Monday Music Roundup

I am sad about the news this morning that Steve Irwin (“Crocodile Hunter”) apparently died today in Australia while on a dive. Stingray strike to the heart. That sucks, although I can’t say I am surprised. Everytime we would watch Crocodile Hunter, I would shake my head at the insane stuff he would do, and comment that that was how he was going to die someday. I appreciated his childlike joy at the rad animals he would work with, but he’d always mess with the animals, and be like, “Crikey! She’s a beaut! Now I’m going to stick my finger in her butthole! Wow! She’s a feisty one!“

So, I guess in a way we can’t be surprised. But it sucks that he leaves behind a wife and a kid. Here’s to hoping he goes somewhere with lots of wild animals he can frolick with all day long, with no fear of bodily harm. Cheers, mate.

“I Ain’t Saying She’s Better Than You”
Donovan Woods
This is a slip of song, just a lovely acoustic guitar and eviscerating lyrics from Donovan Woods, a Canadian artist. As many times as I have listened to this song over the last few days, it makes me ache — and I have never even had someone say words like this to me: “Like all your men set in the past, it’s better to leave without being asked / So tell me again you’ll let me go, without saying things you already know / Like it’s over, and you don’t know her / But let me tell you honestly: I ain’t sayin’ she’s better than you, you see. She’s just better than you for me.” He tries to make it sound nice but that’s just guttingly harsh. But it’s a really lovely song, oddly enough.

His music is a bit hard to track down, but he has a MySpace and a label, and this is from his EP The Hold Up. Not that appearances matter, but he looks more like he’d come by to fix your plumbing, or drink PBR with you while you watch football, rather than spin these bittersweet melodies. (thx again Clea)

“These Streets”
(live from Bush Studios)
Paolo Nutini
I’d heard about this fella at the Boulder music conference — you know when you hear straight men talking enthusiastically about how good looking another guy is, he must really be something. I missed his live performance, which apparently was quite impressive, but did pick up a live EP which has pleasantly introduced me to his retro-tinged rootsy pop sound. Despite a name that is fully Italian, one listen to Paolo Nutini and it’s clear he is a Scottish chap, and he’s only 19 at that. “Feel good” is an overused descriptor, but it is impossible to listen to this without feeling happy, an excellent end-of-the-summer tune. His album These Streets is currently only available as an import in the U.S., but cites The Drifters, Ray Charles, and Van Morrison as influences.

This single is a charming little chronicle of when he first moved to London, roaming the busy roads: “These streets have too many names for me / I’m used to Glenfield Road and spending my time down in Ochy / I’ll get used to this eventually I know, I know / Life is good, and the girls are gorgeous / Suddenly the air smells much greener now . . . ” Having spent a little time in London myself, it makes me smile.

“Until We Fall”
(YouSendIt link, open in new window)
Audioslave
When this song kicks off, you wouldn’t think of it as Audioslave (with their Soundgarden/Rage Against The Machine past). With a bouncy Beatles-esque guitar intro, it sounds like a pop song until Chris Cornell’s trademark wail kicks in. I love his voice. Love, love, love. Overall there’s more of a bluesy-soulful vibe to Revelations, Audioslave’s third release (out tomorrow). This track is much better than the “Original Fire” tune that was leaked, which I think is actually one of the weakest cuts on the new album. This and other tracks take more of a funky/melodic approach and I like it.

“The Rain”
Kasey Chambers
This was a new name for me, even though Kasey Chambers is loved in her native Australia and has built quite a solid grassroots following in the U.S. through extensive touring in support of her last 3 albums. Her voice has a plaintive warm and slightly warbly quality to it that reminds me strongly of Kirsten Hersh (remember “Your Ghost” with Michael Stipe?), and she is also frequently likened to Lucinda Williams for her sharp & sly lyricism. This track is from her forthcoming Carnival album (September 12, Warner). Rootsy-bluegrass with a bit of twang, but not country.

“The Boys Are Back In Town”
(Thin Lizzy cover, Dublin 8/23/06)
Pearl Jam
It’s good to see Pearl Jam continuing to have fun with their covers now into the European leg of their tour. Here in the hometown of Thin Lizzy, they bust this one out to the absolute delight of the crowd. It’s a fun night with Mike nailing the bombastic riffs and Vedder clearly enjoying himself and mirroring the joy of the crowd. Makes me want to tease my hair a little bit, maybe even “be on the floor shaking what she got.”

One final note in the continuing quest for the perfect t-shirt (which is funny, because I don’t even really wear t-shirts): Knock Knock has expanded their mission to educate the public in popular slang.

Moving forward from their radically hilarious Slang Flash Cards, now you can wear the shirt and help your peeps learn when the proper time is to use words like freak, tight, player, fly, bomb, and grill. Big ups to them for this hilarious line, one of my favorites.

Odds & ends

Ûž News of the day (well, MY day, anyways) is that The Lemonheads have announced Fall tour dates. Yippee!

Ûž Forget Busted Tees, man. If you truly want to stand out (in an ironic, laid back way) at all the back-to-school parties this fall, make yourself up a Chuck Norris-ism shirt on this site. Mine would probably read: “Chuck Norris has two speeds: Walk and Kill.” Read some of my other favorites in this post, or visit the mother archive here. Dang funny.

No wait, I just saw this and I think I want my shirt to read: “Helen Keller’s favorite color is Chuck Norris.”

(That’s gonna be one that my dad calls about and says, “Heather? I don’t understand that joke on your blog.”)

Ûž Several of you have emailed me looking for a place that you can buy the new Ryan Auffenberg EP, Under All The Bright Lights. The good news is that it is now available on CDBaby! It gave me quite a kick to see that the description of the artist on the CDBaby website is a snippet from yours truly. I laughed out loud at that one.

Related download: Check out the acoustic session that Ryan did with iChannel (free download, right click save as).

Ûž For you Pearl Jam fans, I found this great lil blog with a bunch of live shows available for download. It’s creatively entitled “Pearl Jam Bootlegs,” and there’s some fantastic stuff on there.

Ûž For you completists, there is a Doors Box Set (“Perception“) coming out on November 21: “This collection offers up re-mastered versions of the Doors’ six studio albums on both CD and DVD, complete with rare video and audio tracks such the seventeen-minute cut “Celebration of the Lizard” and a previously unreleased version of “Indian Summer,” among other alternate takes and rarities. Hyperion will also release the first authorized autobiography of the band, “The Doors by the Doors,” on November 7th.”

Remember that Doors movie with Val Kilmer? Remember the scene when he is running around (as I recall) naked, stoned out of his mind? In high school my friend Lance and I decided to watch that movie on Christmas Day one year. His whole extended family was there. I remember being embarassed. That’s my best Doors story.

Ûž You know those times when you just need to say “FRICK yeah. I am AWESOME” to the naysayers in your life (or into the mirror)? Well Fabulist has put together a three–part series of “Confidence Rock.” And. It. Is. Awesome. (I mean, it includes the song from Karate Kid. It doesn’t get much better than that).

Ûž Ten years since Trainspotting? Aquarium Drunkard has a nice soundtrack featurette on the jumpy British flick that turned a generation on to all things Brit-Pop. “Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance, leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose your future. But why would anyone want to do a thing like that?”

Ûž What WOULD Uncle Jesse do? That is an excellent question that, until now, we have not had a website to answer.

Uncle Jesse (John Stamos) shares a birthday with me, and I share some some of his swaggering coolness (I like to think so, anyways). So now I can hypothetically run through a host of scenarios and see what Full House’s coolest uncle might have done.

Ûž The Scatter’O’Light post on Michael Hutchence made me think of this picture that I once saw in a fantastic music exhibit:

Regardless of your feelings on the INXS topic, is that not a SUPERB photograph? I love it.

Her post also made me think of this song, still my favorite INXS song ‘cuz it makes me think of dancing in my friend Britt’s bedroom at the age of ten. I can’t describe the dance we were doing, but I can picture it clearly in my head. I contend that this is still a great song – listen to that harmonica! Flashback of the day:

“Suicide Blonde” – INXS

Another reason I should have sacrificed my left kidney in order to be in San Francisco these last few days

In addition to Pearl Jam playing one of the best setlists I’ve ever seen on Sunday night in my beloved San Francisco (as in, if I could have handpicked my favorite songs for a set, this would be a solid frontrunner), they unleashed this on Tuesday night. And I wasn’t there for either.

I KNEW I should have stowed away in that airplane wheelwell (since I couldn’t afford a plane ticket) after a KICKASS reader offered me a free ticket to one of the SF shows.

All Along The Watchtower – Pearl Jam
(written by Dylan, but how can you not associate Hendrix when you hear this version?)

Ed introduces this song by saying:
“. . . And I’m not sure why, but this feels like a San Francisco song. And, uh . . . I think we’re gonna play the shit out of it.”

(cue McCready, who finished the song with this) . . .

Seeing visions of falling up somehow: Pearl Jam & Tom Petty in Denver, 7/2/06

Any doubts as to whether Pearl Jam can still be a tight, intense, vital live band after 15+ years together is eradicated every time they play a set like last night. Although it was shorter than my ideal setlist would be (more on that later), I thought they were in fine form and just as passionate and musically relevant as ever.

So, eh, my seats were okay last night:

That’s me (in the red) chatting up the guard, our seats are directly to my right. I was in the THIRD ROW, right in the center. Section BBB, Row C, Seats 1 & 2. Yeah, the Ten Club fanclub takes care of their old fans. I was absolutely tickled pink, and the nice thing about this kind of seating is that the other people in my row were all similar long-term fans/freaks and we had a lot in common to discuss about shows we’ve seen.

After parking in a garage in nearby downtown and thinking, “Ah, we’ll just walk over to the arena after dinner,” it starts POURING RAIN. And not just any rain: Colorado Summer Rain, which is denser and wetter than your luxury showerhead. It was kind of funny to have to run through it to get to the show. After a few blocks you just kind of give up, laugh, and enjoy the moment while getting soaked. Then the Nazi-door-guards (who took their jobs VERY seriously, thankyouverymuch) had us wait outside at the venue as well, so by the time we got to our seats, we were pretty much soaked to the skin. Could have bought a $45 tour t-shirt to change into, but didn’t want to bleed any more cash than the $200 we’d already spent on the tickets.

But the nice thing about this dual bill was that Pearl Jam suddenly just APPEARED, with no opening band to enjoy passively while actually just waiting for my guys to take the stage. And it was so, so good when that moment arrived.

By this point in my life, I feel like Pearl Jam is almost family. Even though I don’t know them, I feel like I’ve known them for 12 years, through a good portion of my life. Seeing Mike McCready pogo-ing up and down holding his Flying-V guitar, Jeff Ament athletically contorting through every note of his basslines, Vedder gripping the microphone with his wild eyes and toothy grimaces, Stone Gossard mouthing a stream of words to himself and marching his way through his blistering guitar work, with Matt Cameron in the back holding it all together with his absolutely scorching drums: The smile on my face was broader than anything. I felt a deep sense of goodness permeating me to see my guys back together in fine form, just mere feet away from me.

SETLIST
2006-07-02, Denver, Colorado, Pepsi Center
Main set: World Wide Suicide, Severed Hand, Hail Hail, Do The Evolution, Given To Fly, Even Flow, Present Tense, Jeremy, Army Reserve, Daughter, Bee Girl, Corduroy, Better Man, Black
Encore 1: Comatose, Bu$hleaguer, Alive, So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star

I thought they absolutely shredded the stage, opening with a quartet of absolute ragers. Our new digital camera which is BEYOND RAD (thanks Steve!) also takes VIDEO CLIPS. The camera would only hold about 5 minutes of video, so my deepest apologies that only one of these clips is full & complete. I know to start a song and then have me cut off in the middle, well – to use a locker room expression – it kind of leaves you with figurative blue balls. Yikes. But the videos are impressionistic; I wanted to give you the feel, the bird’s eye view from last night and I guess this accomplishes that. You lucky ducks:

World Wide Suicide

Do The Evolution (longest video, absolutely ROCKIN)

Bee Girl! Ed and Jeff inserted this little playful gem right into the center of the set, completely unexpectedly. It’s from early in their career, a ditty dedicated to that rotund little girl in the bee costume from the Blind Melon “No Rain” video & album cover and almost never played. What a treat. I have almost all of it (not the first line, I wasn’t quick enough with the little buttons) here on video:

Corduroy is such a fabulous song to sing along to at the top of your lungs at a live show, I was very pleased that they included it (“The waiting drove me mad / You’re finally here and I’m a mess”). Hail, Hail peeled paint (when they launched into that opening riff, I got chills) and Comatose was scathingly good. Army Reserve was a surprise, especially the heartfelt dedication in which Ed thanked all the soliders serving overseas and omitted any snarky political comments (although I suppose he made up for it in Bu$hleaguer).

PJ keyboardist Boom Gaspar didn’t play last night due to a funeral he was attending, so Benmont Tench from The Heartbreakers filled in for him on Corduroy and Black. He added some really rich piano filler to Black, it made it stand out for me in a way that it usually doesn’t. (And after the show we were walking to our car and I found myself face to face with him through the glass of a hotel bar window. I stopped, smiled, and gave him two thumbs up. Hey, I never claimed to be cool on-the-spot.)

For the last song, So You Wanna Be A Rock N Roll Star, Pearl Jam was joined by Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell. This was a great song to see since it has only been played three times live EVER by Pearl Jam, the first being the November 6, 1995 show in San Diego that I was at! Although at that time I remember them doing it more hauntingly and acoustic, whereas last night R’N’R Star was a rocker. Very, very cool.

Then into the second portion of the show. Tom Petty plays the rhinestone cowboy thing to a sort of odd perfection. I’d never seen him live before, and honestly the first thing I noticed was that his silky bangs and locks were better layered and blow-dried than mine. I wonder if he deep conditions? Although the man is undoubtedly a rock legend (The Heartbreakers are celebrating their 30th year together this year), I can’t shake his physical similarity to that grouchy female high school English teacher whose class you always wanted to skip. The guard I was chatting with told me that he has lots of groupies which he entertains, so I spent a good portion of his set wondering why on God’s green earth that was so.

Petty’s portion of the concert was fun, a singalong for more songs than I thought I knew. I’ve never seen him live before, and it was a fun journey through his catalog, covers (including The Yardbirds and a song from his collaborations with the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys), and even his new stuff. He played Saving Grace which has serious parallels to Chris Isaak’s “Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing” and will be on the new Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers release Highway Companion (July 25). I think that is the perfect name for a Tom Petty CD, since his music seems most suited to a long roadtrip to me (thanks, Tom Cruise!).

Once Petty got going with his own unique laid-back brand of showmanship and the big screens started flashing behind him, I quite enjoyed myself, although inside I was secretly biding the minutes until Vedder decided to join him. And join him he did, for a mid-set performance of The Waiting (video clip below) and an hugely good-natured and smile-filled duet for the last song of the night, American Girl – which left me with another ear-to-ear grin on my face as we filed out.

As for the concert overall, it was kind of a strange pairing, since I think both the rabid Pearl Jam fans as well as the rabid Tom Petty fans would have each liked to have seen their heroes in unadulterated form for the full 2 1/2 hours, rather than having to take a shortened set of whomever you came to see for $100. I suppose some disappointment is inevitable for the hardcore fans of each artist when they pair up for a double bill like this, and I have to say that the setlist was not what I had hoped for. It’s hard for me to see stage time wasted on what I feel are trite and overplayed songs like Jeremy and Black, Betterman and Daughter, even though those songs were greeted with some of the loudest cheers of the night.

I try to see it from the other half of the crowd’s perspective: I’ll admit that the highlights of the Petty set for me were the radio hits, the Mary Jane’s Last Dance, the You Don’t Know How It Feels, even the Free Fallin’. So conversely I know Pearl Jam has to roll through their standards. It’s just that in such a short set (only 18 songs) I selfishly wanted to hear more depth and variety, and especially more stuff off the new album (no Marker in the Sand, no Parachutes). It’s not a complaint towards Pearl Jam, just my own wishful thinking.

Newspaper reviews: This one got it right. My own paper drilled out a banal, shallow piece of drivel here.

I am glad I went and it left me thirsty for more, plotting pipe-dream schemes for how I could get out to the West Coast to see another show on this tour (stow away in an airplane wheelwell, anyone?). Ah, if only.

Cheers.

Off to wait for a friend

Just a quickie as we head out the door to see Pearl Jam in Denver with Tom Petty. I think this is my 8th or 9th Pearl Jam concert, and my first since 2000 (!). So I am no doubt overdue. Here is some appropriate music as I set off to collect my fanclub seats and wait, no doubt, in line.

“Waiting On A Friend” (Rolling Stones cover) – Pearl Jam
06/23/06 in Pittsburgh, first time ever played

And a lovely bonus that a friend sent to me this morning, in honor of Pearl Jam playing with Tom Petty tonight: two fantastic duets from their last show a few nights ago (6/30/06 Summerfest in Milwaukee):

“The Waiting” – Tom Petty & Eddie Vedder

“American Girl” – Tom Petty & Eddie Vedder

The waiting is the hardest part. I am excited. If you are heading to the show and happen to see me enjoying myself (singing along, no doubt, drumming on my legs with my palms), say hi! I’ve got a red tank top on today.

PS – Drop the leash!

The Strokes and Eddie Vedder: “Mercy, Mercy Me”

Sweet lord, it’s raining duets that I’ve been wanting to hear. Thanks to Jed, here is the studio version of the Marvin Gaye cover with Vedder along with The Strokes, and Queen of the Stone Age Josh Homme helping out my man Fabrizio on the skins. Verse-swapping goodness, recorded as a b-side for the “You Only Live Once” single.

“Mercy, Mercy Me” – The Strokes, Eddie Vedder and Josh Homme

And a bonus track documenting the continuing saga of the love between Ed and The Strokes:

“Juicebox” (live) – The Strokes and Eddie Vedder
Rolling Stone’s 1000th Party, May 2006 – low quality audio, but hey it’s worth what you’re paying for it.


And folks, I know EZArchive sometimes sucks and I do apologize, but I still haven’t found any better file-hosting system. If these links don’t work, it’s not because I took em down (usually up at least 2 days) – but because EZArchive sucks. Sorry! Try back!

Don’t need a helmet, got a hard, hard head

This made me smile today because it reminds me of something that near happened to me once in Edinburgh (minus the army helmet). Plus, it is a good segue into a few more covers & live tracks from the 2006 Pearl Jam tour thus far that are begging to be shared:

From the expanded Vedder interview in Rolling Stone

Vedder: “I went through this f*cking yearlong period where I wore helmets all the time. It was like army helmets that I’d find, or just like whatever. It was this kind of analogy, like I need a helmet…I felt like…it’s just funny looking…sleeping in a f*cking army helmet.

I remember one day after a Lollapalooza gig, I woke up in a hotel in an army helmet and a T-shirt. And, I heard a live band playing. I thought it was a live band. So I went out the door to see if it was live. I had to know — was that a real stand-up bass? Or were they just playing music in the atrium or whatever? So I pushed the door open, went to look, you know, and I looked back and the door just went [makes a clicking sound].

So I’m standing in the hotel, in this atrium thing and I’ve got an army helmet on and a T-shirt.

RS: In like your underwear? Nothing?

Vedder: “Nothing; army helmet and a T-shirt. I was thinking, ‘Aww, this is really bad.’ And so I go down to the maids, but they won’t let me in. I don’t know anybody else’s room number. Everyone’s got a pseudonym. I don’t know who’s what. And, so I take the T-shirt off, wrap it around the back, put the army helmet over the front, go down in this glass elevator, it’s Easter Sunday — this all starts to hit me — it’s Easter Sunday, there’s all these people in their Easter [best]. It was somewhere in the Midwest like Milwaukee or something. I had to walk through the people, and parents were hiding their kids from this freaky guy. It must have been like a real apparition. Then — sorry I got into this story; I’ll just finish it — but the funny thing is that I actually waited in line. There was a line at the front desk. I actually waited in line behind two other people. It was kind of a Tarzan goes to Vietnam look or something. And then of course you get to the lady, tell her your problem, locked out of your room and, of course, she asks for an ID. That’s when I lost it.”

TUNES:

Beast of Burden – 5/10/06
(Stones cover) Loose like the one from Brixton Academy 7/14/93. Only been played live maybe 3 times.

Save It For Later – 5/17/06
(English Beat cover)

Around The Bend – 5/19/06
Lovely little gem from No Code, rarely played live

Can’t Explain – 5/19/06
(The Who cover) This was played live by PJ for the first time at the 11/7/95 San Diego show that I was at. This version is acoustic; the crowd enthusiastically sings along.

Dead Man Walking – 5/19/06
The first PJ song I ever saw performed live, at the pre-show opener, San Jose 11/4/95. The website is wrong, says the first time it was played was 1998 (and that it has only been played 4 times live) – maybe they don’t count solo pre-sets with just Vedder.

Hard to Imagine – 5/19/06
A great unreleased song, only been played a few dozen times live.

Kick Out The Jams – 5/22/06
(MC5 cover)

Forever Young – 5/24/06
(Dylan cover for Bob’s birthday) First time ever played live.

Check the Bargain Bins: Sweet Relief

Occasionally you open the old CD cabinet (which heart-breakingly gathers dust due to the prominence of your iPod with its sleek digital casing and nyah-nyah ability to hold thousands of CDs) and find an old cracked case containing a gem of a disc.

You can probably find the Sweet Relief benefit CD at any number of used record store bargain bins (or on Amazon for a blessed PENNY) – for reasons unknown to me because this is a GREAT album.

Released in 1993, this was a fundraiser for musician Victoria Williams, stricken with degenerative neurological disorder multiple sclerosis. All of the songs on this album are Victoria’s songs. In most cases (may God strike me dead), I prefer the covers to the original because Victoria has a voice that can best be described as unusual (although quite haunting as background atmosphere in “Crazy Mary” with Pearl Jam). But she is a phenomenal songwriter, and this album shows the beauty she is capable of.

There is a lovely alt-country vibe to this disc, featuring Soul Asylum, The Jayhawks, Lou Reed, Pearl Jam, Buffalo Tom, among others – and these two favorites:

Frying Pan – Evan Dando
I love this song dearly, and found myself singing it the other day on a late golden afternoon (which inspired this post). Evan Dando was meant from Day One to sing this song. I love the simple imagery of the opening:
“One laugh in the middle of a struggle
A diamond at the bottom of a puddle
Did you ever stare at the moon ’til you saw double?”

This Moment – Matthew Sweet
Fabulous to have in your pocket for all those goodbyes, all those *moments* that you want to capture, appreciate, and pin down in your memory before they vanish.

By the way, the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund is still doing good works for the ill & struggling.

Just indulge me for one sec – a few more Vedder items (and some music)

Okay, while every one is busy talking about that other new famous baby and the pics on the internet (even my SISTER sent me the links this morning; it’s like the Baby Jesus all over again, except there were no cameras then) — here’s one I’ll bet you missed altogether.

Yep, that’s Ed Vedder throwing out the first pitch at a recent Cubs game with daughter Olivia Vedder, 2. Pretty dang cute, I must say. Okay, wait, what is this, Hello! Magazine? Here’s some music. Apologies:

June 3, 2006 PJ Show
Continental Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey

No Surrender (Springsteen cover) – Ed Vedder, solo, pre-show
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite covers EVER that they do.

It Makes No Difference – My Morning Jacket & Ed Vedder
Ed then stays out for the first song of the MMJ set. Nice.

I should have pointed this out before, but didja know that Pearl Jam is selling all of the shows from their current tour on their website, practically immediately following the actual performance? Replacing the discs and discs and discs for sale of tours past, now you just download it and it’s that simple. Very cool & egalitarian, and forward-thinking of them in terms of harnessing the power of the internet to reach the fans.

One other neat feature of their site is that they log every single song Pearl Jam has done/performed/recorded in a searchable database. And you thought I just KNEW that the last time they played Leash was 4/11/94.

Pearl Jam tearin’ it up

Pearl Jam has been absolutely shredding the stage these last few weeks since their tour began in May (well, April if you count the London Astoria pre-show). Right out of the gate, Pearl Jam are rocking relentlessly, and bringing out some treats for the setlists. They are converting even the hard-hearted — the jaded who think of them as has-beens who can’t rock any more — and I couldn’t be happier. Here is a sampling of the blistering beauty:

Leash – Boston 5/25
THIS was A Moment. If you only download one track from this post, let it be this one. Leash had not been played live since 1994 (also in Boston, back on 4/11/94) and just hearing the crackling anticipation in the air with the opening notes gives me the chills. It makes me smile because they get the opening order backwards (drums, then bass) and it takes them a few counts to fall into the correct cadence, but then, like a familiar lover that you remember by touch – on a primal level – it all falls back into place.

And if you’ve never heard the kickass song from whence this blog derives its name, now is your chance. I have to say, few things make me happier than the thought of you, the reader, in the heat of a glorious sweaty moment at a Pearl Jam concert, hearing this lyric and briefly thinking of my blog. It’s an anthem to youth and the power of music and everything summed up into a few lines.

“Troubled souls unite, we got ourselves tonight
I am fuel, you are friends
we got the means to make amends
I am lost, I’m no guide
but I’m by your side
I am right by your side…

…Delight, delight, delight in our youth…”

Parachutes – Boston 5/25
There was a sign campaign for this song to be played, apparently. Crazy fans mistaking concerts for democratic rallies. But it worked, and PJ first debuted it live for a very pleased Boston crowd. It is one of my favorites off the new album; a lovely song, even if Ed fudges the lyrics just a little bit here.

And a few from Camden 5/27 . . .
A smoldering Memorial Day weekend show, breathless reviews from those who were there. I have to say, it is quite an intense setlist. Here were some searing choice cuts:

Do The Evolution
Fresh out of the cage, Pearl Jam starts things out hard, fast, and right. After blazing through two of the hardest songs on their new album, Life Wasted and Worldwide Suicide, they tear into this riff, which would make me want to smash things if I was that kind of gal.

Animal
Then without taking a breath they launch straight into this roiling, churning pick from Vs. LISTEN to the crowd sing along with all that is in them.

Marker In The Sand
This is still one of my other favorite tracks on the new album. I love the blending of the fierce pace of the opening verse, the soaring anthemic chorus, and the final seamless melding of the two at the end of the song.

Blood
After a fairly family-friendly singalong first encore (Betterman, Elderly Woman, Last Kiss, etc), PJ returns to the stage for a thrashing second set. THIS is insane. I almost died once in a pit of people during this song. Between the guttural screaming and the wah-wahs, this is elemental concert power at its best.

Comatose
Another tightly-wound and sparsely vicious favorite off the new album.

Yellow Ledbetter –> Star-Spangled Banner
Even though some fans have expressed that they could do without this becoming-typical closer, to me the first notes of the sweet electric-bluesy wail is the sound of the end of a PJ show. And what better way to celebrate the U.S. holiday of Memorial Day than some Hendrix-esque freedom rock with the Star Spangled Banner drawled out on Mike’s electric guitar? What a closer.

July 2, Denver, here I come.

Leash? Please?

Credits: Some of these terrific pics are from the Tour Photos section of the Pearl Jam site, taken by the fabulous Kerensa Wight.