The Montreal shows were a lot better than I expected. All the Pearl Jam songs I dont particularly care for in live shows.. stuff that stalls the first encore and loses momentum, yah well, Eddie rocks them.

Highlights:

Man of the Hour, Driftin', TYYAM w/ Liam, Masters of War, Let My Love Open the Door, the NEW SONG!, Blackbird, Lukin and Motherfucking PORCH!!!

EV teasing DTE the first night and RVM the second when someone shouted for it.. doing the guitar behind his head and everything. He's been taking guitar lessons with Mike McCready ;-) And Mike is doing fine, he's still handsome (erm, or something like that).

People that ask for attention need to DIE. Sit you ass down Eddie does not need to see you act as a conductor during Small Town. Although, that idiot STFU after he got a beer. But for real, if it isnt people yelling stupid shit, its them still competeing with "I can wave my arms more than you can!" Youre clearly over 35: GROW UP.

The guy who got his kid pulled up on stage was a real douche. No one wanted to see your dumb ass walk out on stage. The girl looked petrified and hardly looked at the crowd. Apparently this is the new way to live through your children: bring them to a Pearl Jam or related show, have band members spot them and give them items off the stage like tambourines or guitar plects, so that you can feel gratified your ugly mug didnt get anything. Seriously?

Playing "Ooh Boston!" was entertaining too.

Liam and EJ: Aside from the fact they are RAD, how cute were they the second night drinking water because they were still hung over from the night before.. At 8pm. I know Aussies go hard.. The first night they both had a glass of red wine.

oh, and I got in trouble during Trouble.. (haha) for taking photos with no flash. Second song in, I am told I will have to check my camera I say I will stop and put it away. Asshole venue security says that if he sees it again I will be kicked out. Two people in front of me have a cell phone and/ or a camera using flash out for the rest of the show. WTF? Yah, its fucking rude to use flash so I wasnt. Everyone else WAS and got to keep their cameras.

my weekend was pretty shitty. see previous post. at some point last night i started to feel better as if i flicked a switch and decided i was over it. im not and i still lack advice and communication, but maybe the worse is over. for this week.

we are getting a massive thunder storm at the moment. nice, the lights just flickered. i was out driving a little while ago before it started to rain, and lightning was intense. electrifying. its been ridiculously humid all day.

squee time? i managed to pull tickets to both ed shows here. first one was easy, in and out in less than a minute. they fixed the links to "the bank" from the us tour sales because that was instant. the second onsale was a test of stress and anxiety. why would anything else go simply? 16 minutes of refreshing got me the "buy" icon and a clickable link. by that time i also had to re-login and i was sure they were going to be gone. during my 16 minutes of bland nothingness i was consoling myself that it really didnt matter if i dont make it to the second show.

fangirl that son ;)

i miss the days of mailing in ticket request forms. yes, having to go to the bank for money orders and the post office was a task in itself, but it worked without trying my patience. of course canada has the most expensive shows.. and of course they are more expensive than the full band show price. wtf? how big is the entourage that he's bringing?

i saw ladytron for free last friday night. i was impressed with their show, since i paid nothing, and the crowd was pretty decent. D says their albums sound exactly like their live show, so i had intended on checking that out a few days ago. but, we reached our monthly d/l cap by then so i couldnt d/l anything else.

EDDIE IS COMING TO CANADA.
YAYAYAYAYAY!

now i just need to find some monies.

Brisbane Night 1
still the best show played down under this tour..

the sydney opera house, the harbour bridge, north sydney
my flight to brisbane took off and flew over the city!

.. an excellent night

Sydney Night 2

the band

I was standing outside the arena at about quarter after 7 when my phone rang. Was inside yet? No. Ed's guitar was set up and I should get inside pronto! I relayed to the news to the group I was standing with and we decided that it was as good a time as ever to get inside. I had to leave a ticket at the box office (again) to the person who would be accompanying me that night.

Made it in by 7:20 and all was good. 7:26 Ed walks out.. "Good evening" What was it going to be that night.. Hide Your Love Away played to a few hundred people who were smart enough to get in early.
I was in about 2nd row of the stands and 30 seconds in some guy comes to the row I am in and tells me I am in his seat. Wtf? Yeah, because theyre arent a thousand other seats to pick from at that point.
Nice intro to the KOL and we are always lucky to get an extra Ed tune. When he was done I left the stands and did lap around the arena for the next hour. If I wasnt up front I wasnt going to watch them, again.

First huge crowd noise was Dissident. The Sydney Night 2 were Vs fans. Its very different to gauge the rest of the crowd being in the stands rather than up front. Also seeing everyone around you sitting during the first 8 songs of the show.

The main set got a lot better for me with Sad. Yeah, Sad to the end of the main set made this show for me. Whipping, then Not For You transitioning into Present Tense as McCreaday was ready to go before Ed finished the NFY tag. Down. Another one the crowd didnt know. Comatose, Porch.

First encore was acoustic again, I sure as hell did not expect to hear Low Light. Second encore opened with a very energetic Blood. The the house lights went up.. Baba. I tought we'd get YL at this point since the lights were on and clearly they were about to finish. Then I see Jeff getting the stand up and think no.. its gotta be something else. The band sat back down and did Indifference. Niice. Ok, this would have been better in the dark, but it was still an awesome version of Indifference. Done.

The entire tour should have had fan club seats because there is a huge difference having to sit with the plebians, watching the people on the rail lean on it for the entire show. I knew one group of people who were in the first 5 rows for this show. It showed that the it was locals in the front, especially during the newer songs when people just stood there.


the city and other random wanderings..
11.9.06

darling harbour
so unsunny at this point in time. sydney weather is just as schitzo as melbourne weather

sydney tower
didnt go up this hunk of metal. nothing like the good ol' cn tower

hyde park
where we sat after lunch because it was a tiring day

look at my sunnies!
self portrait in hyde park w asal

musuem train station
on the corner of hyde park, but not hyde park corner.

Sydney Night 1

hanging around the arena waiting for the show to start..

acer arena
notice the LACK of advertisments. how does this venue make any revenue?

the foyer inside the main doors

blurry me- apparently i have issues holding a camera still
i was having so much fun sitting on the floor in the foyer i decided to take a self portrait

opening night 11.7.06 : the show..

jeff, stone

stone

mike

jeff, ed

Bets on what the opener would be. I was going for something new. Calls for Release or Interstellar-> Corduroy I would have been happy with to. I was wrong (this is why I dont bet) and we got Release! Into RVM!!! Loved it that early in the show. A good mix of new and old in the main set. There was the one reference to Melbourne Cup that day as Ed called Matt a thoroughbred. Talking abont surfing as a prelude into Big Wave. Big crowd involvement for Daughter, Betterman and and Small Town.. This was one of the few sold out shows where all the crap singles and obstructed view seats were completely gone. I was eagerly waiting for DTE to show up and it closed the main set.

1st Encore was acoustic. Ed came out with 2 bottles of wine commenting on how we was prepared to be there for a while. The guy from Sacramento (whos name I have forgotten already) got a nice portion poured into his Coke cup and was told to share. Nothingman wasnt on the setlist, apparently, and this was a change made at the time.

2nd Encore was back to rocking.. GO! Why Go!! Then 2 Neil songs to close out the night. Throw Your Hatred Down was great. Not a lot of people knew it, but of course half the front row was at Bridge :) During Free World it was very apparent how "on" the crowd was that night (to later to be completely overshadowed by Brisbane, but..) Every seat was filled to the top of this large arena. People on their feet..

The first few rows, especially front row, kept migrating left over the duration of the show as the piles of people in front of Mike grew. This was fine except I had these tall guys in front of me at the end who started about 4 seats over!