New setlist dynamics

[daft twat]

I really do not like these shorter sets. I was hoping they’d pull out some riot act/avocado deep cuts with the anniversaries passing and coming up. But that seems like a pipe dream now. I’ll have to listen to the shows to see if this feeling sticks. But I have zero reason to travel for a show now.And now that I’m in Florida, it’s likely they will never be here again.

I have tickets for NYC and St. Louis, but I agree with this to some extent. I guess I’d have no reason to see multiple shows. I’d still like to see them once a year. Can’t believe it’s been 4 years this August.

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

My last PJ show was possibly the worst show they've ever played, but I'm not going to talk about it because somebody always gets butthurt.

What show?

Philly 2009 and he's right.

Philly 2009 was a great night.

Actually the 2nd Philly 2009 show - the worst of the 4. They were all visbly drunk and could barely stand up. They messed up almost every song to the point of obvious. Girls came out on stage and held up score cards for a baseball game that was happening nearby or something. There were fratboys hanging out in the lobby and watching the game and ignoring the show and it's arguable if that was a good or bad thing. A total shitshow. The bootleg is a horrifying listen. Reading non-stop comments about how great that run was made my head explode.

[warehouse]

lol no one left any of the shows at the spectrum complaining

[Coach]

sometimes a sloppy show is more fun when you are actually there vs. the bootleg.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

lol no one left any of the shows at the spectrum complaining

Of course not. They finally played "Bugs"! And the beer was really good.

[liebzz]

Actually the place and the beer were terrible. There might have been a ton of history there but it was a dump. I still have a bruise on my calf from my leg being pressed against the cross bar of the folding chairs.

Meanwhile, that was one of the most fun, obviously not most technically flawless, but fun shows I can remember attending. And since I paid for good music and fun, I got my money’s worth…

[Jaeti]

Actually the place and the beer were terrible. There might have been a ton of history there but it was a dump. I still have a bruise on my calf from my leg being pressed against the cross bar of the folding chairs.

Meanwhile, that was one of the most fun, obviously not most technically flawless, but fun shows I can remember attending. And since I paid for good music and fun, I got my money’s worth…

Indeed.

[Bammer]

I love getting a few deep cuts but honestly man nowhere else I’d rather be for 3 hours and someday it will end and you’ll wish you had one more chance to see Even Flow.

[Coach]

I love getting a few deep cuts but honestly man nowhere else I’d rather be for 3 hours and someday it will end and you’ll wish you had one more chance to see Even Flow.

this is so true

[Jaeti]

I love getting a few deep cuts but honestly man nowhere else I’d rather be for 3 hours and someday it will end and you’ll wish you had one more chance to see Even Flow.

this is so true

[MattA75]

I was very much against the idea of shorter sets, but if the main things getting cut are most of the covers and half assed rarities that sound sloppy as hell, I've changed my mind. Would like to see maybe 3-4 more songs a night of deeper album cuts, but the band sounds good.

[liebzz]

I was very much against the idea of shorter sets, but if the main things getting cut are most of the covers and half assed rarities that sound sloppy as hell, I've changed my mind. Would like to see maybe 3-4 more songs a night of deeper album cuts, but the band sounds good.

They got it up to 26 in Oakland. 30 songs of largely mainstream material is fine by me - I am not asking for more songs they barely know how to play one-off. I am asking for - based on their history of how long each song takes- for just a bit more than 22-23 songs, which is akin to a festival set.

[Captain Termite]

Man, times have changed -- I didn't even know a tour was going on until I saw this thread. Cool!

I like the shorter sets. The elements of the set that have caused it to balloon into a 3-hour behemoth -- 5-6 covers per night, the EV solo performances ("Imagine" etc.), the sit-down encore, the obligatory rarities for the setlist chasers -- have not served the performance quality well IMO. Not that individual performances, shows, etc. haven't been really enjoyable or even great, but if that's the excess that gets stripped away by this current format, I'm all for it. An emphasis on the core catalog, with allowances for some reasonable variation and the occasional wacky indulgence, has always been the sweet spot for PJ.

But what makes up the core catalog has changed, which is not necessarily a bad thing. For many years (maybe '96-03'), the core catalog did not result in 5-6 'Ten' songs in a lot of shows.

[mray10]

I will be honestly disappointed if they start playing two encore, 3+ hour shows again.

Shortening the sets and cutting out all the sloppy covers seems like one of the unambiguously positive decisions the band has made in recent years, it feels like an acknowledgement the shows had become unfocused and it was time to reign things back in.

They haven't done much to impress me over the last few years, but this has done it.

I don't know what other bands/artists you guys are basing your comparisons on but 22-23 songs over 2+ hours is a still a really long concert by any measure, and I would wager significantly longer than most band's headlining sets.

I've long been on this block (ie, that I would prefer a shorter, tighter set that was focused and performed better) so I had no real complaints about the sets I saw from the first few tour stops. And, on paper, the show I saw in Phoenix was pretty good. A solid mix of fan favorites and then just a sprinkling of Gigaton and some more obscure mid-album stuff. (It helps that Red Mosquito and Smile are two of my absolute favorites.)

But I'm sad to report that the show felt just as sloppy and had much of the same feeling as the last time Pearl Jam came to Phoenix and played a two-encore, 3-hour mega set. The biggest problem is Ed, who has always had a penchant for screwing up even the most obvious songs (I saw them at Ohana Encore and he butchered Alive both nights ... Alive!). In Phoenix he made a mess of such obscure rarities as Small Town and DTE, as well as Superblood Wolfmoon, which I think is just too wordy for him. That's just off the top of my head a week after the fact. The shows go on 2+ hours because he tells long, mostly pointless stories (he told the exact same story last week in Phoenix about running out of gas in Gila Bend that he told the last time he was here and even though he seemed to realize it about halfway through he was undeterred). The band makes errors here and there but they are anyway less notable than the lead singer getting words wrong or verses out of order.

So, sad to say, I don't feel like the new sets are so much a "newly focused Pearl Jam" as they are just the same old band that's maybe getting a bit older.

[CopperTom]

Given that Covid is in and around the band, I just want the show to happen. I'll be happy with any 20 songs with the majority of the band. Viva Las Vegas!

[washing machine]

Yeah, I'm on the other side of the coin re: shorter setlists even though I've got no dog in the fight. Pearl Jam will never tour my city (houston) again and I don't seek out boots.

That being said, I think it would be great if they just full-on embraced their inner dead and went two or three full sets that got increasingly weirder and more spacey.

I'd shit myself if I saw this for a second set after a first set of mostly rock numbers from their catalog:

Immortality>NAIS>Arc>Immortality (2)>Arc (2)>Whale Song>U>Immortality (3) followed by an encore Last Kiss

[liebzz]

I’d be very into that, but I would also be okay with them powering through their rock stuff and having that be that.

I would appreciate a 12 minute Lightning Bolt - 9 minutes of which would be that outtro.

[washing machine]

Obviously this would never happen for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that a super loose and jammy second set would need Jack Irons (15 minute Red Dot with Boom, anyone?), but a dreamer can dream.

[coptheriotact]

(15 minute Red Dot with Boom, anyone?)

fuck shit up, put a tag on gods dice...