Set List: Sometimes, Breakerfall, Corduroy, Grievance, Brain of J., Animal, Dissident, Nothing As It Seems, Given To Fly, Insignificance, Daughter/(It's O.K.), Better Man, Mankind, Immortality, Even Flow, Black, Rearviewmirror;
1st encore: Sleight of Hand, Crazy Mary, Once, Do The Evolution, Wishlist, Leatherman, Baba O'Riley;
2nd encore: Indifference

It would be the third time in as many months that I'd be seeing Pearl Jam play live. I was fortunate enough to catch the band two nights in a row in August in West Palm, but nothing, no concert experience--would ever top what was waiting for me on October 5, 2000. My friend and I drove up from Buffalo, and thanks to wonderful directions off the Internet, we arrived nowhere near the Air Canada Centre. By the time we found the venue, there was already a line of approximately one hundred people waiting for the fanclub tickets. The worst I could do was maybe row sixteen or seventeen--so how could I go wrong? Well, things were even much better than that. Thanks to the wonderful Ten Club, I received ROW 1, Seats 25 and 26, dead center, right under Ed's mic! The rock gods were shining brightly down on me on this brisk, gray day in downtown Toronto. Once getting to my seat, I saw a friend from Buffalo about six rows back. He looked at me rather confused and said, "Josh, what are you doing, working security?" To which I replied, "Nope, these are my seats!" These are the kinds of things I always hear about happening to other people, but never to me (you know how it goes).

Well, this was just the beginning. The band opened with Sometimes off the immensely underrated No Code, and I could not contain my joy. I was singing and bopping around. I was in my own little world; it was just me and the band, as I'd forgotten about the rest of the packed arena. I was strumming my air guitar like the best of them, and I was singing every single word, like people do when they're all alone rocking out in their bedrooms or automobiles. I must have caught the attention of Ed because right after Grievance (I think, it's sort of a blur), he gestured at me with his hands and tossed his guitar pick at me! Amazing! In the future, when people ask me if I have a prized possession, I will say, yes, other than my family, my prized possession is my guitar pick from Ed. The band was on tonight, everyone having fun. Ed seemed to have a bit of a cold perhaps, like the rest of us. Stone was smiling away, Mike was hamming it up, Jeff was focused, and Matt was pounding away.

Earlier in the day, my friend and I bought a T-shirt in downtown Toronto for Ed, "The Who--The Kids are All right." When there was a break in the music, I decided it was time to toss the shirt up. It was a perfect throw, not that that's too difficult when you're five feet away from your target, and Ed caught it with his hands. He looked at it and smiled at us. There was a kid a couple seats to my left with a posterboard that read, "Sleight of Hand." To his and our surprise, the band played it. This is one of my favorites off Binaural, and I was disappointed that they did not play it during either of the West Palm shows. I would get to hear it tonight though, and it was perfect. Somewhere along the course of the night, maybe as they were leaving after finishing the first encore, Ed looked at my friend and I and thanked us again for the T-shirt. No problem Ed! Baba O'Riley was a pleasant and fitting surprise, really the perfect sing-along song and cover for a Pearl Jam fan. Sweeney, one of Pearl Jam's security guards, walked over to me as if he was going to hand something to me. I looked at him and he said, "Here you go." It was the setlist and by this point, I was in total shock and sensory overload. I was convinced that I'd died and gone to heaven. They close with Indifference, and like the lyrics in the song, my arms are outstretched. I'm drenched in sweat, clutching a folded setlist, and filled with a lifetime of beautiful memories from just one single night. Thank you Pearl Jam for providing the soundtrack to my life...as well as one huge smile across my soul. And thank you Ten Club for making this wonderful night possible.