Set List: Long Road, Breakerfall, Corduroy, Hail Hail, Animal, Even Flow, Nothing As It Seems, Light Years, Given To Fly, Insignificance, Daughter/(The Wrong Child by R.E.M.), Rearviewmirror, I Got Shit, Thin Air, Black, Better Man, Do The Evolution, Alive;
1st encore: Grievance, State of Love and Trust, Wishlist, Small Town, Go;
2nd encore: Last Kiss, Yellow Ledbetter

Esther (merkinball@gurlmail.com):
My short memory begins with Mike taking pictures with a Polaroid camera of the first Pearl Jammers on the pit.

End of the first round. lots of laughters. Clamour and hands clapping the last performance taken place by the Vandals perturbated lead guitar player. More expectation... Heart beats out of control... That smile in my face drawn 4 years ago.

Photo credit: Hugo Silva
(hemandias@clix.pt)

Purple lights and 2 big balls hanging over the stage, nearly as big as my eyes... examining everything around. Euphoria yells, hands up in the air clapping... now it is... Lights turned off... silhouettes hanging on guitars... and then playing the first chords of the Merkinballs b-side... And us, without words and with raw skin hearts, surrendering. Another known smile in my face, a feeling already felt. Images of worlds projected behind them... so gorgeous... And they, there... where we would always want them to be... in front of us, for us, in our particular worlds.

My little climax arrives with Corduroy, and goes on with Animal, and blows me up even more with Rearviewmirror and Even Flow. And when my hands cannot get higher and my yelling voice takes me to asphyxia, my first tear of the night drops down when I listen to Black. Hugs and friendly kisses of complicity, letting ourselves drown in our temporary amnesia, forgetting for a while our unbearable lives. Nothing can supplant the image of an impassive Eddie, standing alone with guitar on hand playing an endless Wishlist under an amber light... Who remembers the harm when an angel as Vedder concedes you a tiny sweet smile, a story and his incomparable voice?

And what else? 2 hours. More than 2 hours of incredible Stone and Jeff, of Mike and Matt, our 2 hours of Ed. And all these songs deeply echoing in our throats.

And my short memory ends when some minutes before the end of the show, everyone stops except Mike, who leaves us with his Yellow Ledbetter solo. Ed sits down and observes him... smiles once more... Who does not smile....

esTheR aLive at baRceLona, may the 25th 2000