Set List: Long Road, Corduroy, Brain of J, Red Mosquito, In Hiding, Animal, Given To Fly, Lukin, Wishlist, MFC, Not For You, Alive, Nothingman, State of Love and Trust, Present Tense, Hail Hail, Jeremy, Do The Evolution; 1st Encore: Dissident, Even Flow, Better Man/(Save It For Later), Push Me Pull Me, Rearviewmirror; 2nd Encore: Last Kiss by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers (1964), Rockin' In The Free World

Push Me, Pull Me sound clip: Magata3@aol.com

BGIRL59@aol.com:
I can just say I don't believe it!!!! Got back from the Phillie show just a few hours ago..and have to tell you it had to be one of the greatest shows I've ever seen...EVER...can't give you the whole set list but my personal highlights were Present Tense and Push Me Pull Me, and of course the last encore... Rockin' in the Free World.....the guys were loose and happy....Mike was in rockin form....Ed....well Ed was The Man....I saw the show in Phoenix last month....which was great, but this show had to be TEN times better...THANK YOU PEARL JAM..WE LOVE YOU!!!! And thanks Iggy...and thanks Mudhoney....A show that will never be forgotten!!!!

Magata3@aol.com:
Hmmm,....this sucks. I can never go to another concert. there's just no point. I'm 18 years old, and as far as live music is concerned, I hit my peak two hours ago. Let me think of how to put this......did you ever see a kids Sex-Ed book? As I remember from middle school, they attempt to explain an orgasm,...but it's pretty much impossible,...because if you haven't felt it you haven't felt it.....(hope i'm not being graphic here,....deal with it) I just had a two hour long musical orgasm,...I cant explain it,...it was unreal. That's what I keep telling people: unreal.

Iggy Pop got the crowd going,....I was 10 rows back just about right in front of Stoney,....great view,....the fans were AWESOME,......EVERYONE was into it,....even more than last night I would say. Opened with Long Road...on to Corduroy, Brain of J, Red Mosquito (GREAT to hear that song live,....) In Hiding (again,..GREAT,...the crowd sang along remarkably well!!),...Animal. throughout these hard rockin' tunes,...you would have thought it was 1992 or something....Ed was TOTALLY intense,....I know he's ALWAYS intense,....but this was a sight to see....flipping around the mic stand,...the whole 9. Jeff came out in a hat,....and was jumping and moving around MUCH more than last night,....just like the old days. Given To Fly is next,....with a stupendous (I'm running out of adjectives,...bear with me...) crowd reaction,...ALL hands in the air,...everyone singing. Lukin is of course dedicated to Mudhoney,...then Wishlist "wish i was as fortunate as you" ,...I never thought I'd be so fortunate as to see a show like this one. MFC and Not For You,....the latter again with an overwhelming crowd response. overwhelming crowd response,....that's what I thought at AT point was overwhelming,.....next was Alive. Ridiculous. Held up my SOLAT shirt,...first chance I had with the lights on the crowd. Duo-Tone out,....Jeff on a stool,....Daughter??? nope. Nothingman, if my memory serves me right,...with a video of water playing on the back drop. STATE OF LOVE AND TRUST!!! I've been waitin'' so long to hear this song live,...it totally made the show. Intense.

Ed stops to say how sometimes he thinks living in the present tense might NOT be best,...with all the crazy stuff going on (or something to that effect),..and of course,...we get to hear Present Tense, a favorite from No Code, and a sight to see and a sound to hear live, to say the very least. Hail Hail,...Jeremy,..with Ed asking for help singing in the middle,..Do The Evolution to close the set. You know, if ANY other band screwed up the lyrics in the middle of a song, I'd probably think they sucked,...but for some reason when Ed does it, it seems to work fine. instead of "i'm a thief, i'm a liar" he does the first verse over again,.... they barely miss a beat,...he smiles and throws his hands up,...and just gets right back in the groove. End of set.

Not a really loud ovation from the crowd, until the band got back on stage,....kind of disappointed at that after all the energy everyone displayed all show, I was expecting us to bring the house down,....guess everyone was getting tired. By the time the band was back though, it didn't show,....Instead of doing "requests" from people in the front,...Ed has the camera for the big outside screens zoom in on the encore list. and asks the people in the back if that's ok. (of course,...it is) Dissident,....another somewhat surprise,....another great reaction from the crowd. "here's a new one" for some reason I fall for Ed's tricks,..and got all excited for a second about a new tune,....I should've known better. Even Flow. Insane solo from Mike,...what else is new?? I haven't mentioned his name today,...only because I think it's now just understood that he absolutely sets the stage in fire nightly. "a nice couple of nights here,..wherever we are....is this philadelphia or new jersey? philadelphia??" {massive applause,...even though it's in NJ}

Ed says the next song was written before they played at DOBBS,...(local club were they last played here,...in '91 i think) Everyone cheers and Ed says, "there were only 30 people there,...so stop lying!!" Better Man follows with a LOOOONG Save It For Later tag,...at least longer than I've ever heard,...and it was unbelievable. At this point Mike (I think) strummed this little A-minor guitar part in between songs that he used to do right before Garden,....I got REALLY excited,..but no such luck,...had to "settle" for Push Me, Pull Me!!!! [aif] [wav] (40 sec.) Equally surprising and exciting!!! Ed loses track of the lyrics "aww,...fuck, i forget the rest" after an attempt at improvising something new. It was a definite experience to hear this tune live, and it actually rocked toward the end. I think it's fair to note that Ed seemed to have a particularly dirty mouth tonight,...inserting "fuck" into more than one song,....In Hiding, Not For You, and SOLAT, to name a few. Rearviewmirror,....with Ed starting the intro real slow,..then speeding up to normal speed. The intensity continues,...maybe at its highest level so far at the end of RVM,...with the strobes going off,...the WHOLE band all over the place,...Ed on this knees/back on the floor pounding on his guitar. End of encore.

Thank God,...they come back. Ed introduces Last Kiss as "an old fifties song we learned before we left seattle" and they first they played with Cameron. This was the first time I'd heard this in its entirety...it was beautiful, slowed the pace a little. And the pace needed to be slowed, because EVERY last OUNCE of energy in both the band and the audience was absolutely squeezed out when Rockin' in the Free World was played. and I mean PLAYED,..like it was MEANT to be played. I saw Neil last summer,...he was amazing,...this just blew him out of the water. No questions. No doubt. Every hand in the air people standing on chairs and jumpimg madly as Mike wailed, and Eddie stood on the monitors and waved at us, smiling. The whole band was smiling (well,...Mike was practically making out with his amp and monitors,...so I couldn't really tell, but other than that) it was one of those musical moments where everything connects and it feels AMAZING.

Well, that's it for me: as an earlier review so eloquently stated: "i can die now" :) Thanks to everyone who wrote to trade, I'm workin'' on all the deals now, and if you guys who want tonight's show (8/29/98) could wait a week or so and mail me that would be great (I'm in the middle of working out ALOT of deals now) Thanks alot, Later.