Pearl Jam finally came on stage about 20 minutes later, and were given the most shrilling welcome I have ever seen in a concert with such a small attendance (room capacity was only 6000 people, so both shows were sold out months ago and scalpers were selling tickets at 4 to 8 times their face value). They opened with "release" and, somewhat annoyingly, you couldn't even hear Vedder clearly over the crowd singing. The mood was set for the rest of the night. People were being carried on top of the crowd right to the front of the stage, everybody was tightly crammed together, yet everybody was immersed in a brotherly atmosphere. Everybody knew just about every song by heart and sang along.

Pearl Jam insisted heavily on songs from Ten, which was fine since I believe it is most people's favorite album. I won't describe the whole setlist, nor all the highlights, since everything was so perfect. After Daughter, Vedder told us they had come from the hotel looking for the place of the show, and were kind of lost when they saw a long orderly line of people forming along a street, all singing together *perfectly* (the emphasis was Vedder's) the next song they were going to play. "jeremy" followed, and the crowd went even wilder. After the song ended, everybody went on applauding and chanting, and amidst it people started chanting "portugal, portugal!" (can't figure out why - had never seen it happen before - but I guess that it was a way to express our welcome) and PJ enjoyed it so much that they joined us - Mike, Jeff and Jack playing and Vedder making up some lines to sing in the middle of our improvised chorus. Everybody just adored them for that.

A bit later, during the interval between two songs, everybody started singing spontaneously the chorus from "alive". Vedder remarked there was no doubt about it (us being alive) and announced they were going to play a new song called "black, red, yellow" before that one. Nice one, no doubt. "alive" was eventually played before they left - needn't say how much we appreciated it.

The encore started with Smile; they then went on to "black" (THE one I was MOST hoping to hear) and "state of love and trust". Vedder then announced something "slow and little known", and then started "what the f*** is this world..." - yep, "porch". During the solo, he ran from one end of the stage to another and finally climbed to the top of the loudspeaker pile, from which (about 10 feet height) he stage-dived. It didn't go quite as he must have predicted it, though. Although the crowd did catch him, they didn't carry him back to the stage - they pulled him down and several tried (and succeeded) to rip some bits off his t-shirt, until security managed to drag him away from them. He went back on stage for the end of the song, and the show ended there.

I won't bother you with a ton of adjectives to tell you how immensely I enjoyed it - you can imagine if you went to some of the other shows. I'll just say I had the chance to sell my ticket for the second show for 6 times its face value and chose to go back the next day instead - without a shadow of regret. I'll tell you about it later.