Pearl Jam 09

Paul and I went to Pearl Jam! First time in 11 years that they've been to Utah. I think it had something to do with Utah being very republican and PJ's intense dislike of former President GWB. Pretty dumb if it's true, and they went to AZ in that time frame because we saw them in AZ in 2003, and AZ is just as conservative as UT, so who knows. All speculation aside, here's the skinny on the show. The E-center stinks for concerts. They had seats on the floor - the GA section, if you will, and had them packed in with nasty little security guards making sure we didn't spill out into the aisles, heaven forbid we actually enjoy a rock concert, jeez. Pearl Jam then proceeded to play a lot of odd song choices! They have a new album but really only played 2-3 songs off of it. Paul and I were about to get ticked when they left the stage the first time and had only played about 1 of our favorite songs and 2-3 other good songs. BUT, Eddie and the gang had some surprises for us. They came back for a pretty good 5-song encore, but them came out for a 2nd encore and nailed a few more of our favorite songs - Alive and Yellow Ledbetter, for those who know the band! So, they made up for it in a lot of ways. Here's the playlist:

Main Set: Of the Girl, Breakerfall, Hail Hail, Severed Hand, The Fixer, Low Light, Marker in the Sand, Even Flow, Unthought Known, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, Got Some, Given to Fly, Immortality, Satan's Bed, Amongst the Waves, Do the Evolution, Blood

Encore 1: Bee Girl, Just Breathe (stupid song, see below for explanation), Red Mosquito w/ Ben Harper, Daughter/Sympathy for the Devil/W.M.A., Supersonic, Spin the Black Circle

Encore 2: I Believe in Miracles, Crazy Mary, Alive, Yellow Ledbetter

One down side was the goof who got up on stage because he had written a letter to the band, and went ahead and compared his love for his girlfriend to the energy one feels when you go to your first Pearl Jam concert (really? How touching - barf!!!) then he actually asked her to marry him in front of all of us. I mean really? Paul and I were seriously worried that this was going to eat into real music time. Luckily it didn't, jerk. We were all yelling for her to say NO, she said yes and Eddie saranaded them with some song I didn't care about. :-D

So, we left the concert not completely satisfied with our experience, but they ended on such a good note that we didn't really mind. Though, anyone who schedule shows in that venue when the weather is still good enough for Usana has to have their sanity questioned, it's ridiculous. Here are some pics, though the RiPhone's camera kinda blows.

This is actually the huge finale, but the pics loaded backwards, and I don't have time to fix it right now. They had a bunch of different signs in back, and they were constantly changing, kinda cool

Mike McCready blowing us away with Alive. The guy can play some serious guitar!

Eddie Vedder on Alive, the guy went almost 2 full hours and never faltered or sounded bad once (no thanks to the sound system at e-center - it is not good, my ears didn't even hurt. :-D )

The RiPhone doesn't do self-portraits so great with the touch screen and this is the best I could do, I'll keep working on it...