10.3.05:Pearl Jam@Wachovia Center

It's been over a year since I've been to a major venue to see a show. My triumphant return to the "scene" was in grand fashion, as it was Pearl Jam's last show of their North American tour and I had the pleasure of seeing the show with cohorts Richard "Don't call me dick" Gaynor and Sue "Pass the dutchie on the left AND right hand side" Marino.
You see, Rich is a senior member of the Ten Club, the auspicious fan club of Pearl Jam and hinted at our drive down that the seats would be awesome. We headed out from hoboken at 1:30, making amazing time and arrived at the hotel right outside philly at promptly 3. We drank to drink and drunk to be drunk, and soon dusk descended, finding us walking to the show to find out what kind of seats we had. Rich went up to willcall and came back with 2 tickets on the 13th row! After locating our seats we found ourselves 13th rows back on the ground level between Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder with a perfect view of the rest of the band. The venue was alot smaller than I had anticipated which was fine since it felt more intimate. The one gripe i had is that the acoustics weren't as good as they should have been. Often during the set I found myself straining to make out the muddy vocals of Eddie Vedder.
Set list: Wash, Hail Hail, Brain of J., Spin The Black Circle, Given To Fly, Sad, Alone, Even Flow, Green Disease, Faithfull, Whipping, Not For You, Leatherman, Better Man, Nothingman, Once, Bleed For Me, Blood

1st encore: Around the Bend, Harvest Moon w/Sleater Kinney, Hard to Imagine, Crown Of Thorns, Crazy Mary, Alive

2nd encore: Last Kiss, In My Tree, Do The Evolution, Sonic Reducer, Little Sister, Leaving Here, Rocking in the Free World w/Sleater Kinney, Yellow Ledbetter

My favorite songs of the show were Once, blood, Crazy mary- where a techinical glitch spooked eddie and he jokinly refused to continue the song unless the crowd did first.
Mike McCready also had a pretty cool solo during even flow where he played the guitar on his back ala Hendrix:

For those of you who do not know the "leash story" Pearl Jam hasn't played this song
for many years. They almost played it at a prior show but the rest of the band members mouthed to eddie that they had forgotten to play the song. So at this show, shouts of "leash! leash!" bounced off the band at various pauses between songs, but sadly this amazing song was not played. They ended with yellow ledbetter, which of course is a PJ classic where they were joined by Sleater Kinney ( a band that I could have done without seeing)

These chicks look like any other skanks I see at the bars on the weekend. Not impressed at all. The experience has inspired me to see many more shows, instead of doing the same thing every weekend- drink at some gay lounge, wakeup feeling like shit,rinse, repeat. As always comments are welcome and appreciated ! :)

10/1/2005: Emergency Service@Crash Mansion

I finally got the oppurtunity to see my brother's band play. He had taken an ad out in craigslist to cure an itch to start drumming again and was contacted by a group called Emergency Service. Not necessarily the most unique sound (see: 2 skinnee J's, 311) but their lyrics and delivery certainly make up for that aspect. And let's face it - there are few bands out there today that are doing anything besides the 3 chord verse chorus verse anyway. The group consists of 2 lead singers, one of which doubles as a rhythym guitarist and also moonlights on keys for a song or 2, a lead guitarist, a bassist, and fro on drums.
The mc's are white so you have to take their music with a grain of salt. In fact one of them hails from Montana, which might be somewhat comical if their lyrics were in fact of the ganster rap persuasion. This is however not the case and they manage to pull of some pretty light and often times funny dual vocal assaults.
The first few bands that went on had a spattering of loyal groupies, but it was nothing compared to when these guys went on. The whole stage area was packed and surprisingly lips were moving in synch to the fast and furious vocals. There was a diverse crowd of half naked black guys, investment bankers, young hotties, and fat groupies.

The songs themselves were a mix of hip-hop/funk and alt rock and as far as I could tell were all originals, complete with drum solos, guitar solos and power chord goodness. The main MC was full of energy which seemed to jive pretty well with the rest of the band and the crowd. I was pretty impressed and realized even further that I need to get my ass into a band and fast!