Pearl Jam
Flanella Pride (Live @ Filaforum, 17.09.2006)

Pearl Jam, 17.09.06, FilaForum

Setlist: Go, Last Exit, Save You, World Wide Suicide, Corduroy, Severed Hand, Unemployable, Even Flow, I Am Mine, Man Of The Hour, MFC, Daughter / (Another Brick In the Wall Pt. 2), Faithfull, Comatose, State Of Love And Trust, Why Go
Encore 1: Picture In A Frame [Tom Waits cover], Parachutes, Black, Crazy Mary, Given To Fly, Alive
Encore 2: Do The Evolution, Big Wave, Leash, Rockin' In The Free World, Yellow Ledbetter

 

From a random comment on Debaser.it: “…in a society that has now killed every diversity and is going to box every element considered out of place, a Pearl Jam concert pathetically resembles a no-global meeting, a demagogic song by liga-jova-pelù, they were great, rock is a legend, so they will be forever, but within that forever I do not include the present”.
 
Bullshit. A lot (let’s skip the sociology à la Alberoni of the label-factory society), useless (the no-global meeting…after all, next to me there was a tuxedoed penguin)—and as big as a house. Liga Jova and Pelù, for example, have never been twenty in Seattle, so…fuck, Eddie&Co., after fifteen years of honorable career, have not lost their desire to set the stage on fire.
 
The FilaForum is a swarm of smiles and excitement, shirts of Alice in Chains and U2, Mother Love Bone and Tool, three-button jackets and informal sweaters, big guys as wide as the entrance gate and skinny ones with thick glasses. A bit of everything, maybe like it happens for Morandi and Baglioni, although in my opinion, you don’t see flannel shirts at their shows.
The Peggèm make a punctual entrance, they start with Go and it’s immediately a great ride. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, the festival of memories is now and it is here. And everyone reciting the lyrics as if they were invocations, some jumping, some standing still, some shouting at the top of their lungs, and some with lips slightly open, all keepin’ on rockin’ in a free world, thanking a band that, since Ten onwards, has found itself interpreting the emotions of many, many small city Indians. Geronimo is there on stage; he may be old and tired, but he drinks red wine from the bottle like a kid on his first Saturday night out with friends, he still has that thunderous voice, and—to say in one word—he loves those in front of him. It may not be a punk attitude, but it’s impressive. By the way, good old Vedder never misses a note, not even when, during the second encore, he stumbles and falls face down. Okay, okay, we’re gladly venturing into mythology here, but for the father of Daughter, exceptions can be made.

Goosebumps moments? Many. But even RobboUilliams can give you those, if the audience follows. Tricks? Just as many, like “after fifteen years of concerts, you are the best singing audience” and so on. But who cares, these are details, three meters from the Peggèm you instantly realize you didn’t make a mistake a few years ago, in choosing this way to experience music, in experiencing joy and anger with all the passion you have, and now you see it, the passion, in the crisscrossing sprints of McReady and Gossard, in Cameron’s sweaty drum solo, in Boom Gaspar’s buccaneer face at the keyboards, in EddiVedder dedicating Picture in a Frame, by Tom Waits, to his little girl and appearing neither ridiculous nor aged.

This is a Peggèm concert. But this is also me, at sixteen, throwing myself on a bike down from Budda’s old house with Spin the Black Circle blasted beyond maximum in my walkman, searching for that thrill that the Peggèm, night after night, bring back to life when they take the stage.