j24u

Today is the first day of my vacation...yeah I just had one 6 weeks ago, sue me. I plan on resting, reading and doing some spring cleaning around the apartment. I also want to get in touch and hang out with a lot of friends I have been too busy to see lately.

I saw Pearl Jam last night, and honestly it was the best live show I have ever seen. They played the Garden in Boston, and My Morning Jacket opened for them. I have to say that they impressed me, I had never heard MMJ before, and the set they played kind of struck me as a mix between early Pearl Jam with a little bit of southern rock and some Morphine mixed in. I enjoyed them.

Pearl Jam's first set was good, not amazing though. They touched on just about all the albums, but because I have seen them so many times (every tour since '93) not a lot of that set was new to me, except for the stuff off of the new album. The second set really came alive, and there was a lot of crowd participation (as with most PJ shows). They played a lot from the first album this show, with a great mix of everything else. The energy kept building after they got into the third set for the night. Every song was so played up that I thought it would be the last. They ditched the set list and started to just have impromptu meetings on the stage to decide what to play, according to the feel of the crowd. They played a few songs like Leash that hardly ever gets played in concert, and a few of the strong standards (Evenflow, Alive, Rearview Mirror etc.). Every time that I thought the show was at an end, the roadies would pop up on stage with new guitars for the band. It all came to a head when someone came on stage with a guitar from the area to the left. Theo Epstein, General manager of the Red Sox and good friend of the band was onstage to jam out to Rockin' in a Free World, and they tore that fuckin' arena apart. To people outside of New England: Theo Epstein is an avid musician, and often plays Pearl Jam songs at the many benefit shows he plays around the area for charity organizations. It was reported early in the night that Pearl Jam was donating some of the proceeds to a fund that helps homeless children in Massachusetts, and that Epstein was matching and doubling any money they raised. So it was a great time, for a great cause. In case you are wondering, Epstein is pretty revered in the Boston area for bringing success to the Sox, so any public appearances by him are well liked and everyone was more than thrilled to see him on stage, in a Pearl jam hoodie, while Vedder was wearing a Red Sox jersey.

Anyway, the song ended and the house lights were up by that point, and they were saying goodbye to the crowd, we were all pretty happy with what we saw and started to look towards the exits. Then Mike McCready broke into the opening notes of Yellow Leadbetter, surprising everyone and really getting the place going. They played the entire song with the house lights on (PJ usually finishes their shows like this), and at the end where a long solo usually is to end the show, McCready broke out into the Star Spangled Banner A La Hendrix style (but much cleaner)...and just rocked that out to close the night. It was awesome, and they ended up playing a full hour past Boston curfew for shows. Which was nice because most of the annoying drunks had disappeared to catch the trains. All in all, just an awesome night before going into work a bit late, where I had a very nice phone call with Hathor.

So, now I have nothing to do...and I love it. It was a great start to a week, and I hope it gets better. Next on my agenda is to see X3 sometime in the next day or so, and to go to my brothers house for the UFC fights tomorrow night.

I'll update as anything new pops up.