his songs are really good, the idea of him putting on a solo acoustic show should’ve really been reserved for a place like Club Café in the Southside, as he didn’t even sell out the music hall.

While it may sound like I’m bashing the whole thing, Cope just sort of gets a bad grade because the last show that I saw was Eddie Vedder’s solo shows in Chicago and because I’m not really all that into Cope. Granted, Vedder’s been a big time front man for almost two decades and made his reputation from swinging from lighting rigs and being sort of a spaz (albeit 500x less than Iggie Pop), but Cope just didn’t captivate the crowd. He was as stiff as a board, and while the music was excellent, he just made me feel like he didn’t want to be up there, or that he was uncomfortable. Of course, in watching him online with his band, he’s really not much more of an entertainer, but at least with a band there’s more interest going on. Despite some quality songwriting and great voice, his minimalist skills on guitar, his lack of energy in both song and body language, and his nearly non-existent crowd interactions just made me feel like doing solo acoustic gigs aren’t his thing. Again, this is a highly skewed viewpoint thanks to Mr. Eddie Vedder’s captivating performances a month before. I think I just had high expectations of walking away a bigger fan than when I walked into the show – similar to how I felt after I saw G. Love and Special Sauce at Lollapalooza two years ago.

Regardless, I don’t think I would rush to see another solo acoustic Citizen Cope show any time soon. I’d definitely give his whole band a shot, though, and I’m going to pick up the rest of his music because there are definitely some gems in the mix.

Mundis flew into Chicago and met up with me for what’s quickly becoming our semi-annual, spend-more-money-that-you-have vacation to see something Pearl Jam related. Where seeing Pearl Jam has sort of become more habit than anything for me, the opportunity to see Eddie Vedder solo brought up feelings of both excitement and apprehension. I was excited for the chance to see Eddie play, not just because of the rarity of such an intimate gig with a rock “legend”, but also because I really wanted to hear some of the Into the Wild soundtrack – which happens to be excellent.

Of course, I wasn’t sure how well Ed would carry a show alone. Would he be able to captivate me for two-plus hours, or would I get tired of the singer-songwriter vibe? Would the setlist be interesting, or would I have spent money only to hear Betterman, Last Kiss, and Corduroy on acoustic? There was also the question of Ed’s voice. The guy has pipes, but years of touring, smoking, and drinking have definitely worn on his baritone and his ability to hold the high notes he so easily reached 10 years ago. Could he actually sing for two-plus hours over two consecutive nights?

Well, after two nights in Vedder’s semi-hometown of Chicago, any reservations I might’ve had coming into the shows were completely gone. I actually think that Ed was better alone than he is with Pearl Jam. That’s not to say that I’d see Ed 20+ times because Pearl Jam shows are awesome, but the whole experience was so damn good that I was left with a better impression of Ed and his talent from his solo shows than I ever was from seeing a Pearl Jam show.

First, the voice. Vedder’s voice is ridiculously good, and in an intimate setting like The Auditorium Theater, the subtleties and range are impossible to overlook. No longer was there a rockin’ band mixed in to support and/or drown out his voice. When the accompaniment is limited to one guitar, the voice needs to take control…and control it did. No longer did Ed have to scream and growl in the prototypical rock style. He could simply croon and let the songs live on their own. He sang with clarity that really undermined the mumbling reputation he’s often mocked for.

The setlists were ridiculous and held many surprises. In two nights we heard many songs from Into the Wild and various Pearl Jam tunes, but some of my favorites were the cover songs. Hurt was covered in more of the Johnny Cash version and is one of those songs I wish I could have to listen to over and over. There were random covers like Pete Townshend’s Let My Love Open the Door, Trouble by Cat Stevens, Blackbird by The Beatles, The Who’s Can’t Explain, and Dylan’s Masters of War. The covers just added such a surprising twist to the show. While I’ve heard Trouble and Masters of War live a handful of times, songs like Blackbird and Can’t Explain came totally out of left field and blew me away with their looseness and Ed’s willingness to try new material. Some were better than others, but for me, the fact that I got to hear something new, albeit a cover song, come out of Ed’s mouth was refreshing. I’m sure Mundis would agree.

My other two favorites, and I mean clear-cut favorites, were the performances of Arc and Society. Arc was a song from Riot Act that Ed had only sung a few times before, and was dedicated to the 9 fans who had died at the Roskilde Festival a few years back. Using a loop machine, Vedder laid down various layers of chants (9, I think) – all free flowing and full of dynamics starting with a very low chant and growing in pitch. Once the layers are looped it’s just this huge, beautiful sound. It was amazing. I had only seen him do it once before in Boston, but to see him do it two nights in a row was incredible and seriously blew me away. I’m not sure if another song even came close to affecting me like that one. Society is my favorite song of the the Into the Wild soundtrack, and it was performed both nights with Liam Finn doing backup vocals. Combined, their voices took that song to a new level.

Speaking of Liam Finn…I have no idea how I felt about his opening act, but I will say that A) his voice is really, really good and similar to his father’s, and B) Liam is a really talented musician. His solo show involved drums, loop machines, noise, and a backup singer/percussionist. I still haven’t picked up his solo album, but I plan on doing that at some point. He’s a hell of a musician and I think there’s a lot more to come from him. It was also cool to see him join Ed on drums for Hard Sun, as well.

As if a great show wasn’t good enough, I got to see the Stanley Cup thanks to Brett Lebda and Chris Chelios bringing it to the show, and we got to see Sean Penn come out for the second night’s performance of Hard Sun. The real treat, though was listening to Vedder’s banter between songs and his exchanges with the crowd. When people were still calling out unsolicited requests and Vedder said something along the lines of, “hey, can you give me a break from being a human jukebox and stop trying to shove quarters into my ass”, I had to laugh. He also went on a mini rant about how he has a setlist and he wasn’t going to take requests from “amateurs” after he’s been making setlists for “some band you might’ve heard of” for the past 17 or 18 years. It was great. You could tell that after 10 shows or whatever it was, that he had grown tired of the loudmouthed, self-important fans who couldn’t sit down and shut up during the show. He often asked the crowd to stop talking during the storytelling parts for the sake of the people who paid to sit in the gallery seats, making it a point to tell a story of how his very first concert ever was at The Auditorium in the very last row of the gallery, and how those seats are “really uncomfortable”. He also told the crowd this whole story about how he met Cubs legend Ernie Banks, and Ernie asked him to write a song for the Cubs before busting out the song All the Way, a really decent song that could work for just about any perpetually failing team with some slight lyric modifications. Mundis and I were sort of annoyed that even when Ed writes a stupid song for the Cubs, it’s really good. I’m sure it’ll be playing around Wrigleyville for the next 100 years of failure.

Anyway, Ed’s ability to engage the crowd with great storytelling and witty remarks made the experience a memorable one. For the first time, it felt like we were really getting to know who Eddie Vedder was, and it sort of took him down from that invisible pedestal that many people put him on and made you think he was just like the rest of us…just with more talent…and money. It was excellent and I would recommend seeing him to anyone I know, fan or not. The show was well set up, Ed didn’t drink at all so he didn’t screw up very much, and the banter was excellent…as well as the surprising setlists. While I hated spending money on the tickets, the experience was definitely worth it, and I’d go again in a heartbeat.

The ONLY bummer about the whole two nights was the crowd (well, and the 3 posters at $35 each). It was a typical, drunken moron PJ crowd, despite the intimate venue and show offering. Most of the people seemed more interested in getting their next beer, talking to their friends, and screaming out requests and the typical, “I love you, Eddie”. I guess these are the fans who were disappointed that Ed didn’t play everything off of the greatest hits album. The only thing that made the girl spilling beer on Mundis’ head a forgettable moment was the girl who threw her phone up on stage. She hopped up on stage to get it, and instead of grabbing it and running back to the crowd, she tried to run up to Ed. That security guard removed her insanely fast. So fast, in fact, that Ed didn’t even see it happen. The whole crowd thing was just so obnoxious, but thankfully, the show trumped the idiocy surrounding us. Thanks, Ed.