Set List: Long Road, Corduroy, Brain of J, Given To Fly, Animal, Red Mosquito, Jeremy, Whipping, Wishlist, Lukin, Even Flow, Habit, MFC, Present Tense, Daughter/(My Heart Will Go On from Titanic by Celine Dion)/(Monkey Gone to Heaven), Better Man, Alive; 1st Encore: Go, Rearviewmirror, Do The Evolution, Hard To Imagine, Black, Last Kiss by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers (1964); 2nd Encore: Leaving Here

John Trout (trojp@rhodes.edu):
Getting to Knoxville was quite an experience. My friend, who lives in Austin, was driving to St. Louis for Labor Day. I called her up and said "hey, pearl jam isn't sold out yet in knoxville. you're already driving half way across the country, wanna go the other half?" After a few hours of discussion, we both agreed that we were insane and decided that she would pick me up in Memphis and we'd go see Pearl Jam. Seven hours there, a few hours in concert, then seven hours back. We did it all without falling asleep at the wheel...bonus!

When we arrived, the lights were on and it was about seven thirty. We sit down (the last minute seats we got were sixth row, straight right of stage. I could have hit Stone with a spitball If I wanted to (but of course I didn't, that would be just short of blasphemy, right?) Not bad for tickets four days before the show!). Right as we expect the lights to dim, they do, but instead of Mudhoney we hear Jack's extended Color Red, then out walks Pearl Jam! It took us until several hours on the road back to realize that we had forgotten completely about time zone changes. Damned modern innovations!

This was my second time seeing Pearl Jam...the first time was on my birthday in my hometown, Dallas. I thought that nothing could top that, it was like a cosmic coincidence. How many people are lucky enough to see Pearl Jam on their birthday? But this show was so much better. Aside from the stand-out moments that Allen mentioned in Fanview #1, there were a couple of other things that really rocked. Mike was, as usual, awesome all night, but his solo at the end of Black really sent chills down my spine. It was long, and a little eerie at times, with a lot of echo effect and some dramatic pauses. For the "speaking as a" line in Habit, Eddie took awhile, as if he had either completely forgotten what he was gonna say or just hadn't thought of it before hand. Finally, he said "speaking as somebody who loves everyone regardless of origin, creed, color, religious or sexual preference." That was good enough for the crowd; they broke into a rippling wave of cheers from near silence. And, for Hard To Imagine, Eddie said "this next song, maybe 2 or 5 or 10 or 20 people here will know it, but this is for those 2 or 10 or 20 people." It was played perfectly; it sounded almost exactly like the studio version from the Ten days.

All of the above was pretty cool, and I would have been perfectly happy going home with the memory of the night's events etched into my brain and my smile stamped onto my face. But then they introduced Last Kiss. I had seen the song's name on the set lists of a few other concerts, and thought "wow, i'll get to hear a new cover."

When he said "well, where oh where..." my jaw dropped, my skin shriveled into goose flesh so tight that my whole body felt suddenly cold, and a billion memories flashed through my mind. By the time he got to "the car was stalled, the engine was dead..." my eyes had watered up and I was crying. By the second "where oh where" I had to sit down because I was almost to the point of sobbing. Hell, I'm sniffling back tears as I write this fuckin' review.

When I was little, like four or five, and I got tired in the car while my dad and I were on a long drive, I'd lay my head in his lap under the big ol' steering wheel of his 77 T-bird. Then, while stroking my hair or giving my shoulders a rub, he'd sing Last Kiss to me, verse for verse, until I was asleep (and probably afterward too). When I was older, I thought back on those days. My parents had just divorced, and though both claim it was best for everyone and that they don't regret it, I have always known better. My dad never sings, but he sang that song a lot, and I can't help but think that he was thinking about my mom and me and all three of us, together. It's a song about loss, and I think my dad lost a lot during those years. When Eddie started singing Last Kiss, I just couldn't help myself. Twenty years of life and memories and emotions crashed into me all at once, a billion a second but all absorbed and recognized in their entirety.

Now I've got another memory to add to the fold. Thanks, Pearl Jam.