Pearl Jam – MSG 1 24th June 2008 Review

When Eddie Vedder indicated early on that the band had permission to play later than curfew, there was already a tremendous energy in the crowd. It turned out that Pearl Jam’s first night at Madison Square Garden was a real rocking evening, clocking in at nearly 2 hours and 40 minutes. With a setlist composed of mostly older songs, b-sides and several covers thrown in for good measure, Pearl Jam masterfully engaged the sizable arena audience. Whether a person only knew songs from the first albums or had been a diehard fan club member for over 10 years, there was something for everyone.

Beginning the night with “Hard to Imagine”, an old rarity, the band followed up tightly with a couple more aggressive songs before pausing to speak to the crowd. Ed prefaced the next song (“All Night”) as a song they hadn’t played live until recently and tonight wanted to try an experiment with. So he invited out three members of the crew as backup singers; they stood swinging their arms and hips like a soul group. Later they came back out to support two more songs, including “Who You Are” an eastern inflected song with raga touches that rejoined the setlist this tour after a ten-year hiatus. The unique take or the one song they might not have heard even after seeing Pearl Jam a dozen times over are the moments that diehards crave.

Even with a few other downtempo songs, like “Faithfull” and “Elderly Woman”, nothing broke the momentum as the band tore through the night. Whether it was the bands intensity fueling the crowd or vice versa there seemed no end to the energy. People shook their hands in encouragement, raised them in defiance and outstretched them in fervent passion. Songs like “Even Flow”, “Given to Fly” and “Do the Evolution” were unrelenting and only lead the crowd into the first break. They returned to play more, including a few covers like The Ramones “I Believe in Miracles” with C.J. Ramone guesting on bass, before leaving the stage one more time after the rousing “Alive”. Even then people moved toward the stage; no one presumed that was the finale.

They returned for “All Along the Watchtower” and closed with “Indifference” as the house lights shone bright, allowing every attendee to feel like part of the moment. Pearl Jam is undeniably among the premier live rock acts around and their first night set the bar very high for the second night at MSG. Before “Corduroy”, Ed had said that they were happy to be back in the city proper again and that the audience was causing the stage to shake. That was probably because the crowd was driven mad from waiting five years to see them play MSG again.

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Make sure to check out and support local radio, like NEXT on 107.1 the Peak!

see also my friends review at Relix (with my photo attached)

~ by arakias on June 25, 2008.