Set List: Do The Evolution, Corduroy, Save You, Deep, Dissident, Small Town, Even Flow, Jeremy, Thumbing My Way, You Are, I Am Mine, Habit, Untitled, MFC, Given To Fly, Nothingman, Blood, Porch;
1st encore: Driven To Tears by The Police, Better Man, Crazy Mary, Know Your Rights, Fortunate Son;
2nd encore: Blue Red Grey by Pete Townshend, Black, Alive, Baba O'Riley

First off I'd like to thank 10 Club very much for awesome seats on stone's side. What a show! DTE as an opener really got the crowd going and on their feet. The band was so energetic and tight. They ripped thru Corduroy and Save You and then into an awesome version of DEEP. Ed jokes with the crowd and starts naming towns, like Gurnee (which isn't a small town) then he brings it more local and says this is for the people in Kankakee and goes into Small Town. Mike kills on Even Flow, bringing back the 2000 tour solo, where he slows it down. Jeremy gets a lot of audience participation. Very awesome crowd, very loud and excited. Great versions of TMW, YA and IAM - very emotional. "You Are" is a great spectacle live, especially the part "sometimes I burn like a dot on the sun...," cool strobe lite effects. The intro to Habit is, "for those of you all on chrystal meth right now, this is for you." Untitled has a "I could be in Chicago in 23 minutes or so" tag. MFC rocks into the best live GTF version yet. Hearing Nothingman live makes you really appreciate how truly great this song is. BLOOD, PORCH, I swear these guys don't get older, they looked like they just release their 2nd album. So much energy from them. At one point Ed leans on Stone's back similar to the Ed/Jeff infamous picture of the early 90's shows. A lot of jumps from Ed and Jeff, tons of Pete Townshend windmills from Ed, and Mike just being a nut, running around across stage or messing with crowd.

One of the coolest moments of the nite was after the 1st encore they came back with a POLICE cover, Driven To Tears, WOW! They nailed this one, really cool groove to it. Crowd sing-along for Better Man. Crazy Mary was the most intense version I've heard yet. If you haven't seen these guys or heard of this guy "Boom," you're in for a real treat. This guy is a madman, wow, he totally kicked ass during Crazy Mary, nailed a 3 minute solo, he was jumping around, head full of salt n' pepper hair just all over the place, he was having such a great time. That organ really adds something to all the songs. The crowd really likes "Know Your Rights," you could tell a lot of the fans have been buying the bootlegs. So were up to like what 3 covers now, FORTUNATE SON, this song gets better every time they play it. The crowd loves it and claps for what seems like 10 minutes. You forget how long the encores really are when you go to the concert, we're so used to the bootleg encores. Ed comes back out with the "strata-uke" and talks about how he "totally stole this song [Soon Forget] from Pete," and goes into a really cool version of Blue Red Grey. Black and Alive back to back hell yea! And to close out the show with Baba O'Riley with Ed smashing about 8 tambourines and launching them into the crowd and being fed a new one each time he did that was just a great finish to such an amazing show. THANK YOU SO MUCH 10 CLUB. you guys really rock, can't wait for Chicago, 6/18/03.

thank you,
Mario Di Sandro

I've got 2 words to sum up last night's show in Champaign - SIMPLY AMAZING!!!!!!! There is no other way to describe it but totally magnificent. They shock and awed us from the get go. As soon as Eddie came out and said, "All right, let's go!" I knew it was on. They came out w/ Evolution which caught me off guard a bit but it totally set the mood. They then played 3 more blisterers right in a row. The crowd energy was REALLY high, and much higher than I expected. It was really nice to hear Deep live. I'm glad they're still pulling songs out of the archives. Some of the other highlights included an other-worldly version of You Are. Others have commented on how this song really takes on a life of its own live, and they were totally right. Doing a back-to-back Blood followed by Porch with an extended jam and crowd-mimic of Eddie's little phrases like, "Hey-ohh" capped off an unbelievable first set.

Then, they come out and hit us w/ a cover of the Police song "Driven to Tears" which was great. The playing off Boom during Crazy Mary was just sick! He adds a complete other dimension to the band that I love. Know Your Rights by the Clash was next and I LOVE this song. It has this creepy, menacing quality to it where it almost sounds evil. It sounds like a Doors song when Morrison was at his angriest. I can't wait to hear this one again. Then Fortunate Son ended a superb first encore. Black, Alive, and Baba O'Riley in the 2nd encore just completely put this show over the edge. I gotta tell everyone out there who is attending shows in the upcoming future that you are in for a tremendous treat. This band is kicking it on all cylinders at full throttle. They are like an 18-wheeler coming down the interstate at full speed that's not going to stop for anything. I haven't been to any of the other shows this tour yet besides this one, but if you are looking to buy one bootleg from the first leg, run out and get this one. I hope this band stays around for a long time to come because they are quite simply the best thing out there at this time. They make all other bands look like pretenders. Enough said.

Chris
Chicago