October 27th, 2009
The Spectrum
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Main Set...
Corduroy/Whipping/Hail, Hail/Supersonic/Dissident/Unthought Known/Faithfull/Parachutes/Unemployable/Immortality/Green Disease/Not For You/Rival/Nothingman/Ghost/Do the Evolution/Why Go
First Encore...
Bee Girl/Just Breathe/The End/All Those Yesterdays/State of Love and Trust/Mankind/The Fixer/Go
Second Encore...
Daughter/Love Reign O'er Me/Black/Leash/Rearviewmirror/Rockin' in the Free World

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A few weeks have passed since the end of the Pearl Jam extravaganza that took place in Philadelphia. I think I had been dreading writing about this show the most because the shows got more and more incredible as they progressed and I struggled to remember much about the first show. I just remembered I may have been a bit travel lagged from driving from Detroit to Philly that day...but then I typed out the setlist. Wow.

Obviously the first of the four show run started out very solid.

Dan, Lynn, Mike and myself arrived in Philly around 3ish and went straight to the Spectrum to pick up a Mr. Wilson as well as our fan club tickets for the night. Dan won the lottery (9th row if I recall correctly) and my tickets were in 11th row. Not too bad. I always seem to get shafted for Philly area tickets so I was expecting nose bleed seats (ok, exaggeration) and I was pleasantly surprised with how not-so-bad my seats were. Center, even!

After we picked up the tickets, we went to drop our stuff off at the hotel. I was super impressed by the location. I did no research...I simply picked the cheapest hotel that the Ten Club dealio had to offer. It was two blocks away from a Cole Haan store...and within a four block radius, there were two H&Ms. Tons of restaurants within walking distance as well. We ended up eating at n Italian joint around the block from the hotel. They had coal oven pizza...with whole milk mozzarella. The pizza was so yummy.

Headed to the show in kind of gross weather. Stopped and said hello to the usual suspects in the parking lot beforehand. I love Pearl Jam friends!

Went into the show not long after doors because I had to pee and it was gross outside. As we walked in, we passed the box office. Mike stopped and asked if they had any tickets for 10/30 (we still didn't have tickets to that show) and the guy simply told him to check online. Gee. Thanks for the effort.

We went and checked out our seats (nice!) and three seconds later, Dan and Lynn were told by Jason Kirk that Dave and Bev had pulled side stage tickets for the 30th. Angry that the guy at the box office was lazy, I pulled out my iPhone hoping the ComcastTix website would work properly. Guess what? It did. I pulled super phatty side stage tickets while in the venue. Super awesome!!! That pulled a huge weight off my chest, that's for sure.

Hung out in the ghetto concourse of the Spectrum during Social Distortion. Simon got really drunk and was acting "American" and ended up ruining his camera. It was quite funny. Well, except dropping his camera into the beer. That's kind of shitty.

So the band came on stage close to 9 and hello...Corduroy! Man, what a rocking beginning of the set...Whipping! Hail, Hail! And then, yay! Supersonic!

I'm not a Backspacer hater, by the way. I am a Backspacer LOVER. I was hoping to hear as much Backspacer as possible.

Maybe people think the set took a poop at Dissident...but for me this was great! One of my top five songs...I remember it sounded great, too. And as homolicious as Parachutes may be...that was my first time hearing it live, so it was super welcomed by me.

Now, I'm assuming Ed had to have early on at the show (I still haven't listened to it yet, so sue me, and I'm not reading any other web recaps on this) mentioned that the band was going to play every song they knew. I think we all could've called "bullshit" on that one...but I think we still had our hearts skip a beat. We all got super excited.

See, I went to these Philly shows with ZERO expectations. I was like...four shows, one city, shittons of friends...this will be a riot. If they came out and played Crazy Mary and Last Kiss every night, I still don't think I would've been disappointed. It's the build, man. Everyone builds up these shows and they let THEMSELVES down. Anyway the thought of one of the "rumors" (rumors in our heads???) swirling around being trueÉwas just awesome to hear.

So we definitely got a good taste of what the next three shows were going to have in store. Throwing in Rival and Ghost...not to mention All Those Yesterdays and Mankind.

Crazy Mary and Last Kiss, right???

We got Mankind. Not without a story from Ed about how Stone's a douche and he wanted to quit the band. I love me some Stone, but he is a douche and I think Ed was telling the truth.

The second encore was great. Love hearing Leash...so glad it's been brought back into the mix. Show ended with Rockin' in the Free World...and...we were left excited for the next day...
 
 

11.20.09

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