Set List: Sometimes, Breakerfall, Grievance, Corduroy, Given To Fly, Animal, Nothing As It Seems, Faithfull, Even Flow, Off He Goes, Small Town, Insignificance, Daughter/(WMA), Rearviewmirror, Alive, Go;
encore: Do The Evolution, Lukin, Wishlist, Better Man/(Save It For Later), Garden, Black

Jim Healy (jim@fusio.net):

Here's a summary of all the highlights of the show:

After NAIS, Ed proposed a toast to Dublin and other areas. He mentioned that PJ made 2 albums since they were last at the Point. Then he added, "That's what we did, how 'bout you? What did you do? You all grew up. You all became a bunch of thieves. You broke out of prison just so you could come here. Now you have a taste of freedom." Ed dedicated Off He Goes to the music scene in Donegal, all 6 of them. After Alive, Ed blessed the crowd with water from his wine bottle. Before Go, Ed told the crowd a story. It's actually a story about Ed telling a story to a friend. The story goes like this:

Photo credit: Dave Donovan

There once was a farmer who worked on his farm with his son and his horse. One day the horse left to roam with the wild horses. The farmer and his son were left all alone to farm the land. One day, the horse came back with six of the wild horses. Now they had seven horses to help them with the farm work. However, while the son was trying to train one of the new horses he fell of the horse and severely broke his leg. Then the farmer was left with just the horses to farm the land. Later on a war broke out and all the young men had to go off to war except the farmer's son because his leg was broken. It was at this part of the story that Ed's friend said, "So what's the point?" That's when Ed replied, "It's a great place to play in Dublin."

At that point (no pun intended) the crowd cheered. (Definitely a story full of [Irish] wit and wisdom. Ed must've kissed the Blarney Stone.) At the beginning of the encore Ed told to the crowd, "If you're not goin' we're not goin." After DTE, Ed mentioned that Monkeywrench opened up for them in London and some of the members of that band used to be in Mudhoney. One of the members of Mudhoney was named Lukin and the next song was written about him. After Better Man, Ed said that if the crowd's up for it they'll play a song they haven't played in a long time. That's when they played Garden, definitely a treat. Black is introduced as a tragic little song. At the end of Black, Ed climbed up on the speaker at the right hand side of the stage and jumped into the crowd, a fantastic finish to a great concert.

John Kierans (johnpkierans@hotmail.com):
Great show in the point depot, kicking off with the pop punk of the Vandals who built up the crowd for the main act of the night.

Pearl Jam came on stage from nowhere and got things going with Sometimes and then Light Years then kept up the pace with the rocking Breakerfall and Eddie had the crowd in the palm of the hand.

Next up was the Ten hits such as Even Flow, Alive; they continued to belt out the big rock tunes from Vs such as Go and Animal. They then slowed it down a little with Daughter and Off He Goes which had a great response from the crowd who sang it back to Ed. After this short break they started up again with Faithfull from Yield and other hits such as Wishlist, Elderly Woman..... the packed venue was then treated to a story by Eddie about the a horse and his son, but its a long story!!!

Photo credit: Dave Donovan

After a ten min break they came back on stage with a rare performance of Garden which blew away the 8,000 strong crowd. next up was Rearviewmirror which really got the fans going again with a fine delayed finish by the band which left the crowd's ears bleeding!!, We then got another story about Lukin and that rocked loudly. Mike seemed to really enjoy this one with the faces that he was making and his wild jumping on the speaker system.

At this point the gig was coming to an end and the crowd was drained, but not before an amazing version of "Black" which went on for around seven mins with the band really getting into the end part of the song!!! Just when we thought we had seen it all, Eddie got up on around a 15 ft speaker and dived into the amazed crowd!! ...which carried him back to the stage. Everyone had their mouth drop when he actually did jump! And that was the lot. Sorry if I forgot some songs or the order of which they played but if you were there you know that it rocked!!!!