jwran

ha...7 in the morning, just got home and i still cant fucking sleep.

it was my first show, and i just happened to get hooked up with steve who kicks ass from maryland in raleigh and got 10th row isle seats.
i knew was going to be on the lawn for nashville and atlanta, but this was just random circumstance and luck, and a roomate with a car!

just to see everybody in the band in person for the first time was special. (Except for stone, who we almost hit with our car at a brad show becasue we were in such a hurry to see him, and he was walking through the drive through at break-neck-duck-walk pace)

ed sangan amazing "youve got to hide your love away" to the sunset and an almost empty arena before sleater-kinney came out and tore the house down. they are such a good band. check out "one beat" before you see them. plus, matt plays tambourine on one song, and its the funniest thing ive ever seen! awesome band! if you dont hear them before you see them. watch them walk out onstage, try and judge what theyll sound like by the way they look, and then get your teeth kicked in.

between sets, time to get seated, soak it in, enjoy the sunset, collect yourself one last time. the lights were down when they all walked out, and the cheers went up. stone sounded out first and down came release. "holy shit" has never been yelled so loud (by me.) i always thought that release was their "best" opener, like, the special one. and this was just raleigh!!! i figured theyd save it for atlanta or nashville, and i was thinking of the girl, and so when those first few notes just came rolling off i got mad good chills and jumped as high as i could. i mean, i think maybe a lot of people can attest that release can hit just as hard as most rocking songs, if not more, at least in a different way. just to be in the presence of the band for the first time, hearing them play a song that is one of the...i dont know...awesomest songs ever! it was a very special coming together.
time to start the jam.

right into even flow, and it was energetic, and mike was already just...i dont know...fuckin silly! he looked like the class clown or something all night just having a great time, and helping everybody in the crowd have a great time too. ed did NOT mess up lyrics(hardly ANY the whole night, maybe 1 time, but i dont remember when, it was "insignificant"). (it was you are..only a half of the first line of the "i am the shoreline" verse.)

save you. a lot of people have said that this song is a boring rocker, BUT especially eds voice at the end, and the dynamics of the earlier parts make it such a great song live. plus, ed does hilarious stuff with his arms, like giving himself the finger out of the collar of his shirt, and acting suprised, like its someone else. its pretty funny.

helphelp was so fucking good! eds vocal was way better than the album i thought, and jeff sang like a superstar and they just rocked the balls off of this song. i was worried it would kill the energy after release/even flow/save you, but it took it and changed it just as powerfully as the first 3 had.

given to fly. im in a band. and we do given to fly. it has a special place for me and was the first PJ song that i wanted us to cover. its so fun to play, but this was one i couldnt wait to hear from the makers, and once again, band was on! eds vocals were terriffic. it had a lot of weight behind it, and it soared like i hoped it would (cause some of the live versions ive heard kind of dont.) awesome.

cropduster was really cool. the middle and end jam really rock out, and it works well in the live setting. i am mine was i am mine, and it was cool to see ed's emotiveness in this one. and boom just rocks! it was fun to watch him bounce around.

finally some no code with lukin, and we knew it was going into not for you, casue matt played the drumbeat without lukin (before it started) and then the band was like WAIT! and so they played lukin, and into not for you, which just killed! it was so awesome.
ed said "small my table, seats...ALL OF YOU, got so crowded, guess well have to make room!

all this time mike is just posing and throwing out picks and acting totally rediculous, and its just fun to watch. its hard when ed and matt c and mike are all fun to watch at any given time. i mean, stone and jeff are too in their subtler ways, but you never know what anybody is going to be doing...keeps it exciting. corduroy is next with really big cheers and lots of singing. good times.

ed didnt say too much the whole night, but some awesome things that he did say was something like "we hired a fashion consultant recently to help us with our image, and...uh...this is...uh...kinda what he came up with. mike mcready is wearing SANDALS (to which mike proudly posed!) and he went on to talk about they had duct tape on them to make them "edgy." he said (sarcastically) "thats what were going for...reLAXed, but edgy! "
this was right before i got shit, and he said this is a niel young song, speaking of relaxed but edgy (laughter) , and its called i got shit. and it WAS i got shit, and it was AWESOME and i am so thankful i got to hear this song. one of my favorites at the moment. it was just fuckin killer.

something that they are doing more of this tour is badass lighting, and the lighting during you are was just crazy, and it kind of made me feel like i was at a queen show or something! but it rocked out really hard. i think i definitely prefer the live version.

there still hadnt been a weak point in the set yet, and there never fucking was the whole night, so dont get your hopes up.
next was elderly woman, dedicated to "the people in the back." it was a great inhalaton of breath before the next craziness of "insignificance, alive, porch, blood." i think that steve and i had named these 4 songs in this order before the show when talking aboug songs we most wanted to hear. especially for me, it was good to hear some bianaural! and porch and blood are just really special songs to me. and they were just so strong. so powerful. ballistic. ed did the call and response thing during porch with the audience. hed improvse a little melody, and wed call back, one of them he kind of messed up, and it didnt sound that good, and he made a funny kind of "gagging" face. good times. then the rest of porch. better times. best times.

blood was so strong. and such a suprise, even after being on the setlists a little bit. i hope you guys get to hear it at your shows.

one of my favorite music videos is pearl jam "alive" at the pinkpop festival in 92. that video was the first video i ever saw of PJ live and the song alive is, besides just being the song alive, really close to me because of a similar sitaution to a part of my family history (and then me becoming a serial killer and going to jail, only to write an awesome song called footsteps.)

that closed the first set, and i think a lot of people had to catch their breath before they started cheering again.(remember...insignificance... porch...alive...blood) we knew the show wasnt even close to over, but a few people left, mostly people whose wives had come along . its good to be..um...not married...in this situation.

the first encore opened up with bushleaguer.
just kidding.
it was gimmee some truth , which is a song that i didnt know, and it was one of the highlights of the night! i hope some of you guys get to hear it, cause its a neat song. afterwords ed said, "please try and educate yourself. educate yourself. educate yourself. educate yourself." it was cool.

love boat captain didnt build quite as slow as it did on the album i didnt feel like, but it reached a WAY higher level, and mike ripped this solo out. i really really liked it.

betterman was the loudest singing of the night, and despite this wierd kind of not wanting to hear betterman, i was just rocking by the end, depite myself. and the save it for later tag was killer, ed sang his ass off.

i am SO glad i got to hear glorified G. it was unbelievable, and one of the hardest rocking songs of the night. if people are worried about this being weak, or ed not sounding good (or shit, even stone not sounding good) whatever problems there could be, problems were gone tonight. ed got somebodys disposable camera on stage, and took a picture of everybody in the band individually, and jeff has the awesomest smile. it was good to see him smile, cause he wrote that song smile! (didnt he?), and he seemed to be pretty serious before that. im glad he enjoyed himself some. i thought it was cool that he played standup bass on glorified as well.

it didnt get any easier. only crazier.
during do the evolution ed unveiled his shirt for the first time (that i could see) and replaced one of the lines with the mantra from the shirt.
it was black and said "WHAT WOULD JESUS BOMB?" and there was a picture of none other than the head of the infamous GW bush. he didnt say anything about things in between songs. he didnt talk about politics. only sandals. but he made a great political statement anyway. mad props ed.
and, despite this being a song that they play every night, DTE really was just freakin crazy. terriffic. what WOULD jesus bomb? hmm...new thread.

RVM. ever since ive heard RVM ive wanted to see it. to be a part of it. it is such an amazing song, and it is so beautiful and so cathartic and driving. ive heard a couple versions where it sounds flat, but this version sounded awesome immediately.
by the way, what is "emnity?"
the bridge in the middle was just hard and powerufl and beautiful, and in one of the most amazing moments of the show, ed brings out a little mirror, and shines the spotlight that is on him out onto very specific spots in the crowd. i noticed one person had a cool sign that just said "poetry" and there was a "breath" and a bunch of peace signs and it was a beautiful beautiful thing. the end "i gathered speed, etc." was just manic ballistical powerful, the strobe thing goin on. this was the highlight of the night for me i think. this and release. and blood.
ha...fuck it...why go looking for highlights when theres still story to unfold.
now...i like sleater-kinney a whole lot, and to watch them do these two covers was really cool, and it was just a big party on stage. i enjoyed "fortunate son" probably a little more of the two. ed sang great, and so did the woman from SK. i think her voice is so cool. doesnt mean i can always understand her. but they are badasses. i have NEVER seen jeff so animated (even on the pinkpop video!) as he was imitating the guitar player from SK, doing high leg kicks and bouncing all over the place. it was a joy to watch.
all night ed nailed lyrics, nailed notes, sang unbelievably, mike did the mike thing like it was what he does for a living, i got to see jeff smile AND do high leg kicks, and stone probably got real mad cause ed switched up the setlist and stone had to change guitars a couple times on the fly. but stone actually busted out with some great leads, and looked like he was getting into it to. matt just went off all the time, and it was great. they were tight. it was lighthearted but meaningful. it was hilarious. it was moving. it was pearl jam. my first show. exhaustion. inspiration.
surely raleigh 4-15-03 will go down in the history books as the best concert by anyone. ever.
just an honor to get to be on the floor, 10th row, first show, young enough not to have a wife, fit enough to jump as high as i could. (almost) just a real joy. thanks to anybody who made this happen, whether you are reading this or not.
thanks too for reading this if you got this far!
see you in nashville and atlanta!
jw
8:05 AM. time to sleep.