Date: Wednesday, June 12th @ 7:30
City: West Palm Beach, FL
Venue: Cruzan Amphitheatre

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It had been WAY too long since I had seen my favorite band (yes, July 23, 2006 at the Gorge is a long time). I believe this made my 21st Pearl Jam show, and the first time I’ve seen the on the opening night of their tour. I’ve seen many last night of the tour shows… West Palm 98, Seattle 00, Kissimmee 04, Gorge 06… but never an opening night, so I was quite excited. My friend and I were able to skip out of work a little early, and we made our way down to the show. We arrived, cracked open a beer, and moseyed on over to the fan club line to get our tickets. The last time I had seen them in West Palm back in 2003 I was about 20th row center stage. The fan club allocates seats based on seniority, so I was hoping to move up a few rows with the passage of time. Got our tickets: 20 rows back, dead center. “Damn.” Was a little upsetting, but this year they implemented a “Lottery” system, where the first two rows were up for grabs, and somewhere around rows 10 and 11 were up for grabs. Another friend of mine that was in the fan club had a higher number than me, so she should have been behind us, but she scored row 12, so she must’ve won the lottery. So I was very happy for her. Take away the 4 rows for the lottery and I probably would’ve been 4 rows closer… so that makes sense. Turns out the seats were great. Everyone in front of us was short! That NEVER happens at a show I attend.

Kings of Leon opened. We went in early hoping to get a pre-set from Eddie… No such luck. Thought maybe Eddie would come out and do “Slow Night, So Long” with the Kings… No such luck. Again, a little disappointing, but not enough to ruin the night by a long shot. In any event, Kings of Leon were awesome. I’ve become quite a big fan since seeing them open for U2 on their Vertigo tour in Philly. Was very happy I got to hear “The Bucket,” “Milk,” and of course “Slow Night, So Long,” even if it was sans Eddie.

Pearl Jam took the state around 8:50, paving the way for a slightly more than 2 hour show. Once Eddie started counting “One, Two…” it was clear the opener would be “Oceans.” What was not clear was that it would be a false start. After getting the timing correct, they nailed a beautiful rendition of an opener that I hadn’t heard in 8 years. Fast, energetic versions of “Severed Hand,” “Save You,” and “Gods’ Dice” followed. Eddie then said his hello’s to the crowd before launching into a duo off Yield: “Given to Fly,” then “Faithfull.” “Unemployable” sounded extremely solid, and “Sad” was a wonderful, unexpected treat. The popular old song “Dissident” really got the crowd into the show. Ed’s girlfriend Jill was with his daughter Olivia side stage for most of the show. She is so cute and wore heavy duty pink earmuffs. I believe Eddie made mention during the show that it was her birthday. Then came the surprise of the night, “Who You Are,” which that hadn’t been played since 1998-03-09 Sydney. I’m so glad I didn’t seek out the soundcheck online before the show, because they played this. It was a total shock. I’ve been pretty lucky in hearing songs that hadn’t been played in a long time: the first performance of “Glorified G” in 7 years, the first performance of “Dirty Frank” in 12 years, and now the first performance of “Who You Are” in 10 years. It sounded great, not rusty at all, and it had an extended jam at the end. The ever-present “Even Flow” got the crowd moving again. Was sad to not hear a Matt Cameron drum solo in the middle, but it was still a great version. For “Glorified G” Ed donned a camo hunting hat that remained for the rest of the show. “Do The Evolution” sounded a little different during the intro, I need to hear the official bootleg when it gets released to find out what was going on there. “Why Go” is such a powerful main set closer. When they came back for the first encore, Mike was sporting the double neck guitar, meaning “Inside Job” was to be played. I was hoping they would hold off “Better Man” till Tampa when I was going to be with some casual Pearl Jam fans, but I wasn’t upset to hear it. No “Save it for Later” tag though which was disappointing. “RearViewMirror” closed the first encore with the wonderful strobe light action during the outro jam. Speaking of “light action,” the light show was beautiful and complemented the music so well as it always does. It was strange to see the stage with a backdrop and banners hung off to the side being that their stage decoration is usually minimal. Eddie came out by himself for the second encore with an acoustic guitar and spoke about how they were so excited to get to Florida and enjoy the sun, but instead got pissed on by God with a hangover, referring to the earlier rain storms that had luckily subsided. This lead to an impromptu short singalong cover of “It Rains On Me” by Tom Waits. Strangely enough, the only other time they had covered this was as a tag on the end of “Daughter” at the 2003-06-01 Shoreline show that I happened to attend. What were the chances of that? Ed then played “No More” solo, which he wrote for the film Body Of War. The rest of the band filed on stage for “Alive,” (with Eddie leading the fist pumps at the end). The perpetual set closer “Yellow Ledbetter” ended the evening with the house lights on. The rest of the band stood quietly on stage watching lead guitarist Mike McCready tag a Jimi Hendrix inspired rendition of The Star Spangled Banner to the end of the song. Surprisingly, the whole show was over with time to spare before the 11:00 curfew. But it was the first night of the tour, so they were still getting into the swing of things, and later shows on the tour should fill the entire time.

A wonderful show, they never disappoint. “Who You Are” was worth the price of admission by itself. Some bands are tailor made to be seen live. Their shows take their music to another level that studio recordings just cannot reach. Pearl Jam leads the pack in this category. So often a casual fan will attend one of their shows, and become infatuated to a fanatical level. It happened to me back in 1998, it happened to a fellow poster of this website in 2003, and I believe it may have happened to some friends who attended the next night’s show in Tampa. Stay tuned for a review of that show to appear in the near future.

Setlist:

Main Set: Oceans, Severed Hand, Save You, Gods Dice, Given to Fly, Faithfull, Unemployable, Sad, Dissident, Who You Are, Even Flow, Low Light, Gone, Grievance, Glorified G, Do the Evolution, Why Go.

Encore 1: Inside Job, Betterman, Comatose, RearViewMirror.

Encore 2: Ed Solo: Rains on Me (Tom Waits), No More, Full Band: Alive, Yellow Ledbetter

Soundcheck: Who You Are, Light Years, Blood, Present Tense, Save You