Monday, August 18, 2008

Live Review: Eddie Vedder @ Warner Theatre, August 17

Since I gave you the full run-down already on Mr. Vedder's opening night performance, I figured I'd kind of compare the two for the second night recap. While the audience was much more amenable on the second night, there still were plenty of asshats that came close to ruining the vibe Eddie was trying so hard to establish. I mean, seriously, who screams out to "move things along" while the performer is explaining the socio-political importance of a civil rights song, for the love of Benjy? To paraphrase Eddie, though, "I can appreciate if you don't want to hear a lot of political discourse, but, seriously, who did you think you were coming to see?" Interestingly enough, the slightly more chill crowd allowed EV to play far more subdued, acoustic tracks than the night prior. Whether because or in spite of, however, even though the night before had the worse audience, it really was kind of a more raucous show as a result.


Where night one highlighted more of the Beatles, night two was given to Dylan, ranging from one of my personal faves, "Girl From the North Country", to one of the last two songs of the final encore, "All Along the Watchtower", replete with Fugazi's drummer, who was there filming the show on Vedder's behalf. With the exception of some of the Into the Wild tracks, I only noticed a couple of song repeats during the two evenings.



With those exceptions, the nights were reasonably similar, down to the fact that it looked like Vedder was wearing the same exact flannel (my seats were even better for night two). Backdrops were the same, timing of sets was near identical and both nights ended with the same rousing sing-along.



I wish I could say the experience firmly cemented me as a EV/PJ convert, but it might have had the opposite effect. While Eddie was a compelling and engaging performer, two nights in a row showed me that at least those fans in the area are a bunch of schmucks. It was two nights of sheer high times, let me tell you.



I also would like to give a special shout out to the staggeringly drunk blonde two seats to my left that would not shut the hell up during the duration of the concert, even after numerous people told you to zip it. You, dear lady, are one classy broad.

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