The Wayward Cynic

Quicken Loans Arena – Cleveland, OH
Opener: My Morning Jacket
Attendance: 19,000

Pre-Set: Last Kiss (Ed solo), It Makes No Difference (Ed w/My Morning Jacket)

Main Set: Betterman, Given To Fly, Worldwide Suicide, Life Wasted, Severed Hand, Faithfull, Unemployable, Gone, Daughter/(It’s OK), MFC, Immortality, Lukin, Do The Evolution, Spin The Black Circle, Porch

Encore 1: Wasted Reprise, Thumbing My Way, Inside Job, Black/(We Belong Together), Alive

Encore 2: Go, Comatose, U, Don’t Gimme No Lip, Smile, Why Go, Fuckin’ Up, Yellow Ledbetter

I tend to get a little long-winded on these things and I’m running out of superlatives to describe the band’s performance, so I’m going to keep this oh-so-brief.

Upon arriving in Cleveland, the first thing you’re gonna notice downtown is the overabundance of these incredibly annoying, mosquito-like creatures that are affixed to windows on every building. I made the mistake of leaving my car window’s cracked overnight and woke up to find a hundred or so of the little buggers all over the interior of my car. They don’t put that in the chamber of commerce brochure for Cleveland, do they?

We had dinner before the show at a local bar and restaurant, Flannery’s (which featured aforementioned bugs on establishment’s windows) and ordered a burger. Much to my delight (I’m easily amused), the burger was topped with an avocado! Yahoo, what a coincidence! This could only bode well for the night to come.

I met a few people from a Pearl Jam message board I occasionally post on, and then it was on to Quicken Loans Arena for the show. It’s a cozy, little venue; it felt much smaller than HSBC Arena in Buffalo, but appeared to have the same number of seats.

I wasn’t in my seat for more than a few minutes when Ed came onstage to thunderous cheers from the half-full building (at that point), ready to do a preset. He did a solo version of Last Kiss during the preset, which is exactly where I prefer Last Kiss to be, if it has to be played at all. I’m a little tired of it, but that’s what happens when you’ve listened to every album, song and bootleg a thousand times each.

Opener My Morning Jacket came onstage after Ed finished, but Vedder stayed to do the first number with the band, It Makes No Difference. Nice, rocking number. MMJ continued to rock after Ed left, almost well enough to make me think about checking out their albums. Good stuff and I recommend you check them out at some point.

Pearl Jam came onstage to their typical roaring standing ovation, and proceeded to start with the rarely-used-as-opener Betterman. As always, the crowd did a lot of the singing. Nice, surprising start to the show. That was followed up by the standard 3-song set of new album tunes: World Wide Suicide, Life Wasted and Severed Hand. I expected a somewhat repetetive (from other nights) setlist at that point, but I was pleasantly surprised when they went into Faithfull, which made its debut on this tour. I’ll always dig stuff off of Yield, regardless of how much it’s played, but when you get a rare one like Faithfull, I’m extra happy.

A haunting rendition of Gone (off the new album) led into Daughter, which isn’t such a surprise. But when the band started into the It’s OK (by Dead Moon) tag, it became something special. The last time the full It’s OK tag was played was in Jones Beach in 2003, I believe, and it was a treat to hear it in person live. I felt like we were in for a special night by this point.

I appeared to be right when they played a tight but soft version of Immortality before launching into a blistering assault with Lukin, Do The Evolution, Spin The Black Circle and Porch to end the main set. The entire crowd was in a frenzy by the 10th minute of Porch.

The first encore was very laid back, highlighted by a soulful Black tagged by a brief “We Belong Together.” The band kicked it back into high gear with Alive to end the encore. The second encore kicked ass right off the bat with Go and not letting up through Comatose. The rarely-played U came next and then, guitarist Stone Gossard took the mic to sing lead vocals on his Don’t Gimme No Lip. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the lead vocal stylings of Stone Gossard. You can’t help but laugh (with him, of course).

Smile followed that up and yes, folks, I was smiling by that point. It’s a song that isn’t played nearly often enough live. A now-standard Why Go led into Neil Young’s Fuckin’ Up, which would have closed the set from there, but it looked like lead guitarist Mike McCready wanted to stick around for one more and eased into Yellow Ledbetter.

Well, I guess that wasn’t too brief, but I strove for conciseness (is that a word?). Couldn’t have asked for a much better setlist–lots of relatively rare stuff that debuted for the first time this tour. Another fantastic show that only feeds my obsession with the music. See you in Camden.

Two Feet Thick notes:

The band is playing Cleveland and Detroit consecutively, coinciding with the NBA Playoffs pitting the Cleveland Cavaliers vs. the Detroit Pistons. “That last song is called ‘Unemployable’ which I’m sure the state of Ohio knows plenty about. It’s a beautiful place, but we’ll always make room for you in Seattle if you ever want to come out. Then you’ll be jobless and wet and depressed, but you’ll be out drinkin with us, so it’ll be alright.” Continuing, Ed introduces “Gone”, saying that “there’s a line in a song called ‘Dissident’ that says something about ‘escape is never the safest path’ or the easiest way, but this song kinda explores that idea, it’s called ‘Gone’.” “It’s OK” returns as a “Daughter” tag (at a slightly higher pitch than previous versions) with the entire band playing a slightly different arrangement. Ed modifies the lyrics somewhat, “This is my plea / this is my need / this is my time for standing free / this is my stand / in this world so demanding of me”. “Immortality” starts with a few bars of finger-picking guitar, similar to some previous versions. Ed gets a big roar from the crowd during “Do The Evolution” with the lyric change “Those ignorant Indians .. they’re a great team, right?” An adventurous 10-minute “new Porch” begins with an even slower-than-usual start by Ed before it kicks in with the second verse. Ed does band intros during the jam, including “on bass, and rooting for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Mr. Jeff Ament” and “the engine with so many horsepower there’s no number, Matt Cameron on the drumkit”, “from the jungle to Cleveland, Mr. Boom Gasper on the B3”, and “sometimes you don’t pick your friends but he’s one of my best friends, Stone Gossard on guitar”. After the main set, Ed says that “it’s interesting, the place we go next is Detroit and we’re in no hurry…” which starts many chants including boos and eventually Ed picks up on an anti-Detroit chant, “I got it … I can’t repeat it because of the bootlegs and all, (Detroit will) get a hold of it. (long pause) I can say it once, ‘Pistons Suck'” to loud cheers. “Thumbing My Way” is played for the only time during the first leg of this tour. Starting the second encore, Ed wants to buy everyone a drink for being such a good crowd and beckons the arena staff to “open up the beer stands”. Ed modifies the “Comatose” lyrics “Blood on all the pistons / Fuck the Detroit Pistons! / Feel it rising (sorry!) / Yeah, next stop falling (sorry Detroit!) / Feel it rising / Comatose, with no fear of falling”. “U”, “Don’t Gimme No Lip” and “Smile” have the band “taking care of a couple of requests that (they’ve) been seeing” so far on Leg One. After “Fuckin’ Up”, Ed tells the crowd about a dream he had where the moon exploded and “crumbled and disappeared into nothing”, creating a world of chaos with the absence of the tides”. He continues that he thinks maybe the moon in his dream could be like “democracy”, and “it looks like it’s full right now, but if we don’t start paying attention … and looking at it thinking it’s beautiful, it’s just gonna disappear like this on us if we don’t participate, and you would know better here in Ohio – the deciding vote” (the vote tally in the state of Ohio decided the winner in the 2004 Presidential election).

Cleveland Image Gallery

Pearl Jam in Cleveland image gallery: link.

Indians vs. Pirates image gallery: link.

Pearl Jam in Cleveland video: link.

Enjoy. I am tired.

Air Canada Centre – Toronto, ON
Opening Band: My Morning Jacket
Attendance: 20,000

Main Set: Release, World Wide Suicide, Life Wasted, Severed Hand, Hail Hail, Unemployable, Dissident, Even Flow, Corduroy, I Am Mine, Low Light, (Toronto Improv)/Whipping, You Are, I Got Shit/(Cinnamon Girl), Betterman/(Save It For Later), Jeremy, Marker In The Sand, Black, Rearviewmirror

Encore 1: Wasted Reprise, Man Of The Hour, Elderly Woman, State Of Love And Trust, Do The Evolution, Alive

Encore 2: (Improv)/Go, Happy Birthday (to Sean Kinney), Crazy Mary, Fuckin’ Up, Indifference, Yellow Ledbetter/(Beast Of Burden)

Much of Wednesday was spent reflecting on Tuesday night’s show and walking around the city of Toronto in search of activities to collect fantastic, new anecdotes for this tale. Alas, we walked around a ton, we did nothing more than go to the Royal Ontario Museum and have dinner in the upscale 360° restaurant at the top of the CN Tower. No outlandish anecdotes featuring gunfights or drunken brawling or naked women. But, ya know, come to think of it, there may have been one or all of those after the show. I’ll get to that in a bit.

My Morning Jacket opened again, very similar-sounding set to the previous night’s, but very good all around. The lead singer is a nut, and his high, wailing vocals can induce chills. Very intense performance, and you could tell right off the bat that tonight’s crowd was going to be much better than Tuesday’s.

Master/Slave played again as the band hit the stage, and they started into what is probably my favorite opener: Release. The crowd was into it right from the get-go, matching Ed’s singing line for line, everyone screaming in unison with Ed’s soaring vocals. Tonight’s crowd had already blown Tuesday’s out of the water by the end of the song. I should probably note that my judgment of events might’ve been impaired by this point (yes, this early in the show) due to the copious amounts of wine drank at 360°. The ridiculous amount of ganja-smoking in the arena didn’t help matters any further. The band, in addition to the lasers mentioned in last night’s review, had smoke machines in the arena for certain songs, but I’m not sure they were necessary on Wednesday. The thick clouds of weed smoke more than took care of any atmosphere the band was going for with the machines.

After Release, the setlist followed much the same pattern as last night’s, with World Wide Suicide, Severed Hand and Life Wasted. They were all great, but I was hoping for the songs they hadn’t played on the new album, Army Reserve in particular. Ah well, I can’t complain too much, as they all sounded great. Unemployable was a big improvement from last night’s rendition, the band in tune and together this time. Dissident was played, and while I know it’s a popular song and crowd favorite, I’m ready for it to be retired. It just doesn’t have the same gravitas and emotion after having heard it so many times over the years, both in studio and live.

The highlight of the main set was I Got Id (or Shit, depending upon your preference), quite possibly my favorite Pearl Jam song, written along with Neil Young. After the outstanding performance of the song, Ed let us all in on “a secret,” and played the chorus to I Got Id and followed it with the chorus to Neil Young’s Cinammon Girl, pointing out their uncanny similarity. Very cool moment.

Also in the main set was the rarely-played Low Light, and the infrequency of its appearance in setlists is probably due to the fact that the band screws it up every time they play it. Not tonight; they nailed it. They also nailed the hell out of Whipping, which incited the crowd into a stark-raving frenzy, myself included. It was preceded by a short improv, featuring the lyrics “I don’t wanna go…from To-ron-toooo! Don’t wanna gooo!”

The encores were great, exceeding last night’s if that’s possible. Ed made note of two flags in the audience, one Canadian (two rows in front of me) and one Brazilian, in the course of speaking about the world and what’s going on. He told each group that they should get together and “make babies…or something” in the interests of world relations.

At some point, I’m not sure if it was at the end of Rearviewmirror or some other extended-jam song, Ed threw his mic stand up in the air at the end of the song and it hit Jeff right on his foot. He hobbled off the stage with the rest of the band, all of them laughing. It was clear at this time that Ed was absolutely wasted. He’d been swigging out of his wine bottle the entire night, and I think he broke out a second bottle about halfway through the set. It got so bad that he was laughing at something keyboardist Boom Gaspar said or did just before Yellow Ledbetter. Ed struggled to get out the lyrics over his laughter, finally getting it together to sing a Beast of Burden (Rolling Stones) tag on the end and put an emotional capper on the incredible 2-night stand in Toronto. Lots of smiles and laughs all around as the band made their curtain call and left the stage. This band gives it everything they’ve got at each show, and May 20th in Cleveland can’t get here soon enough.

Quick notes: we made our way to some dance club after the show, filled with lots of hoochies and large black dudes who may or may not have been bouncers. The obnoxious DJ persuaded a bunch of girls up onto the bar with the promise of free shots. Unfortunately, I’m not sure anyone wanted to see the girls that did go up actually up on the bar. Anyway, I got my dance and drink on as only I can. I was tempted to start breakdancing, but thought better of it after realizing I’m an out-of-shape white guy in a ghetto dance club. The night was capped off with a bag of chips and a Snapple as only Toronto can provide at 3 in the morning.

Two Feet Thick notes:

The band hits the stage at 8:50PM local time, entering the stage with “Master/Slave” playing as the intro music over the P.A. “Severed Hand” now features stage effects including smoke and lasers. The first set clocks in at 100 minutes! “Wasted Reprise” premieres at this show, seguing into “Man of the Hour”. During “I Got Shit”, a drumstick flew out of Matt’s hand, hit Ed’s leg and landed in front of Stone. He looked down and grabbed it, holding it up excitedly as though he were in the audience and caught it. After “I Got Shit”, Ed told the crowd he had a secret to tell, that this won’t be on the bootlegs and first sang the chorus of “I Got Shit” by himself, then sang “I wanna be with a Cinnamon Girl, I want to live the rest of my life with a Cinnamon Girl”, hinting the similarity in the two choruses. During “State of Love and Trust” where Ed often goes over and head-butts or leans again Mike, Ed looked at Mike and leaned down like he was going to go over, but didn’t. Ed mentioned that Sean Kinney’s birthday was coming up and told the crowd he was going to count to three, and then the crowd would say, “Happy birthday Sean!”. He said they’d send Sean a video of it so he could watch it on the tour bus (Sean Kinney’s birthday is May 27, and Alice In Chains will be on tour in Europe) . It was then that he asked Kevin to make sure he was filming. Ed spoke directly into the camera as if he were talking to Sean, saying something like, “Hey Sean, we’re just here hanging out in Toronto, and we just wanted to say something to you…”. He then counted to three, and the crowd yelled “Happy birthday Sean!”. The wine bottle was passed back quite a ways during “Crazy Mary”. At one point in the encore, Matt whipped his sticks into the crowd behind the stage (maybe a litte harder than he intended), and then briefly pretended he was a fan who got hit in the eyes and had a stick stuck in each. Towards the end of “Fuckin’ Up”, Ed tried to lay down on Stone’s monitors and fell off. He sat up and remained there, snapping his fingers along, and drank a Heineken after the wine bottle was empty. Ed laughs so much during “Yellow Ledbetter” that it interrupts his singing. He laughed because there was a banner to his left that caught his eye, it said : “Impeach Bush. Pearl Jam For President”.

Toronto Night II Image Gallery

Air Canada Centre – Toronto, ON
Opening Band: My Morning Jacket
Attendance: 20,000

Main Set: Severed Hand, World Wide Suicide, Life Wasted, Marker in the Sand, Given to Fly, Betterman, Even Flow, Unemployable, Garden, Sad, Corduroy, Present Tense, Daughter/(Blitzkrieg Bop)/(To Come*), Grievance, Not For You, Inside Job, Why Go

Encore 1: Do the Evolution, Jeremy, Come Back, Alive

Encore 2: Porch, Rockin’ In The Free World, Yellow Ledbetter

*Lenny Bruce monologue…yes, that Lenny Bruce

Back in Toronto again. I’d last seen the band live in September of last year in, that’s right, Toronto. Since then, we’ve gotten a fantastic, new album and the announcement of a tour opening up with a 2-night stand in the Air Canada Centre in–you guessed it–Toronto.

Making our way onto the arena floor, we couldn’t help but notice the Maple Leaf Stanley Cup banners hung in the rafters. As the Sabres are in the middle of a Cup run, I felt it appropriate to show proper respect to our Cup-winning neighbors to the North. I’ll have some thoughts and recap of the events in the city in my second review, but let’s get right to the first night’s show. Opener My Morning Jacket, a rock band with a wailing lead singer that looks like a hillbilly, they unsuccessfully tried to get the crowd going with a short 45-minute set, but looks like they were having fun doing so. They’re alright, but I don’t think I’ll be buying their music.

About 20 minutes after MMJ left the stage, the arena lights went dark and Master/Slave (you can hear it on Ten before Once and after Release) came over the speakers, inciting the crowd into a relatively restrained frenzy. The band came out, said hello, and a pre-recorded loop started playing the beginning of Severed Hand. After about 5 loops, the band launched into a tight but relatively low-key rendition of the song, a track off the new album. Notable about the performance was the introduction of lasers–yes, freakin’ laserbeams–accompanying the regular lighting. Very cool effect.

That quickly segued into more new albums cuts: World Wide Suicide, Life Wasted, and Marker in the Sand. I’m not sure if it was all of the new songs or people were just tired, but the crowd seemed a bit restrained and lethargic up until after they finished Given to Fly and went into Betterman. I’m wondering how many Canadians even know the new album is out.

Anyway, as I said, once Betterman hit, the crowd really started getting into it, arms raised, voices shouting the lryics in unison as Ed sat back and listened, as has become customary during the song. Next up was an unusually early Even Flow, featuring Mike McCready’s customary extended guitar soloing, during which he ran a lap or two around the stage. By his standards, the solo was relatively laid-back, and the band seemed to follow suit, never really letting loose until Grievance and Not For You later in the show. That being said, it sounded as if they’d been playing together for months. There have been first shows of past tours that make it sound painfully obvious they’re out of practice (Missoula ’03 comes to mind). Not in Toronto; they sounded great (perhaps with the exception of Unemployable, which needs some work).

Quite possibly the highlight of night one, the band played a McCready-penned track off the new album, Inside Job. Marking the first-ever live performance of the song, the band made it special and played with quiet intensity, no one moreso than Mike, who shredded on a double-necked guitar. The best place to be at any Pearl Jam concert is right in front of Mike, who develops a relationship with the crowd over the course of the night, always in the moment and owning it.

Other notables of the night included a reworked version of Garden and the old-school Why Go, neither having been played on tour for far too long. Come Back, off the new album, was played for the first time and made me rethink most of the crowd not having heard the new album, as everyone went nuts when they heard the first notes and worked themselves into delirious frenzy as Ed crescendoed to the closing “woo-oo-oo-oo’s” at the end of the song. Really special.

The highlight of this show, looking back, were the encores (of which Come Back was included). Hitting a high point with Porch in the 2nd encore, the band led up to it with blistering versions of Do The Evolution, Jeremy and Alive (with the now-traditional “HEY!” chant at its end). Porch is a song that got kind of lost in the shuffle the last few tours, but the band seems determined to bring it back to the forefront this tour, even giving us a glimpse of Pearl Jam’s early touring past–the days when Ed climbed scaffolding and lept into crowds from 15 feet above the mosh pits. They’re all a bit older and wiser now, but that didn’t stop Ed from climbing a speaker and whipping his mic through the air, just like the old days.

They closed, as expected, with Yellow Ledbetter and a promise to see each other tomorrow night for what promised to be another outstanding show.

Two Feet Thick notes:

This is the first night of the first leg of the tour in support of Pearl Jam. The band hits the stage at 8:50PM local time, entering the stage with “Master/Slave” playing as the intro music over the P.A. The “Daughter” tag is parts of “To Come”, a monologue by Lenny Bruce. In the middle of “Not For You” just before the “All that’s sacred…” line, Ed sings “Check up on it” twice from Beyonce’s “Check On It”(!). “Inside Job” premieres at this show, with Mike playing a double neck guitar. My Morning Jacket joined in smashing tambourines during “Rockin’ in the Free World” and two of the band members did backing vocals with Jeff and Stone. At the end of the show, all of the band members were throwing guitar/bass picks and Matt his drumsticks as usual. Stone, though, started throwing out a lot of merchandise (hats, t-shirts, etc.) into the crowd. He didnt scrunch them up, so they didn’t travel that far into the crowd. One time he tried to toss it over his head backwards and it ended up only a couple of feet behind him, amusing those up front.

Toronto Night I Image Gallery