At Pearl Jam in Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Well they were the reason I was sticking around NL despite all inclinations to leave. And they were totally worth it.
I caught the early shuttle into Amsterdam, and spent the morning buying a few wedding presents and trying to figure out where to store my stuff. I wouldn’t be getting back from the concert till around 2am and I need to leave for the airport for my flight to London at 6am, so it didn’t seem practical to get a hostel. But turns out the luggage storage at Amsterdam Centraal is closed overnight and doesn’t reopen till 7am which would put me seriously on the bubble for making it to my flight in time. So eventually I checked into Bob’s hostel cause of its relative cheapness and proximity to the train station. Then I hopped the train and headed out.
Weather today was good. Warmer, still cloudy but no rain and I got to the show just in time to buy my beer tokens and get a good spot right by the barrier for the first band of the day. With four bands on the bill and three of them ones I wanted to see it was like a mini festival.
First up was Satellite Party, Perry Farrell’s new band. I had never heard any of their stuff but it was ok cause they opened with some classic JA and played Been Caught Stealing halfway through the set which was fun. Their original stuff was fun. Not mind-blowing but good. Perry was wearing some ridiculous outfit and rambling so I assume he was on drugs. Though I met him once a few years back when I was working The Jammys and he seems like a real strange dude even off drugs.
The band featured a backup singer who I don’t think sang at any point in time. She just danced around shaking her ass and simulating fellatio on Perry. So really my only complaints about their set (other than no Jane Says) was the enforced brevity, a mere 35 minutes.
The second act got 45. They were the Kings of Leon, a band that I have heard nothing but good things about but have never gotten around to seeing. They were pretty sweet. Very much the throwback rock sound that hipsters eat up so much these days and the lead singer/guitarist looked like he might care a little too much about ensuring he looked like a 70s rock star but they could wail.
The highlight of their set was definitely Vedder himself coming out to add vocals to a KoL song (he’s wearing a brown shirt in the picture)
The third band on the bill, who got an hour, were Incubus. Jeff used to try to get me to listen to Incubus and I was vaguely aware that I knew their hit Drive but I couldn’t remember how it went. Well I remember now and it was only so-so and that song was much better than the rest of the set. Incubus did not rate a picture.
But that gave me time to use the last of my drink tokens (and watch them mass poor the Dixie cups of beer using some crazy machine) and to check out the merch table which had AWESOME one-off concert posters. I went back after the show to get one (I didn’t want to have to worry about crushing the thing during PJ’s set) and they were sold out. Sigh.
Pearl Jam exceeded my expectations in everyway that the Chili Peppers failed earlier in the week. The energy of the band and the crowd was intense, Eddie was on and it was all around awesome.
Here’s the show:
Set 1
Release
Hail Hail
World Wide Suicide
Whipping
Do the Evolution
Given to Fly
Not For You
Wishlist
Even Flow
Insignificance
Unemployable
Jeremy
Nothingman
Better Man / Save it for Later
Corduroy
Why Go
Encore I:
Comatose
Daughter / Another Brick in the Wall / War
Leash
Rearviewmirror
Encore II:
No More
Blood
Alive
Rockin’ in the Free World
Yellow Ledbetter.
Vedder can get a little Bono sometimes but he kept it more or less reigned in and genuinely seemed overcome by the response they were getting from the crowd. They deserved it, they not only played the classics, they tore them up. Better Man nearly killed me. They just made you feel like you were 14 again discovering them for the first time.
(Last two pictures courtesey of pearljam.com)
And the crowd absolutely refused to leave till they came out for a second encore. We must have stood there cheering for almost 10 minutes. And what a second encore. Alive > RtFW > Ledbetter? Unbeatable three song combo.
Even leaving was less of a pain than the RHCP, the buses all worked and I was back on a train by 11:39 rolling into Amsterdam at 1:30 which was perfectly timed to allow me to get some food and wander the streets one last time before returning to the hostel.
Since I am leaving so early tomorrow I had to get back before the desk closed at three to turn in my keys and get my deposit back.
It was back at the hostel that I got my final shock of the night. Remember me talking about SELAF the American style football league based mainly in the former Yugoslavia who I wanted to see when I was in Vienna? I overslept and missed it but apparently some players from the league have found my entry on it and are not happy with how I characterized it. You can click HERE to see the original post and their comments.
Man, third tier footballers in Serbia, Mormon missionary mothers in Arizona, ex-pat Springfield writers in Tennessee and random friends of Trop’s? This blog needs a velvet rope; right now apparently anyone can read it. Damn rabble.