Set List to be confirmed: Sometimes, Do The Evolution, Animal, Hail Hail, Dissident, Faithfull, Even Flow, I Got Shit, Corduroy, MFC, Improv Intro, Habit, Daughter/I feel it..., Nothingman, Given To Fly, Leatherman, Rearviewmirror, Wishlist; 1st Encore: Once, Alive, Better Man, Immortality, Black, Baba O'Riley

Warwick Horsley (wazzahozza@hotmail.com)
I've just got back from the Perth concert (19th March 1998), and the most amazing time of my life, in fact, I'm going to say the best night of my life!!

Wednesday 18th March 1998
Okay, yesterday, I met Stone and Mike, while they were playing tennis at their hotel, and managed to have a 10 minute chat to Stone!! One of the many things he said was, "do you guys have any special requests for tomorrow night??"
And I just went "Oh yeah, I'm really keen for Leatherman."
He goes, "Oh yeah, we haven't played that on tour yet, but you might get lucky."

I was just going mad!! Then I said, "I'm gonna make a sign that says Leatherman on it." And Stone replied, "Well, Eddie is really responsive to the crowd, so if you do that, there is a chance they may play it!!" We chatted for a little while on, got him to sign a few things, and went on our way.

Thursday, 19th March 1998
Soundcheck: Animal, Rearviewmirror, Hail Hail, Baba O'Riley, Yellow Ledbetter. I also thought I heard the drums to In My Tree, but I'm not positive.

Okay tonight is the night of the concert. I had made my LEATHERMAN sign, and went to the venue at about 3:00 pm ish. We were pretty much right at the front of the que, and were keen to be front row for the whole concert (which we were). Hours passed, Shudder To Think played, Eddie came on for one song. It sounded great!! Then, finally, PEARL JAM come out!!!!! The crowd goes wild!!

Sometimes is first, then into Do The Evolution. I am going nuts, right at the front. I hold my LEATHERMAN sign up every time Eddie looks over!! The band is rocking, everyone is gong nuts!!! Then, about 10 or so songs into the set, Eddie points straight at me, and says "Come on!!" I was like "me or the sign?" I then gave my sign to him as he came over, and was looking right at me!!! I was going mad, absolutely mad!!! He then held the sign up to the crowd, and to the band (and Stone was laughing.)
Eddie says "Ahh, we haven't ever played this song, and we're probably never going to again, so ahhh, here goes."
Eddie looked at Jack, and smiled.
I was jumping around, screaming, absolutely going off, as they kicked into LEATHERMAN!!!!!! Oh yeah I thought, this is definitely one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me!!!! The song came off so well, with Eddie regularly looking across at me, while singing the song, and Stone just hit a tamborine the whole time!!! They were all going off!! It was amazing!!

Now, other standouts: the Daughter tag was the repeated line "I feel it, I feel it,...." And at the end, Eddie goes "well, I do!!"

Eddie talked to the crowd about how we had a positive attitude, because we got 14,000 signatures to get them to come to Perth, and he thought that was really cool.

Habit had a really cool intro to it. During ALIVE, Eddie gets this guy on stage and dances around with him, then twirls him around on his head - it was so damn cool!! They also closed the show on the rarely played Baba O'Reilly. It was a great version.

AHHHHH....so much to tell about such a great night. The set list went something like: Sometimes, Do the Evolution, Animal, Hail Hail, Dissident, Faithfull, I got ID, Even Flow, MFC, Habit, Nothingman, Daughter/I feel it, LEATHERMAN, RVM, Corduroy, Given to Fly, Betterman, Wishlist. Encore: Once, Alive, Immortality, Black, Baba O'Reilly.

These are the right songs, in a reasonable order!! All this, and I am seeing them again tomorrow night!!

Matt Wegg (jwegg@bigpond.com)
I have been home from Pearl Jam for almost a day now and WWWOOOOOOWWWW!!! This was my first time seeing Pearl Jam because I foolishly missed them when they last came here three years ago and it was UN-BE-LIEVE-A-BUL. Originally we were not on the tour due to a lack of time for the band but this changed quickly after our "positive attitude."

It was amazing! From the moment that Eddie made a surprise appearance in Shudder To Think's set dressed as an old man with a walking stick to the final chords of the rare performance of Baba O'Riley, Pearl Jam ROCKED !!

With all five members tightly packed onto the small Perth stage, PJ sunk into the opening song, "Sometimes" which mesmerised the crowd from the start. After this came "Do the Evolution" which started a huge mosh of 8,000 screaming fans. Following this were the classic stadium anthems of "Animal" & "Hail, Hail" and the surprise inclusion of "Dissident."

After that came one of Eddie's classic speeches where he yet again had trouble keeping the crowd quiet. He talked about how the 14,000 signatures of upset West Australians that were delivered personally to Stone had convinced them to extend their tour for two more dates. (Predictably these shows sold out very quickly.) "I think Stone wrote these just so that he could come back to Perth." said Vedder. (Stone Gossard and other members of Brad had been here just two months earlier as part of their own tour) This was the example of how a "positive attitude" can get you anything, even two shows by the world's best band. He said that if he were in our situation and later heard that PJ would tour he would have said "Fuck them" but we all just ecstatic that they would end up coming.

Highlights over the next hour included "I Got Shit", "Even Flow", "MFC", "Daughter", the never before performed "Leatherman" and "Corduroy", many of which included noticeable line changes. "Given To Fly" made everybody believe they could, it sent the place into a wild frenzy, but this soon changed. At this stage many people had thrown their shoes on stage and were left with lighters in their hands as "Better Man" cranked in.

New noise records were set when the band left the stage as we pleaded for anything more and although we didn't get "Rockin' in the Free World" or "State of Love and Trust" like most of us had hoped beforehand, we didn't feel disappointed when we got TEN classics "Once", "Alive" & "Black" with the house lights kicking in at the conclusion of "Baba O'Riley". After experiencing easily the best night of my life I am now about to buy some tickets for tonight's show to relive it all again.

THANK YOU EDDIE, STONE, MIKE, JEFF AND JACK