September 3rd, 2011
Alpine Valley
East Troy, Wisconsin

Setlist. . .
Release/Arms Aloft/Do the Evolution/Got Some/In My Tree/Faithfull/Who You Are/ Push Me, Pull Me/Setting Forth/Not For You/In the Moonlight/Deep/Help Help/Breath/ Education/Once/State of Love and Trust/Better Man/Wasted Reprise/Life Wasted
First Encore. . .
Rearviewmirror/Stardog Champion/Say Hello 2 Heaven/Reach Down/Hunger Strike/Love Reign O'er Me/Porch
Second Encore. . .
Kick Out the Jams

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It seemed like we were waiting an entire year for PJ20 to "get here." It was sort of a bittersweet affair - so excited for the event, sad for it to be the official end of summer.

10 Club ticket pick up was open for business the night before (5pm-9pm on Friday, September 2nd). Mike and I picked Simon up from O'Hare and then headed straight for Alpine. When we arrived, Rich and Doerr were already there and had just picked up their tickets. The line was quite impressive at that point. The merch booth was also set up and had a bit of a line. As the line began to move, it became apparent that fan club members with the last name between A and D were plentiful and the line was ridiculously long for this slot. This is where I was thinking "why didn't I just leave my name as Gates on my 10C membership?" Haha.

Our original plan was to spend Friday night at Alpine anyway, to catch soundcheck. When the 10C announced that ticket pickup would be that Friday evening, I thought for sure that soundcheck would happen at a different time. I was wrong...cause just as I was about to get my tickets, In My Tree started. It was somewhat difficult to hear in line because the crowd was very chattery.

I got my tickets after In My Tree finished. I saw what was taking so long with ticket pick up - they were opening up your package in front of you and verifying your wristbands and two days of tickets were in there. Laborious, yes. Smart, yes. They also handed us a copy of 01.17.92 (Moore Theater show). Happy Birthday Pearl Jam? No. Happy Birthday to US! Included additionally in the envelope with our tickets was a Jeff promo cd, a PJ20 sticker, a Sirius promo sticker and a Star Anna promo postcard.

Our group stick around for soundcheck - Just Breathe, Help, Help (UH, YES PLEASE), Love Boat Captain, It's OK, In the Moonlight, Love Reign O'er Me, Unthought Known, Leatherman, and All Those Yesterdays. During all this we received confirmation via Twitter that Chris Cornell had landed in Chicago - hmmm. Obvious. After soundcheck, Simon, Mike and I headed over to the "elite house" in Lake Geneva to hang for a short time. During that time, there was an additional soundcheck with Chris Cornell. Confirmation indeed.

The next morning, Mike, Simon and I took off relatively early to the venue because my husband insisted. Doerr and Rich had to go to the airport to pick up the Jersey siblings. Weather was very ho-hum when we got to the venue (around 10 maybe?) My plan was to buy merch - most notably posters (they did not sell posters the night before). It was nice to see that they added an additional merch booth. Problem was, the lines for both were beyond ridiculous.

First thing in the morning, I checked LiveNation to see if there were any pavilion tickets available for me and Mike as our fanclub lawn tickets were for that night. By some miracle, at 7:30 in the morning, I pulled two seats. I did not want to spend the extra cash but with the weather forecast and how terrible sitting on the lawn is, I knew it was the right thing to do. So anyway, I went to the box office to pick up my tickets. Took some pictures of the merch available. Really wanted to get the hoodie. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered it had the wrong dates (4th and 5th) on it. I shrugged it off, "Eh, if that's what's available, oh well." Then even later it was discovered that the state was incorrect - East Troy, MI. Haha. OMG. I really wanted one then - but with the weather events and by the time I got in the venue, they had already pulled the incorrect hoodies off the shelves.

Upon returning to the car, the weather in the distance started turning for the bad. We heard rumbles of thunder and saw some flashes of lightning. We had set up a sunshade, so we lowered it in prep for rain and wind. Then the rain started. Simon and I said, "Screw this" and we went in the car and read. Yep. I also took a nap. The rain was coming down steady...then it would POUR...then it would lighten and then it would POUR.

I ate a PB sandwich in the car that I made for lunch. Got a text from Doerr saying they were on their way from the airport. As the rain lightened up a little bit, I came back outside and helped prep for visitors to our "tent." I also had needed to pee for HOURS but due to the rain and the fact that my solution for this problem was a port-o-john, I just kept waiting. I finally sucked it up and walked through the mud to pee. Shortly after I returned, the rest of the crew arrived - sopping wet from the 10 miles they had to walk in the rain to get to us. It was pretty miserable.

Time finally passed and it was getting to be around 5:30/6:00 and we decided to suck it up, pack it up and get into the venue. Line for the museum was nutty, so we opted to eat dinner instead. Picked up pizza (with cheese, no pepp - yay!). Ate in the sprinkles. And after that it was like, "Ok, let's go to our seats." This was before The Strokes started. We were a good hard left of the stage (Stone siiiiide). But SO grateful that we were in the pavilion and not on the soppy wet lawn in the rain.

I spent my time staring at the flags mounted on the sides of the pavilion - the wind was pretty powerful and the rain kept coming down. Prior to the PJ20 weekend, all I could think about was, "Please do not rain like TFC '99. Please. Please." Oh but it did and then some - though it didn't seem as bad as that time since my jeans never got sopping wet and it stayed pretty warm throughout the evening.

Ed came out and performed Lunchbox with The Strokes - and then the time kept creeping closer to 9:00. Which made me laugh because I knew there was no way they were hitting the stage promptly at 9 - and I was right. It was between 9:10 and 9:15. Jerks.

But then it was time and Philip Glass started playing. The opener was nothing unusual - but the fan participation was unbelievely chilling. It seemed like every single person in that audience was singing along to Release at the top of their lungs. It was one of those moments you knew was special as it was happening - you did not need to figure that one out in retrospect.

The second song is when things got interesting - which is a perfect place to start getting "interesting." Never in a million years would I have guessed that Arms Aloft would follow Release! Wow. Wow. Wow! It sounded SO great, too!

Set was continued with Do the Evoluton. (um, can I say anything else besides 'wow'?) and then Got Some. This was the band telling us - hell yeah m'fers, we are gonna rock it out TONIGHT!

In My Tree was next and totally welcomed. Faithfull was beyond perfectly fitting for the occasion. Who You Are was a special treat - and Liam Finn, Joseph Arthur and Dan Peters joined the stage for the performance. I was immediately thrilled - like, thank you for acknowledging Jack and his part in this band.

Ok - so let's continue with the weird and awesome set with Push Me, Pull Me (yes!) and then what --- Setting Forth full band??? So awesome! And yet further reinforcement that Setting Forth is just too damn short! Julian Casablancas from The Strokes joined on vocals for Not For You (and not without being a tad weird about it).

Now, I'm not an In The Moonlight fan. Sorry. At one point, I even had it removed from my iPod...but, it sounded VERY cool that night and Josh Homme's contribution to vocals was great. At this point, I really started liking these special guests. There wasn't a huge HUGE fuss made about it and it made perfect sense. This is a party, let's rock out, dudes!

Deep was followed by, omg, one of my favorites, Help Help YES! And it did NOT go down from there - Breath, Education (with Liam Finn on vocals), Once and then completing the Singles soundtrack with State of Love and Trust.

Ed made us all sing Better Man...and there was very little prompting and I swear I thought he was going to make us sing the whole song which made me start questioning...what? I mean, we could probably sing every song like that and not flub lyrics. But whatever.

Set closed out, completely, again, appropriately (theme for the night) with Wasted Reprise into Life Wasted.

It was so weird...for the first encore to begin with Rearviewmirror since it typically is a set closer. The jam was also short...which I was ok with because maybe it meant fitting in one more song!

Then the moment we were all waiting for, Chris Cornell was called out onto the stage. We knew that meant a Temple of the Dog reunion. What I did not think it meant was a performance of a MLB song - Stardog Champion. Chris did SUCH a great job! It was SO awesome to hear, too! Such a great way to start a tribute to Pearl Jam's roots and a nod to Andy Wood. Say Hello 2 Heaven began the Temple set - I could have melted there. It was beyond amazing. This performance was probably the highlight of the ENTIRE weekend for me. REALLY!

The Temple set also included Reach Down and then Hunger Strike. Just awesome.

Ed resumed his position as lead singer and said good-bye to Chris. The encore closed out with Love Reign O'er Me and then a great version of Porch

Band left and came back to close out the show with Mark Arm and Steve Turner to perform Kick Out the Jams.

When all was said and done - this show BLEW OUR MINDS. Hands down incredible!!!
 
 

09.06.11

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