Set List: Love Boat Captain, Corduroy, Save You, Hail Hail, Help Help, Even Flow, I Am Mine,
Better Man/(tag?), You Are, Green Disease, Not For You, Thumbing My Way, Given To Fly, Small Town, Insignificance, Don't Go;
1st encore: Bushleaguer, Do The Evolution, Last Kiss, Black, Crazy Mary, State Of Love And Trust;
2nd encore: Give Peace A Chance sing along, Soon Forget, Yellow Ledbetter, Keep On Rocking In The Free World

Warning: Very long fanview. I can't remember every song in detail but will try to give justice to the ones I do remember.

*Deep breath* Heya fellow jammers :) Before this tour started I made a pact with myself that I'd at least write one fanview to continue spreading the jam. Well, this is my first and hopefully not my last as I'll be in fan club seating tomorrow night (Tuesday... and thanks a heap 10C :)).

Adelaide... great place, much more low-key than Melbourne (except for last night), very quaint and damn beautiful. I woke up at 7:30am on Sunday morning ready to make it an awesome day. On my way to the airport I pictured so many situations that could happen within the next 24 hours, either meeting a band member or fellow fans that were as extremely excited as me. I caught up on some reading on the flight then landed at about 10am to meet good ol' Moemoe (Hi M!). We talked for a lil while, moemoe only had half an hour sleep the previous night and was fucken tired... I proceeded to the bathroom to take a much-needed slash. Oh the relief. Pearl Jam here we come!!! We checked in to the hotel room with a beautiful view of an orangey-brown university wall. I basically dropped my bag into the room had a lil rest and then walked in the humid rain towards Parliament House where the Adelaide Peace rally was scheduled to arrive. I'd never been a part of a rally before and I was looking forward to being a part of something positive and special. It was just that. All these people (about 100,000) from different places coming along do their bit in the hope of causing some positive turnaround at this important point in time. If you were there giving your support to peace then good shit, it was damn great to see people there speaking passionately and telling our democratic dictatorship (sounds about right, yes?) to listen.

Onto the Pearl Jam part...

Moemoe and I had a counter meal at one of the Hindley Street pubs before setting out on the 2km+ trek to the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. I came past a couple at a bus stop and asked for directions, they were kind enough to point us in the right direction. They were Pearl Jam fans ;-) Later on they passed us in the bus with a big smile and wave :-)

As we approached the Entertainment Centre you could feel rock and fucken roll in the air... after 5 long years it was time to immerse ourselves in Pearl Jam life! There were hundreds of people in line waiting to have their tickets checked, so we lined up next to the big commercial rubbish bins located outside arena (I was going to insert the line "you could smell PJ in the air" but 1.) it stunk and 2.) it's very corny). We lost ourselves in the Pearl Jam crowd, got some drinks and looked at the merchandise on offer. I decided to buy stuff from the Melbourne shows as there were too many people there. I took another slash then lined up at Door 2 to enter main area. Johnny Marr just left the stage so we didn't any of his music, but it sounded good from the outside... Slowly we mosey-ed closer and closer to our seats, our excitement growing with each decrease in the row number. Fuck. We were a mere 15 rows from the front! I know that doesn't sound good but we could see everything pretty damn good :-) The crew was setting up all the gear and I watched what they were doing, getting an insight for my own band when the time comes to play regular gigs.

At about this time, you could feel the anticipation...and I know most of us have felt this before, but for those who haven't, I hope you do very soon! Before long they were onstage with a deafening roar from these fired-up Adelaidians!
Awesome :)

I was surprised to hear the opening chords of Love Boat Captain, it doesn't seem to be a likely opener but it got me singing load and swaying with the music. Not many newcomers knew this one, but I loved it. The boys were on fire from the first damn verse! Fine fine form :) Then straight into a ball-breaking intense Corduroy. Now I kinda got sick of hearing this every show on the bootlegs but it was downright amazing hearing it played live... the guys are still so into this song, Mike and Jeff jumping around, Ed throwing his vocal chords into it, Matt slamming away like the nice lil boy we know and Stone just layin' the groove baby! Damn great I tell yas.

After a couple of songs Ed stopped to thank everyone and said something like "This weekend has been the greatest weekend of my lifetime... this weekend has seen the biggest protests since the Vietnam War... We come as representatives of the US to tell you we're not all cowboys. Don't believe what you see on the news - we don't all support our President." Next up was HelpHelp... this caught me off guard and I must admit I don't like it much on the album (if anyone saw me laugh please forgive me :P)... it's a good sing along and it really kicks some bitchin' booty towards the end. Yup, we have a good band on our hands here! I don't wanna be too negative, but I noticed heaps of people in the front sections who were barely singing or bopping or showing any kind of emotion.. if you're one of them and maybe you're wanting to shake some booty, just let go any enjoy yourself, everyone there wants to have fun and it's not just with the band but our fellow fans too! I screamed/sang and my calves ached like hell by the time the show finished, ROCK ON :D Better Man got the big singalong for the night (nuff said). Black was amazing once again, but when is it not?... Mike was burning his fingers off in the solo and in the process burning a small lil imprint on my soul... Black is my favourite song by the way (or among the favourites hehehe). Given To Fly was another "best of.." for the night... amazing, another fav from Yield... Jeff's bass was thumping my bowels throughout the whole song :) Go and Save you where as intense as strawberry manure hitting your face and churning your head to pieces of emotional woof-woof (??? bare with me lol). I had a bit of quiet time with Thumbing My Way... closed my eyes and enjoyed one of my favourite songs from Riot Act. And then there was Mary. Crazy Mary. I looked over at moemoe and I saw the smile.... this just was unbelievably friggin great... the lyrics, slow and urging you to sing along. Get the bootleg for this song alone... btw, I'm listening to the mp3 right now. Woah. There was a long jam at the end... Ed passed his bottle of wine (Penfold's??) along the front row people on Stone's side then urged them to pass it back to the people behind them... this is what it's like to be a Pearl Jam fan. By the way, Boom went nuts on this with a solo of his own then raises his arm indicating Mr McCready to start his own fanfuckentastic solo... soulful... are you fired up yet? ! ! ... ! "pass it a-... pass it a..." :)

*Intermission* So how are ya? good? I just thought I'd give ya a breather lol.....

Do The Evolution was a typical awesome PJ song complete with fuck-ups by Ed (lol.. I don't say that in a bad way either) and awesome playing and bopping by the one and only Stonely Goosehard. Ed sung "2010 watch it go to fire" verse twice.. in the first verse and last... but it was great, the song should be that long every single time! Did I mention Bushleaguer?? This was my favourite off Riot Act last night! The whole role play with Dubya's mask and Ed pouring wine down Georgey Mask's throat... oooh another Act from the Riot was YOU ARE.. this was brilliant with all the lights going crazy.. it was a very eerie weird kinda awesomness...

Second Encore was great with Soon Forget... "this is my friend Luke... Luke the Uke (pronounced oook)... Luke this is Adelaide, Adelaide this is Luke"... so this was Soon Forget and it was great, fuck ups and all :) Yellow Ledbetter is always great.... then I thought it was over. The houselights had been up throughout YL and I was ready to go when they fucken made me nearly lose bowel control with a mean grunt intro to Rockin' In The Free World. This was just a bad-arse finisher, everyone jumping and grooving and smiling... amazing intense whopping awesomeness. Gotta love Ed smashing those tambourines!... Jeff was pissing himself laughing as Mike just dashed across the stage towards Stone at a million miles an hour... Mike, you're a legend. And Pearl Jam... you are the best live band in the world.

That's the show! It was my first PJ show since the one I saw on Monday 02/03/98. 5 years later Pearl Jam rock even harder... they played happy. Big Smilin' Jeff, Master Mike, Eloping Ed, Stompin' Stone and... Manic Mat & The Funky Sticks? (it's not everyday that you write a fanview lol... :O...).

This morning we met a guy on our bus who'll have a tally of 9 out of 10 Aussie PJ shows under his belt.. dude, if you're on the Synergy board PM me if u could, I'd love to hear yer story so far :) The airport was buzzing with PJ fans... I saw you guys there, dammit we're a committed bunch :) It's like Pearl Jam have two lots of road crew every tour... and g'day to Mike and Stone's guitar techs who were there!

Thanks to all who made this a memorable Adelaide trip... Pearl Jam especially...

Moemoe said to me on the bus "we'll be talking about this for years"... and you know what? I agree!

Till the next Melbourne fanview, have a good one jammers :)
Dan.