Pearl Jam, May 3 at Sprint Center

I've been a Pearl Jam fan since the beginning (well, since Ten anyway) but somehow I just never got around to seeing them. I know their concerts are amazing and they've certainly done enough touring (probably to make up for no new hit songs on the radio or videos or conventional promotion) but I just never got a ticket. I should have seen their legendary show in Indio in '93 (the show that made Goldenvoice realize they could put on a big concert festival in that same place and that became the Coachella festival) but I only heard about it. And I might not have even still have seen them, not having friends that were all that interested and myself not being excited enough to go alone, until Seth texted me a few months before the band were going to do a show in Kansas City and he asked if I wanted to go. I didn't care enough to see them down the street from me but I could go all the way to Kansas to see them. I could go there and be in the company of real fans, I could see a show outside of L.A. (which often leads to better results), and I could make a trip out of the whole thing, ideally after I got done with a spate of work. (And it could maybe start to make up for the dates they played here, one of which was just after the Thom Yorke show that Seth had come to California to see with me, and if we hadn't planned his trip so hastily I might have looked at my calendar to see that going to that Pearl Jam show could have been possible, and it might not even have been a big deal that we missed them but that night's show was the one when Chris Cornell showed up and there was a bit of a Soundgarden/Temple of the Dog reunion, which would have blown our minds... if we had been there. As it was we just had to swallow our anger that we missed it so narrowly and resign ourselves to the fact that it just wasn't meant to be, apparently.) So Seth got the tickets and I planned the trip and it all went into motion. I had been wrestling with what I thought was a cold that had come and gone more than once in the weeks before then, each time coming back a bit worse, but every time I thought it was gone and when I got on the plane on that Monday morning I felt fine. As it turned out I also didn't have work around then so it was just a few days to get away. I had planned to be in Kansas for a few days and Seth and his family would be away during the day so I could some writing done and we could party at night. Seth, his wife Adrianne, and the always-reliable Bart picked me up at the airport and shortly after that we were in Kansas City for the show. Yeah, flying in the day of the concert was cutting it a bit short but I couldn't make it for earlier than that. Downtown Kansas City is lovely. And the arena where the show was is part of an entertainment complex that had bars and restaurants and huge courtyards for people to hang out and drink and that's where we had our pre-concert beers, after the beers in the underground parking lot shortly after we got there. We met up with more people, making the total of our party about eight. This is most notable because it was amazing that Seth got tickets for that many people all together, and as close to the stage as it was: We were about halfway down to the stage, though on the furthest right, seeing the profile of the guys all night, but at least close enough to see them well, though we could have been anywhere and the sound would have been great and it still would have rocked. We got there early enough to see a lot of opener Band of Horses' set, and there wasn't much for me, but maybe if they had played Replacements covers like I'd heard they do I might have perked up a little. I went into so much detail about the surrounding events around the concert since I don't remember a lot of the concert itself. It wasn't that I was drinking so much, though that had a tiny bit to do with it, but also that cold came back, starting as just a little sore throat at the beginning of the show, then at the end of Pearl Jam's two-hour set was a full-blown fever, achiness, exhaustion, a little dizziness, and just generally feeling very crappy (but no headaches or upset stomach or I wouldn't have been able to last at all). Pearl Jam did what was probably their standard show: some new songs (that went quickly), some ballads to give everyone a rest, local celebrities (here including a war vet that Eddie had collaborated on a song with), an encore that was stretched-out stadium-rousing singalongs. They actually played a lot more of the popular stuff than I thought they would. I had thought they were sick of playing "Alive" by now. I actually thought they would switch up the set-list a lot more, after seeing what they'd played at other shows, knowing how much material they have to choose from, and knowing that they make it a habit to make it interesting, but this show seemed like it could be their proto-typical concert, which is perfectly fine, but there wasn't a sense that there were any surprises and, thus, nothing particularly special that you wouldn't get at another spot. I wasn't so surprised that they played so much old stuff, since by this point they've already gone beyond the resistance to play the hits in favor of pleasing the audience, but I'm surprised that they stuck to so much of the first two albums, to the exclusion of some mid-career stuff that would have rocked, even if it was forgotten by the general public that used to be such fans. And I still don't understand that appeal of “Yellow Ledbetter”, not to mention its being so well-liked that they would end the show with it. But this isn't a criticism at all, and they would have had me for the entire rest of the set just because they hit us hard with "Animal" as the second song (and when I was feeling well enough to enjoy it, no less). This concert was probably old hat to the band by now but they can still rock, which is also just standard motions for such concert vets by now but they sell it well. And it was a great time. A show with friends who are dedicated to the music is as good a show as you can get. And the rest of the time I was in Kansas I was knocked-out completely by that cold, which turned out to be strep-throat so I'm surprised I could do anything at all besides be sick at the time.

Pearl Jam's set-list:
"Of The Girl"
"Animal"
"World Wide Suicide"
"Got Some"
"Unthought Known"
"Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town"
"MFC"
"Johnny Guitar"
"Amongst The Waves"
"Even Flow"
"Gods' Dice"
"Present Tense"
"Daughter"
"Wishlist"
"Insignificance"
"Do The Evolution"

"Off He Goes"
"Just Breathe"
"Given To Fly"
"The Fixer"
"Life Wasted"
"Porch"

"No More"
"Black"
"Better Man"
"Alive"
"Rockin' in the Free World" (Neil Young cover)
"Yellow Ledbetter"