Pearl Jam Show Review
Alpine Valley : 06.21.2003
The Ten Club Still Rocking Strong
Pearl Jam rocked through a 2 hour and 30 minute set of their classics and their new material at Alpine Valley Music Threatre on June 21, 2003. A packed pavilion and two-third’s filled lawn was into every minute of it. During the classic hits the crowd was ecstatic and sang every word, which was a good thing because Eddie’s voice has been under stress lately and allowed him to sing that long. Eddie had discussed this issue the previous day while at Wrigley Field to sing the seventh inning stretch at the Cubs/ White Sox game during an interview. During later parts of the show, he was clearly laboring to overcome this, but the adoring Alpine Valley crowd barely noticed.
Making the experience more energetic was the location of the hardcore fans – the majority of the fans in the pavilion section were “Ten Club” members. These people pay an annual fee for the right to purchase Pearl Jam tickets before they go on sale to the general public. The majority of the pavilion crowd was not scalper bought ticket holding types. They were fans knew and sang along (or completely sang in some cases!) the words to almost every song. Pearl Jam did not have an elaborate stage set-up, simple, high quality lighting and no spectacular special effects. The focus is on the music and the interaction with the crowd, which included a crowd member running on the stage and Eddie hugging him instead of having him immediately tossed out. Pearl Jam also shuffles set lists and changes songs every night. The only possible complaint anyone could have would be the exclusion of “Why Go” (which may have been excluded due to its powerful vocals and Eddie’s voice issue) and some other songs from the “Ten” era in favor of multiple cover songs. If people did chose to complain about this, they would have a right to as the 1991 album “Ten” still sells more than the current “Riot Act” release per Amazon.com data. Even if that was an issue for some people, the free-form, old-fashioned nature of the concert was refreshing and brought me back to an era where set lists weren’t the same night after night. It’s a nice place to be, too bad that type of experience is becoming all too rare, which likely explains why the crowd cherished it so much?
The Pearl Jam Setlist
01 Sometimes
02 Corduroy
03 Green Disease
04 Save You
05 Gods’ Dice
06 Faithful
07 Immortality
08 Love Boat Captain
09 Insignificance
10 Deep
11 I Believe In Miracles
12 You Are
13 Better Man
14 Jeremy
15 Even Flow
16 Daughter
17 Rearviewmirror
18 Go
19 Animal
20 Small Town
21 Glorified G
22 Bushleaguer
23 Do The Evolution
24 You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
25 Breath
26 Crazy Mary
27 Know Your Rights
28 Fortunate Son
29 Baba O’Riley
30 Yellow Ledbetter