01. Waving Palms
02. Can’t Keep
03. Sleeping By Myself
04. Without You
05. Goodbye (very front only)
06. You’re True
07. Blue, Red And Grey-(Townshend)
08. Longing To Belong w/Rudy Stein playing cello
09. Brain Damage-(Waters)
10. Sometimes
11. I Am Mine
12. Thumbing My Way
13. Long Nights w/Glen Hansard
14. Unthought Known
15. Guaranteed
16. Rise
17. Lukin w/string quartet (fast version)
18. Just Breathe w/string quartet
19. The End w/string quartet
20. Arc
Encore Break 1
21. I’m One-(Townshend)
22. Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town
23. Picture In A Frame-(Kathleen Brennan/Tom Waits)
24. Sleepless Nights w/Glen Hansard-(Boudleaux Bryant, Felice Bryant)
25. Society w/Glen Hansard-(Jerry Hannan)
26. Falling Slowly w/string quartet {Glen singing and playing acoustic, Eddie duet vocal}-(Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová)
27. 4th Of July-(Dave Alvin)
28. Porch
Encore Break 2
29. Hard Sun w/Glen Hansard-(Peterson)
30. Yellow Ledbetter w/Mike McCready
Aquí la review, que está en inglés y me entró la pereza… supongo que comprenderéis el por qué
I just got home from Eddie Vedder’s show in Long Beach and the show was amazing. Me and my buddy were probably the youngest people at the show. This review will be kind of scatterbrained, but here it goes.
I’m glad Eddie played Long Beach and not just Los Angeles; it was a thrill going to a pretty nice area to see a concert. No offense LA. The opening act (and also part of Eddie’s show on certain songs) Glen Hansard was great, you can tell why Eddie picked him as his opener. I seem to have had better luck with openers this year with concerts (I enjoyed Chris Cornell’s opener in May). Mike McCready showed up just a few minutes before Eddie went on, when fans saw him walk to seats in the front they went nuts, Mike acknowledged the fans. I had a feeling Mike would show up since he’s playing the national anthem at the Angels/Mariners game tomorrow (I’ll be there for that) and has been doing a lot of soundtrack/scoring work. Eddie went on at around 8:50, and when Eddie played “Can’t Keep” I knew it was going to be a fantastic show. The next few songs were mainly Ukulele Songs stuff, and seeing them performed live made me really like them more. While I like Ukulele Songs, there were certain songs I wasn’t as into until seeing them performed tonight.
The show really kicked into high gear during “Sometimes.” Call me biased towards Pearl Jam, but once Eddie started belting out that chorus is got me pumped up. He followed that up with two more Pearl Jam classics (I Am Mine and Thumbing My Way), and to me this series of three songs was one of the best parts of the show. It was nice to see some songs from Riot Act performed live, as that’s always been one of my favorite Pearl Jam albums (since my Dad played it to death in 2002/2003). “Unthought Known” is another great live song, when Eddie performed it tonight and also when I saw Pearl Jam perform it in LA two years ago. It was awesome to see stuff from Into the Wild performed live, since this was the first time I have seen Eddie solo. “Just Breathe” and “The End” were just as epic as when I saw them live at the Gibson Ampitheatre in 09. When Glen Hansard came out to do certain songs with Eddie I thought they sounded great together, especially during “Long Nights” (where Eddie hilarious fucked up the opening).
“Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town” was great, the crowd knew every damn word like always. I knew that “Porch” was likely based on prior setlists but it was awesome to see such a heavy Ten song in a stripped down setting. I’d say my favorite stuff of the night was Pearl Jam/Eddie stuff, I enjoyed a lot of the covers but there’s just a certain passion Eddie puts into his own stuff.
The last encore was the best part of the show, everybody was standing when Eddie and Glen performed “Hard Sun.” It really had a different vibe from the rest of the show with the house lights being on and Eddie just going crazy on the guitar near the end. Then after that, Eddie mentioned that there was somebody there but he hadn’t seen him yet. Mike McCready then walked on stage and the crowd erupted, Eddie and Mike embraced and then they played “Yellow Ledbetter.” It was epic. Eddie helped the guys pick up some of the gear as the show ended, Eddie showed his appreciation to the crowd. This was really a great show, Eddie was intense while also telling hilarious jokes and stories. One of the best shows I’ve been to in the last couple of years, it was incredibly diverse setlist and performance wise. Eddie’s definitely one of the best ever, when he sings and plays it just comes off as so natural.
Here are some funny things and stories that Eddie told throughout the concert. I may have certain words wrong and what not since I’m basing this all on memory.
Said after the first song that this show was already better than last night’s.
Told a story about writing songs with ukuleles. He mentioned that all you need is a ukulele and a girl to fall in love with to write a song. He also threw in a joke about fucking too, mentioning that that’s a good part about it. Also said that breaking up causes you to write even more songs.
He made a joke about his ukulele and he had a fondness for inanimate objects when he was younger, including a bong.
Told a story about Glen Hansard and how they bonded over tragedies occurring at their concerts.
Gave a shout out to the people in the back who were on upper levels, and pointed out a guy in the front and said he was higher than any of them.
After playing “Lukin” he said something along the lines of, “and now something more appropriate” and played “Just Breathe.”
Somebody yelled out that Eddie should take off his clothes.
Eddie said that he was going all out tonight because he has a day off tomorrow. He mentioned that he would get some reading in by reading Bristol Palin’s new book. He said that he had been into Russian books recently, and joked he wanted to read Bristol’s. He said he heard it sold 13 copies.
Eddie said at one point during the show he wanted to play a banjo, he went around looking for it and couldn’t find it so he went back to sit down. One of his guys came out with it and Eddie said he’d play it later. He never did!
I saw some guy in a PJ20 shirt walking around playing the ukulele before the show.