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

Poster credit: Andrew McDougall, Australia

Michael (tobingwy@wollongong.hotkey.net.au):
I was right at the front for this one.

First came Shudder To Think, the support band and they were ok. They copped an awful lot of shit from the crowd. One note of interest is that I didn't realise what Eddie sang at the end of "Daughter" in Melbourne on 5th March (i.e. "poor little girl..." etc) was actually a Shudder To Think song. They dedicated this one to Eddie.

A bit after 9:00, Pearl Jam came on, and the house erupted as they delivered a haunting version of "Long Road," which for me was a highlight of the night. Then followed "Hail, Hail" and "Brain of J," both of which rocked.

Later on came "Jeremy," where Eddie told the audience he sort of blacked out for a second during the song, then felt like he had woken after 8 hours of sleep: "I woke up and all you people were staring up at me; it really blew my mind." He suggested that the audience try it in the next song that rocked. And in "Rearviewmirror," exactly that happened; by my count, Eddie held his breath for about 1 and a half minutes.

One surprise just before the end of the set was "Dead Man," the B-side to "Off He Goes." This song featured only Eddie on guitar, and Jeff playing a stand-up bass with a bow.

After the band left the stage at the end of the first set, people started to sing "Happy Birthday" to Jeff, as it was his birthday the following day. Eddie joined in, grabbing a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEFF" banner from the audience, while a roadie came on holding a cake. Jeff walked up to a microphone and rather sheepishly announced that "Today's not my birthday." Eddie replied, "Technically it isn't Jeff's birthday until midnight, but I'm willing to play until midnight."

When the 15,000 voices singing "Happy Birthday" died down, Jeff blew out the candle, and then recieved a cake in the face. So did Eddie, Mike, Stone and Jack, in that order. Eddie then invited everyone to come on stage in single file to get "bopped." He then changed his mind, saying "I'll just get that guy instead"; a perfect throw hit a guy on someone's shoulders.

Overall, this was a damn good concert, but very slightly disappointing, because the overall concert went for about one hour and forty minutes. Also, we didn't get "Alive," "Black" and "Porch"; I would have thought that we'd get at least one of those three. A bonus and surprise, though, was a particularly good version of "Once."

I can't wait for the next 2 Sydney shows as they promise to be better and hopefully longer.

ova@speednet.com.au:
Ok, well this show started a bit earlier than the others. Pearl Jam came out on stage at about 8:50, 10 minutes early which kinda shocked the crowd and went straight into the Long Road. After this they burst into a rocking version of Hail Hail which just flowed perfectly, no dedication this time.. just a rocking version. After this they played 3 or 4 songs off the new record.. I don't remember what the order was but Brain of J and Do The Evolution were in there. With the new stuff out of the way it was time to get into the old classics and the crowd really enjoyed this. It started with Corduroy. Soon after they played Better Man. Then came my favourite part of the show, Animal and then straight into Daughter just like on Vs with the crowd chanting Another Brick in the Wall at the end. Eddie told the crowd that 'this has only happened to me 3 or 4 times before, but in the middle of that last song I just blacked out and woke up in Sydney with all these people around me.. you should try it sometime.. during the next song I want everyone to hold their breath.. and when you feel like you're going to pass out, keep holding your breath.'

I can't remember what they played next but they did play Go and Even Flow. It was sometime around now that they left the stage and came back with just Eddie and Jeff and played 'Dead Man' a b-side of something =). Later on in the evening they did the 'Happy Birthday Jeff' thing and got the crowd to sing happy birthday. Eddie smashed Jeff in the face with the cake, and all the other members one by one.. and a passing crowd surfer.

Rearviewmirror and Who You Are were played sometime around now. They then left for the first encore, came back and played 3 more songs with Once being the highlight.. The crowd really enjoyed that. They closed with Leaving Here saying they were going surfing tomorrow and needed to get to bed early. The crowd expected a 2nd encore but the house lights went on and we sat around for 10 minutes chanting but no Pearl Jam. No State of Love and Trust. No Rocking in the Free World. No Yellow Ledbetter but damn it was a good show even without such classics.