Ed solo before opening band: Dead Man, Thumbing My Way (part), You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
Set List: Long Road, Grievance, Corduroy, Save You, Get Right, I Am Mine, Immortality, Given To Fly, Even Flow, Wishlist, Thumbing My Way, You Are, Breakerfall, Not For You, Untitled/MFC, Do The Evolution, Spin The Black Circle;
1st encore: Love Boat Captain, Better Man, Down, Black, Rearviewmirror;
2nd encore: Indifference

Hey this wont take long but ill just tell ya a few things that I experienced at Pearl Jam tonight at the first Sydney concert. Well, where do I start......I guess I'll start with getting my 10 club tickets. Since I've only been a member for 2 years I though id be a few rows back or something but to my absolute shock, I had scored tickets in the first row smack bang in front of Mike. And as we were just sitting in the center, this dude walked out and it was Eddie! There would have only been about 200 people in the whole place and he played 2 and a half song for us. It was sooooo cool. He played Dead man first and it was really nice, then tried to play thumbing my way but the tuning was pretty crappy so he stopped, so then he attached his harmonica to his neck and stuff and played us a great version of You've Got To Hide Your Love Away.

During Betchadupas set I could see Jeff sitting there watching them play and seeing as this was the first time to see pearl jam I got pretty damn excited! Then I saw Mike and we waved to him and stuff and I thought that was just the craziest crap ever.....I mean its Mike McCready! Suddenly another dude turned up and it was stone and the 3 of them were talking and watching the show but only my brother knew that they were there (to begin with).

So finally the moment came when Pearl Jam hit the stage and the crowed went pretty nuts. Ed played a few notes and then suddenly I knew they were going to begin with Long Road. Damn that's a good song. The set went on and my brother and me where jumping around like crazy and just getting drenched with sweat! And we didn't have any water so every time Ed took a swig of red wine we were always dying for a sip too. The set was just great. It seemed to go on forever and I was running out of energy. My legs were giving in, my voice was shot and I was soaking wet, but I would not give up. They went off then came back on and played more great songs and just killed me. After that encore they came back and ended it with a soothing and absolutely fantastic version of Indifference. Wow. The show was over but I wasn't sad because I'm seeing the next one!

So thanks to Ten Club for the best seats in the whole damn place! Thanks to Pearl Jam for the best show I've ever seen. And special thanks to Mike cause we were interacting (kinda) the whole night and I got one of his picks that he chucked (landed right at my feet).

Dave

Well, last night was my first Pearl Jam concert.. and what a way to start!

I rocked up nice and early and collected my 10club tickets... Section A Row 4!! Right in front of Mr. Mike McCready! I was shocked... the fanclub section was quite big, and I've only been a member since late 2000! The vibe there was awesome... so friendly... I was thinking tonight would rock... So after grabbing some dinner, I made my way back to the Ent Cent... Spent a good 1/2 hour buying merchandise (some awesome t-shirts and how can you not love those dogtags!) and soaking up the atmosphere with a mate I ran into... So anyway, I dart out to get a drink, come back in, and on my way in, hear someone playing. I thought it must be Betchadupa, who I were keen to see, so I ran in, but the house lights were on, and the venue was almost empty... probably under 50 people who weren't on the floor, and only 100-200 on the floor from memory. Shame it wasn't full, because it was none other than Mr. Vedder himself! He treated the crowd to an awesome, short little solo performance.. it seemed extremely intimate, with the majority of the crowd being fanclub members, sitting where I was. So he treated us to 2 1/2 songs, and it was awesome.. I felt very lucky to be there :)

So then Betchadupa takes the stage.. awesome performance, as was Johnny Marr and the Healers. Both bands really played amazingly.. 3 awesome bands in a night.. and although a lot of people only came in when Pearl Jam were about to play, I really enjoyed them.

But when Pearl Jam took the stage.. it was mind-blowing. Becoming a fan when Binaural came out, I've heard many a bootleg, but last night made me know for sure that it is nothing on being there! I won't go into a song-for-song detail, but the definite highlights for me were Save You (Mike was on fire!), Immortality-GTF-Even Flow (I LOVE these songs... and they nailed them... Immortality was a big surprise and then the crowd ERUPTED at the opening riff for GTF.. big singalongs for GTF and Even Flow!) Another highlight was DTE and Spin the Black Circle.. both threw me off totally, I was expecting DTE to be in the encore.. and STBC was just an awesome surprise and I totally wasnt expecting it to be the closer!

So now we had the encore. LBC was a surprise to open it, but was sweet... the BETTER MAN! HUGE crowd singalong, was awesome, again the fanclub section rocked! Down was awesome, a lot better than the studio version, and then Black and RVM were amazing too! Although I was slightly disappointed that they didn't play Daughter (A lot of people were expecting it, after Mikes guitar got fixed up), we have 2 more nights :)

Indifference was an awesome closer... and Eddie's "it does make a difference" but to close was awesome! :)

An amazing experience.. bring on show 2 and 3!