Set List: Long Road, Save You, Gods' Dice, Corduroy, Given To Fly, Even Flow, Get Right, Cropduster, Jeremy, Small Town, I Am Mine, Love Boat Captain, MFC, Improv #12, Habit, You Are, Wish List, 1/2 Full, Insignificance, Go;
1st encore: Do The Evolution, Better Man, Daughter, Crazy Mary;
2nd encore: Throw your Arms Around Me [w/Mark Seymour], Alive, Fortunate Son [w/ Johnny Marr](by Creedence Clearwater Revival)

The final show of the Australian Tour was well worth all the preparation and traveling... Pearl Jam certainly didn’t let us down!

I arrived in Perth on the Saturday night before the Sunday night show. It had been damn long week starting in Adelaide then the three fantastic Melbourne shows. You would’ve thought two days was enough rest but I was feeling so spent that I was briefly considering not going. I sucked it all up though and as soon as I got on the flight the energy from my excitement was setting in. PJ you’ve done it again! You tell me another band that is as strong as multi-vitamins ;-) lol. The four- hour flight was pretty good... they served dinner and wine and I got a mini ice cream. Good shit. Chewdawg (Laura, an old BBSer... not OLD ;-)) picked me up from the Qantas terminal and we had a cool chat and drive back to her place. The time difference in Perth is a royal prick... 3-hours behind Melbourne time and it totally fucks you up sometimes. Anyway it wasn’t going to get to me this time... we had dinner (again!) and then I went to bed.

When I woke up it was the final PJ concert day for Australians for a very long time? It’d been a fantastic week! But the downer was setting in... withdrawal symptoms I guess (now that’s weird ain’t it... it’s like all the excitement is leaving you and you’re going back to a life that is less than perfect... I dunno, me be quiet now). So I woke up to the fucking birds... Laura and Trav’s landlady has these birds, damn squeaking lil pests. Went for a good walk to the deli to get something to eat in the suburb of Thornlie. Love ya Perth, you’ve got a huge Melbourne fan. *speed it up, Dan*

We left at 5:30pm to Burswood Dome and got there damn early at 6pm... not many people lingering around, we went straight away to the Tenclub ticket window... there was no one there in line! Bonus. The lovely good-looking Tenclub lady gave us our tickets (btw, before I continue Chewdawg and Trav are both 10C members so they took Chewdawg’s awesome tickets and I got Trav’s). Do you know how fucken stoked I was?! I got the best tickets out of the 5 shows I’ve been to in Perth! FRONT ROW IN FRONT OF MIKE MY GUITAR INSPIRATION! Even before the show started it was awesome :D So we hung around and I bought a tour poster (I missed out on the Melbourne ones) and I briefly spoke to a nice lassy who’d met Mike... good shit, mate! We put the merchandise in the car then I had something to eat. As the doors opened we went in and found our seats. Fuck. I was feet away from Mike and the stage... guys, I can’t write how exciting that was. After all these years I was on the barrier for my most favourite band ever! I must thank Trav for these awesome seats, publicly.

Once again, Johnny Marr and The Healers were great. The drummer is awesome and they seem to gel really well together. They’ve been great for the whole part of the tour I’ve attended, so thanks heaps guys. You were a great band to start off each Pearl Jam show. Will get your album soon!

Pearl Jam time. Sorry it’s taken a while to get to this. Just setting the mood ;-)

And the lights went down as security went on standby and I went on ballistic mode. Gotta love ballistic mode. It was awesome to see the boys up front and personal. It’s awesome getting eye-contact with the people you admire so much! Long Road.

Aah... I can say I’ve seen this live. Fantastic, it sets a personal mood for the night, like they’re playing for you and just YOU. I was singing loud for this and so was our whole front section. PJ fans you are great just like your favourite band! If Long Road was easing up into the set then Save You just castrated us into the set (don’t ask). This breaks balls and gets you jumping and singing... that’s it, shred it Ed! Mike bites this song’s arse! When you’ve been to a few PJ shows and see what instruments the guys use for each song you get this really good skill in guessing what song is next.... Corduroy! We love ya, corduroy! Get Right is pretty cool live, one of my fav songs off the new album... Stone Stone Stone!!!

These tracks aren’t in any particular order but I will try my best to make it flooowwww.......

Cropduster was awesome again! So into this song... just grooving and Stoney is awesome as well as Ed’s singing at the end... this is Pearl Jam people! What to say... I’ve said it all in past fanviews but yeah... ooof. I Am Mine was great, in between verses and chorus going intense! Don’t Go. I was greasing Mike off during the song, doing guitar faces and sharing some cool moments... memories like these will be with me forever I tell ya. I still love this track after so many years it just gets more full-on each time... wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!! And you know what else I can say? I was THAT close to Mike during an Even Flow solo lol...

Given To Fly was fantastic and we jumped in unison with Mike as he kicked into the chorus with all the hand actions... and we shared some moments with Ed doing the actions. One of the best songs in existence! Love Boat Captain was beautiful once again, you can see how much this means to the band up close... Ed easing the words through and feeling it. Thanks for this song, boys.

I had my eyes closed for most of You Are as the music swayed.... This is ten times better live, it comes into its own... amazing. Was Wishlist next? (sorry, no setlist in front of me.. I’m sitting here with my laptop and no internet connection yet). Wishlist is another beautiful song live, it’s got a special mood that gets me every time I’ve heard it this tour... there was going to be a tag but it slid out very calmly before Ed could think of something :P Great great great! MFC was somewhere around next, finally get to hear this and it didn’t let me down! Just rocking rocking rocking into a really cool imrov that I look forward to hearing on the bootleg. Ooh, they should be in the mail soon. Habit.

Yes! Mike was doing stabbing actions into his arm (needles etc) while playing... fitting... he seems to be always ON and into the music. We love ya, Mikey! Daughter was again great... these songs seem so much more personal when you’re up close, I haven’t experienced that with any other band. I fee damn lucky to have experienced it with my Pearl Jam. The call/response tag was awesome... enough said really. But of course there is more ;-) Insignificance is a song that will never let ya down live. The pause in the middle of the song was pretty long but the band went straight back into it as tight as ever. In SIG Ni Ficaaaance......

I think DO The Evolution kicked into the first encore with Ed wearing a John Howard mask and grabbing his groin (maybe in reference to the Melbourne show where he said the Aussie PM called him and asked for oral sex lol). Jeremy was great once again, Ed intense and Stone bloody going off and Jeff just burning it again... this band is too good. Just too damn fucking good. Half Full was introduced as a song about nature and trees and going out and being alone with nature. ROCK AND ROLL BABY! (Trav says “I though the solo in that was awesome”.. the whole songs a solo!) Ed changed the set list at the end of the first encore and they played Crazy Mary. Perfect version? Very close to that.. then he passed the bottle of wine to Luc Longley around and it was close to me but no swig for Dan! I was hoping for a pick from Mike but also no go... I think I got plenty of memories to easily make up for it though ;-)

And now for one of the best 2nd encores :D I was psyched as Mark Seymour from Hunters and Collectors came on stage with an acoustic guitar to a rousing reception by the Perth crowd. Ed and Mark played a great version of Throw Your Arms Around Me. Nuff said. VERy very special... they embraced after they were done. Then the house lights went up as I saw Stone fire up for Alive. I can always pick when they are gonna play Alive... it’s one of my favourites song ever by any band and it’s got its own fucken mood. Awesome. We got the riff baby... Alive. Hear it on the bootleg.

One more... and Johnny Marr comes out on stage with his guitar and starts the riff of Fortunate Son and I went “fuck me!”... nice nice awesome rocking way to end such a fantastic positive tour! Ed nailed the lyrics for this one, don’t think he fucked up once.... They were all on fire and having a ball. That’s pretty much the Aussie tour... they seemed to have a great time and so did we!

So there you go... I’m so glad I made it out west for this show... everyone had a ball up front in Ten Club land, twas a very memorable night.

Thanks to everyone who made this tour possible... from our boys, Mike, Stone, Jeff, Matt and Ed. You guys really made heaps of people happy and played fucken awesome. Thanks for coming out to this furry land and we hope you had a riot ;-) Thanks to the crew (from where I was standing you could feel the family atmosphere around them) you guys rock... everyone who was there! The fans... you guys are awesome, great bunch of fans... without you guys grooving and singing like you did it would’ve been less of a spectacle... so thanks from a fellow fan. This is like a lil goodbye from Australia but we’ll all be around cheering our boys on and rocking. I wish everyone going to Japan and then the U.S to have a ball and don’t waste a second of your time at the shows... just enjoy it and stay positive and have fun on behalf of us too!

It was a ball. One of the best weeks of my life. And thanks for reading my long- arse fanviews.

Love you all,
Dan.
P.S: A fan forever :D