Le forum francophone des fans de Pearl Jam

I liked the show, but Eddie was so pissed the whole night it was making me feel uncomfortable, like when your parents fight. He turned around and was flipping off someone, maybe his tech, early on, then he was totally thrown when the guy who fainted was taken out. He went over to the side and was talking to the sound woman he did a tribute to the night before, he was really mad. He was so all over the place. I was in the very front and I saw Mike and Jeff look at each other more than a few times and sort of lift up their eyebrows like what is he doing? At the end, the rest of the band looked like they were going to do Y Led., but Eddie did the hand under the chin "cut" signal and then told Mike, after this I'm done, I don't want to do anymore. Then they left. At the beginning, Ed said what a great day he and Mike had surfing, but I guess it didn't make him mellow or relaxed. Really strange vibe to the whole show. Still, the band sounded good and they were really into it. I saw Cindy Crawford and her husband and Cindy seemed pretty into it.

Ed got pissed about something during Sirens and he was not the same after that. The rest of the show he was huffing and puffing around, calling several audibles (he did the throat cutting gesture at the end of Blood to signal the band that that was it for the set before quickly leaving the stage) or directing the band, and just in general projecting an attitude of much displeasure.

First signs of a problem were Ed clearly audibling to Small Town. After Even Flow, he noted a fan had been pulled from the GA pit due to an emergency but was doing fine. I'm not sure what happened during Sirens, but it seemed like there was tech issue with his guitar. He held it behind him for his tech George (right?) to grab and as the tech got there he just dropped it. Think Lebron dropping his warmups even though the ballboy was standing right next to him waiting to take them from him. At one point shortly after a beach ball got kicked up on stage and he angrily kicked it off. After they returned for the encore (I think), he mentioned something about being amateur and that he/they would be professional. During Betterman, he clearly motioned to Matt to end the song instead of going into the SIFL bit, but Matt missed or ignored it and Ed was visibly angry. Even After Hours had some venom to it despite his heartfelt intro. And for some songs, he seemed to be just going through the motions and trying to get them over with.

This attitude was a complete 180 from his demeanor in San Diego where he and the band were all smiles all the time. It was just bizarre watching this tantrum play out and not really understanding what was going on. From my perspective it cast a shadow over the entire show. I heard several people saying it was a great show on the way out, but it made me wonder how much they were paying attention to the drama playing out on stage. This crowd seemed to be a hits crowd, and weren't nearly as enthusiastic as the crowd the previous night, but I didn't think it was a horrible crowd. If Ed was upset with the crowd, it seemed mostly unwarranted. Ed may have been upset at George, because after the Sirens thing, I didn't see him the rest of the night. If that was the case, Ed really let it bother him the rest of the show.

That said, there were several highlights: Love Reign, No Way, the Pink Floyd stuff (Interstellar intro to Corduroy, ABITW2 tag, Mother), Blood, Immortality, and Breath. Lightning Bolt (the song) was really, really good tonight, too.

But the story of the show is "what the fuck was up with Ed?"