This past week Courtney and I did something we’d never done before, went to see Pearl Jam twice in one week.
Given that they are our favorite band, we have never done anything like that on any of their previous tours. It might be easier if they at least went to Atlanta on every tour and then did some other southeastern cities, but it has almost always been Atlanta OR Charlotte OR Columbia OR Greenville OR Nashville. So unless we want to fly to see them (and suddenly the cost of everything really starts to skyrocket), seeing them once was all that was in the cards. However, on this tour, they decided to have two Atlanta dates. Magically through being a fan club member, we were able to get tickets for both shows.
For any other band, I wouldn’t have done this because most bands tend to have a pretty firm setlist on a tour with maybe only a song or two changing every night. Pearl Jam is an oddity in that you are probably only going to hear a handful of the same songs out of the 25 or so per night (and 3 to 4 are likely to be from the latest album). If my counting is right, we had 6 repeats out of 49 total songs. That really is two pretty unique shows.
Night 1
We were down in the Pit (General Admission), which meant we were about 30 feet from the stage, just off center. It was probably the closest I’ve been at a show for them. Then to make it somewhat weird/surreal, there was a woman right beside us with a cane she thrust up in the air, which caught Eddie Vedder’s attention. And for the next minute the two of them had an odd exchange where he tried to figure out what the hell she was holding. When he still couldn’t quite decipher the riddle, he ended with saying, “Well, as long as it isn’t loaded.”
With our sick cat last week, all my emotions certainly were very much at the surface. On top of that, I’m more into lyrics than I am into certain riffs (though I like those as well). I’m pretty sure by the time Given to Fly had come on and Eddie reached the lines:
“And he still gives his love, he just gives it away
The love he receives is the love that is saved.”
Something about that hit me hard. Tears welled up in my eyes. And I kept thinking that if anyone around me saw they’d think I’d lost it (they weren’t far from right). I believe In Hiding got me as well. Then, when I thought I had it together, it was encore time and Eddie came out by himself and played a Warren Zevon song called “Keep Me in Your Heart”.
I have no idea what the song might be about… on that night it spoke to me of our friends and family, whether they were two legged or four.
Finally, the night drew to a close with Indifference, which was the song we’d missed at the Fox all those years ago (I talk about that in this blog).
Night 2
We had great seats for this one, lower level on Stone’s side, about halfway up on the end of the aisle. This was something of a Melt Your Face Concert. They played my favorite track from Vs (Rearviewmirror), my favorite from No Code (Hail, Hail), and my overall favorite (Corduroy). They played a couple of songs I wasn’t expecting (Dissident and Wishlist). And then…
One of the things I keep track of, because I am a nerd, is which songs I have or haven’t seen in concert. In 11 1/2 shows (I only caught part of their Lollapalooza set way back when), I have seen all of Ten and all but one song from Vs. The missing song is Leash, which is one of those tracks I feel like they play so infrequently I’d never get to see it. As the show began screeching toward the end, I perked up at the guitar riff and literally shouted, “No way!” I was transported back to my teenage years for that song, singing as loud as I could.
Ending on Alive… Rockin’ in the Free World… Yellow Ledbetter is about as classic a show as you can get.
Highlights
Being there for the first concert after Matt Cameron had become a 2 time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member with Soundgarden getting the nod over the weekend. They did a champange toast and everything!
Being so close to the band on Night 1. Having such a great setlist on Night 2.
Heck, just being able to see them and enjoy their music two more times after it being 13 years since they’d been to Atlanta and 9 years since I’d last seen them at all.
Lowlights
The people who decide that their next beer is more important than seeing the band they’ve paid a pretty penny for. I swear there was a guy in my row that needed to get out at least 3 times. Which is fine except when you interupt my seeing and singing needing to do it so many times. Or the people who just stand there, unable to remember where their seats are. At one point, I wanted to tap them and say “get moving along”.
Really Cool Story
The story Eddie told about Better Man. He said that when they were recording the song for Vitalogy, they couldn’t get the guitar right. So they went back to the 94 Fox show (that I was at!) and took that version’s guitar with the crowd noise and everything else stripped out. So the album version contains a live guitar track.
I’d never heard that before.
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An amazing two night during a week when I needed something good to happen. I just hope it doesn’t take another decade to see them again!
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John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.
He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!
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His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.
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