mmkay, so to keep my brain from becoming less mushy i am going to start reviewing the concerts that i've seen... just like the good old days when i'd post to various mailing lists and start fights for saying things like, "man, that show kinda sucked!". and of course i made this decision a couple of weeks ago and got way too busy at work to actually keep up with it- so i'm 3 concerts behind and will post these reviews belated but separately.
what's different these days (ahh, the yesteryears...) is that i now bring musician's filters to shows because the ringing in my ears does not stop anymore. the first time my ears rang for 3 days was after a nirvana concert in DC when i was 15 years old ('93). it's gotten considerably worse since then, but i am pretty sure that i lost the most hearing at the 2004 mtvn non-denominational-holiday-party, cuz the ringing from that night definitely did not stop, and it's louder than the previous ringing. anyways, so back to the filters- i got these awesome custom filters and highly recommend them. they filter out exactly 15db from every frequency of the sound spectrum and they are fitted to my ears (they took a mold). they are about $150 and worth every fucking penny.
now... pearl jam, 6/1/06, brendan byrne arena, rutherford, nj.
so, not holding the traffic or weather or parking against the band. i missed the opener, "my morning jacket", which isn't too horrible cuz i think i've seen them open for 3 bands in the past year. i walked in during pearl jam's fourth song and they were definitely rockin' out (i don't have a setlist). i walked directly into some friends from my hometown (pr REPRESENT) and they were lovely enough to buy me a beer right before we walked up to the nosebleeds and chilled for a while. then i wandered down to a section behind the stage to find lowell and keren and watched the rest of the show.
the old tunes rocked, the new tunes rocked... eddie was sporting a giant bottle of wine... the pearl jam crowd kind of scares me. there was a lot of singing along and waving of the arms, and i wonder if this is what people think of me and my friends when they go see moe.? like, "who the fuck are these moe.rons"? i think the big difference is that the pearl jam fans kinda treat vedder like some sort of god... and moe.rons... well, when al. fell flat on his face at snoe.down while trying to look like a metal-god--- everyone laughed their asses off... pearl jam's fans just kinda felt more cult-like. at one point eddie picked up his electric guitar (he can't just be a lead singer, he's gotta play guitar a little too) and held it up above his head. the light engineer then focused and bounced one of the lights off of the electric guitar--- so the light was reflected perpendicularly onto the crowd. eddie proceeded to angle the guitar and rotate around 360' to "paint" the crowd in the light. as he did people reached in the air and tried to "grab" the light. people were really getting off on this shit and i couldn't help it but my immediate reaction was laughter. in fact i was laughing so hard i think i might have snorted and put myself in ten-club danger!!! DAAANGER!!!
they did stick it to the man and play about 25-30 minutes past the curfew- a few cover songs including 'teenage wasteland'. drunk eddie flailed and fell on his ass... and then limped for the rest of the show ("i think he really hurt himself" -dr. lowell gurey). it was fun seeing pearl jam in action. the arena eventually turned the lights on, but they did not turn the sound off. i'm sure the extra time cost them a pretty penny (if not substantially more--- i tried looking up how much continental charges for every minute past curfew but had no luck- anyone out there know a website that supplies this info? it can be up to $10,000+ for every minute over). stone gossard: STILL FUCKING HOT... the short hair--- yummy.
yes, i know many of my friends are devoted ten club pearl jam fanatics and it was a great show that they lost their shit at. i would have been happy paying $40 to see it... i paid more, but still, always awesome to see a great rock band play a great rock show. so- conclusion... out of 10 HUZZAHS (10 being the most HUZZAH-WORTHY): 6.5 HUZZAHS!
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