Pearl Jam San Diego Concert Review

From The Pit...

Pearl Jam finally fulfilled their musical obligations to San Diego recently playing two sold out shows at the Sports Arena with the godfathers of punk the Ramones opening both nights. Pearl Jam had canceled to previous shows in San Diego and made up well for their lack of touring presence with these shows. The shows were general admission which made it easy to get a good spot.

The Ramones came out onto the stage to the refrains of the theme from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", and with their trade mark "1-2-3-4" started into a ripping 45 minutes or so of classic punk. The boys of course had their trademark leather jackets and black locks, except for bass player C.J. whose head was shaved. Joey Ramone resembles Howard Stern so much, I sometimes wonder if they are the same person. I've never seen them together..hmmmmm. With little pause between songs the Ramones played such classics as "Lobotomy", "Rock and Roll High School", "Sheena is a Punk Rocker", "Blitzkrieg Bop", and "Pet Sematary" (before which Joey informed the crowd that the Sports Arena, or Civic Auditorium as he called it, was buried on a pet cemetery). Overall, the Ramones were hot and the crowd was really into it.

Pearl Jam played a strong, rocking two hour set on a stage that was minimal, but still impressive with its use of lights candles and even some minor pyrotechnics. They opened with "Release" and from their kicked into high gear for nearly the whole show. The whole band proved to be a tight, competent working group and Eddie Vedder did well himself on guitar.

The band played a crowd pleasing set with nearly all their signature tunes, a few new ones and a couple covers during the encores. From Ten they played "Evenflow", and "Alive" "Black", and "Once" and an interestingly reworked version of "Jeremy". It was surprising that some of the biggest response from the crowd came for two slower songs, "Daughter", and the show closer "Yellow Ledbetter".

Pearl Jam sampled heavily from Vs and Vitalogy, playing such songs as "Blood", "Rearview Mirror", "Animal", "Last Exit", "Spin the Black Circle", "Not For You", and so on. Curiously missing was "Go", the opening song from Vs. Overall though, the set list was a good sampling, with few surprises.

Vedder managed to skate across the stage a couple of times, and swig out a bottle of wine during the encores. Vedder seemed truly distressed when security tackled a stage jumper and carried him off stage. Vedder tried to offer the guy a swig of wine to no avail. Oh well Eddie, the same type of harassment you used to get when you live din San Diego yourself.

I must say the show was better than I expected. I like Pearl Jam but sometimes think they are a little overrated. This show proved to me that they are great live and maybe not so overrated afterall. Vedder said "See ya next year" as he left the stage. If all goes well, I will be there next time!