Pearl Jam/09/09/2005 Fort William Gardens/Tbay

Yup! PJ showed up! Played Tbay! In one of the biggest Blunders in Rock N Roll History I did not go! My Bad and a Rock N Regret if there was ever one!

But faithful  Stick It In Your Ear reader Robbo( whose the biggest PJ Fan I know) attended and being the Diehard he is gave me a soundboard recording of that nights show!( Stayed tuned folks as Robbo is gonna drop down some  words of PJ wisdom at this site shortly in his own Bloggo Robbo Post!)

My first thought when I dumped this show onto my iPod was the mindblower that this show was coming direct from the Old Dump (Fort William Gardens) and it was actually a recording from Tbay!

Folks! If your reading this from other parts of the world (Thanks) but seriously I can’t recall anyone doing this when they play Tbay. I know PJ record all there shows for the fans as souvenirs and what better way than to have that nights memento from the show you just seen!

I’m not even gonna bull shat anyone and announce to the  world that I know and own everything about PJ. Of course I own 10 , Vitalogy, BackSpacer and a couple of soundboard  shows….

So other than the fact that PJ is a top-notch live band I have taken some notes and gonna share some thoughts for you’s out there .

Before we proceed how about a shoutout to PJ themselves..Eddie Vedder,Stone Gossard,Jeff Ament,Matt Cameron and Mike McCready by all intent and purposes blew the doors off the Old Dump known as the Gardens that Friday Night ..

Musings and Observations From The Audio Portion..

1- PJ live is a beast and if you’re a diehard you know that right!? The Songs are played tighter than Pat Benatars Spandex circa 1981 and it’s also real noticeable that the guitars live are clean sounding (McCready and Gossard) ditch the whole Seattle mopey guitar sound of the early 90s and jam it out with a real cool tone.

2-Eddie Vedder says a few things and their classic like ” Thunder Bay is the smallest show of the tour and the hottest. By the way how the fuck do you play hockey in here?” Vedder also talks about the importance of neighbours as in Canada helping out New Orleans which was submerged in water at the time(2005) as Eddie says his own country turned there backs on their own but Tbay even sent a boat out to aid in supplies sent to New Orleans. The funniest line is  as Vedder says ” I may be getting old but I can still fuck like a jack rabbit” Ha!

3-PJ toss in a cover of the Police’s Driven To Tears which in itself is a great track and PJ plays this tune brilliantly! I mentioned this to Robbo at what a great song this was and how PJ perfectly executed it live. Robbo said a lot of people in the crowd were like “Whut??!!” Not knowing it was an actual cover tune! Robbo we are officially Old Farts!

4-Even Flow is a Monster of a track! Gone is the grunge sound of the guitars and in its place is a clean vibrant sound not if that makes sense. McCready takes over and jams a real bunch of great riffs while Stone,Jeff and Matt hold down the Fort and I  could picture Eddie hanging off the ceiling and climbing around the Gardens like he does in the Alive video. I have no idea if this actually happened….sorry i’m tripping out…..

5-Save You is a real good track! Vedder is one of the few that can drop F Bombs galore during the chorus but it adds to the song and he makes F Bombs sound classy..hahaha…Fuck You If You Only Hear What You Wanna Hear! … Ament just assaults his Bass like there’s no tomorrow!

6- Rockin In The Free World is a 8 minute jam out with opening act Supersuckers and there’s even a little fellow (Ed’s kid? ) who almost steals the show….Classic

7-Woulda…Coulda….Shoulda….Went!

Set List From TBay…

Present Tense

Corduroy

Save You

Animal

Given to Fly

Cropduster

Even Flow

Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town

Light Years

Lukin

State of Love and Trust

Down

Driven to Tears
(The Police cover)

JeremyBreakerfal

Porch

Encore:
Nothingman
I Am Mine
Black
Alive

Encore 2:
Last Kiss
(Wayne Cochran cover)
Rockin’ in the Free World
(Neil Young cover) (with Supersuckers)
Yellow Ledbetter

Cool Lil Numbers….Pearl Jam/The Fixer

One of my good pals from work,Robbo who reads my blog(atta boy) and drops down some comments now and than posted on my R.E.M review how I missed the boat when Pearl Jam showed up to Tbay back in 2005 and to be honest I kick myself! I should have went but shit I dropped the ball and like I have told Robbo I kind of moved on from PJ after Vitalogy,Nuthin personal PJ Peeps of the world but hey it happens ….

What dawned on me when Robbo mentioned the name Pearl Jam was the great track The Fixer was and is! It’s one of my faves …

Let me guzzle back a bottle of Vino out of Vedders Stash and tell Ya about this fantastic track!

So my Pearl Jam collection consists of Ten(da!),Vitalogy and Backspacer(2010)and that was due to the strength of the single The Fixer!

Eddie Vedder/Mike McCready/Stone Gossard and Matt Chamberlain wrote this snappy kicker of a track and after I heard it I preordered Backspacer off of iTunes and man I was hooked!

The Fixer kicks off with guitar/drums off the hop and boom here’s Eddie singing ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah,hey hey,when’s something’s dark,let me shed a little light on it,when something’s cold,let me put a little fire on it..

Actually my favourite line of the song is when Vedders sings “If your looking for something strong ,just add Scotch to it’ hahaha…Eddie doesn’t sing that line in The Fixer I just added that line to see if Tbone was paying attention!

Ha!

Man these lyrics are Brillant ..effective to the point and friggin catchy! Dig the quick time changes,the kinda solo at the end is Gold ,Love the sound of this record produced  by Brendan OBrien He keeps it  raw,live like,just like the band showed up plugged in and rocked this little bitch of a number in one take!

Kudos to PJ for stepping up and walloping me outside the noggin with a great rock track! Get it if you don’t have it…. and Crank It!