Set List to be confirmed and incomplete: Long Road, Hail Hail, Brain of J, Do the Evolution, Faithfull, Wishlist, MFC, Corduroy, Animal, Given To Fly, Dead Man, Jeremy, Even Flow, Daughter/Another Brick In The Wall, Better Man, Rearviewmirror; Encore: Happy Birthday, Who You Are, Go, Once, Leaving Here

Will Trippas (trippas@zip.com.au):

Let me start off by saying it was great to see them again, last time I saw them was all the way back in 1995 on their Vitalogy tour at Eastern Creek Raceway, a huge mass of land with another 40,000 people. But tonight was extra special as being so close to the stage in a section fenced off for only a few hundred people made it seem like a club show. I was impressed beyond belief. Shudder To Think were great considering the rumours of their poor performances.... They were booed a fair bit because people obviously wanted Pearl Jam to come on as soon as possible. But for the most part they were great and their set better than expected. They dedicated a song to Ed with the lyric "Poor little girl screaming traffic in her hair....Where'd mom go?" which Ed had sung at the end of Daughter on March 5 in Melbourne. [Pebbles]

Monday night started off with Long Road which was one of the pleasant surprises to come. The guys looked radiant and energetic. Long Road was followed by a tight version of Hail Hail, Brain of J, and Evolution. Both the crowd and the band were involved and smiles were all round. I had read reviews about how good MFC was live compared to on Yield. After Monday night I realised these reviews were obviously underestimated. Pearl Jam were firing on all cylinders as they belted out Wishlist, Corduroy, Animal and Given To Fly which were favourites for the night.

However, the highlights were yet to come. Half way during the set Stone and Mike left the stage as Jeff pulled up his stand up bass... sitting down and Ed pulled up a chair. Ed mentioned something about trying to make tonight different from all the others and he wanted to play this one live for the first time (?). The b-side to Off He Goes, Dead Man was played beautifully. It was such a surprise and was well received by those who had heard it and grown to appreciate it. It wasn't as well received by those who hadn't heard Alive enough already.

I have no idea in what order the songs were played except for the first four and the last four, but they included Faithfull (which was so good live, I didn't particularly like it on the album but live makes you appreciate the quality of it), Even Flow, Daughter/Another brick in the wall, Better Man, Jeremy and Rearviewmirror.

They left the stage at an early time of 10:15 pm. The encore started off as Jeff was instructed to sit on the seat Ed had formally for Dead Man. Ed said since "it was becoming tradition in Sydney" it was time to sing happy birthday and have a food fight which involved Jeff, Ed, Stone ("Ahhhh, that was too hard"), Mike and then Jack being hit by a "cream pie." Ed decided it was then time to turn it to the front crowd as a guy lamely crowd surfing (to silence) was pegged with the left-overs. This was followed by a perfect version of Who You Are, Go, Once and Leaving Here. I was hoping to hear Footsteps as they had done in the soundcheck but the Dead Man and Leaving Here kind of made up for that.

The band then left the stage at 10:30, and never came back because they "needed to get an early night because tomorrow they were surfing all day" (or something similar to that). A lot of the people there felt that they didn't pay $50 so they could go surfing tomorrow, but after a good whinge we all got over it and were thankful that we were there in the first place. Anyways, if you are going, have a great time; if you're not, make sure you do. I woke up after the show with a compound fracture in my thumb...whatever that is, but there was no way I was to let that bother me last night....didn't even notice it was bruised. Thanks guys for a great night, we appreciate your presence/presents. Thanx.