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| about 1/4 to 1/3 of crowd |
A 3 ½ hour set ain’t a bad way to celebrate 20 years of existence. Luckily we had seats for the second night, row W on Mike McCready’s side. No rain today but it was fairly chilly. All of the opening bands slayed again with only a handful of repeats. I didn’t mention it yesterday, but all PJ members, except for Stone Gossard, came out to play with various side stage bands at various times, individually and in groups. Very cool of them. Eddie joined New Zealander Liam Finn, aka Animal from The Muppet Babies, and they did a short version of “Habit” and switched out playing guitar and drums. Later, during PJ’s performance, Liam came out and they played the full version with him helping Eddie out with the vocals. With that long of a set, he had several folks come out and sing with him. Chris Cornell stepped on stage again and repeated two Temple of the Dog tunes and sang two other ones. PJ, however, didn’t duplicate any songs from one night to the other. The second night did include more radio friendly hits like “Jeremy” and “Alive” but still had some rarities mixed in like the opener “Wash” and “No Way,” which was performed much to Stone’s chagrin. Jeff and Stone even traded instruments for “Smile.” Hell, I had to fill my empty beer glass up with piss while singing along to “Pilate.” The Big Show don’t miss songs just to pee, right D-Dog. That’s amateur-hour bullshit. We also got to hear a little ditty Eddie had written that afternoon which he performed acoustically by himself. The band was also nice enough to have an older white-haired lady doing sign language (and dancing along) for a deaf couple a few rows in front of us. How she deciphered Eddie’s lyrics and singing is beyond me. Eddie gave a shout out to the dying record stores around the country and played “Spin the Black Circle” while Mike ran laps around the entire stage set-up playing rhythm. No real political agenda for the show which was nice. If not for guest John Doe mentioning that we should never give up hope even if we don’t like our government, I don’t think there would have been any reference to politics at all. But that reminded Eddie of the recently freed West Memphis Three, to whom he gave a shout out and that was it. The feeling of the night was more celebratory for the band having survived this long and for the fans sticking with them through thick and thin, and multiple drummers. He gave major props to drummer Matt Cameron (originally in Soundgarden) for helping them survive the last ten years and bringing the unity that they needed. So, after several encores, we thought they were going to end the night with “Alive,” but then they had most everybody from all the other bands come on stage and joined them for “Rockin in the Free World.” The end… Nope. Couldn’t go away without playing “Yellow Ledbetter.” But that wasn’t quite it, either. Mike busted out a little “Star Spangled Banner” on his six string to finally bid us farewell. I forgot to mention that we signed up to ride the bus that was provided for people staying in Milwaukee to get back and forth from the venue that was kind of in the middle of nowhere. The first night, our driver somehow got lost on the way back and it took about 45 minutes longer than it should have. Passengers with smartphones had to direct him to get back to the drop-off point. Luckily, that wasn’t the case Sunday night.
So, you might be wondering: “Was it worth it?” Was it worth driving about 28 hours round trip and eating 5 or 6 PB&J’s (had to save some money somehow)? You’re damn right. How anyone would think this trip to be excessive and unnecessary is mind-boggling to me. When it comes to traveling for live music, there are people that ask “Why?” and then there are the rest of us that ask “Why the Hell not?” Of course, it’s a lot easier to feel that way without having the responsibility and expense of a wife and children. Maybe that’s why I write these, for those that can’t, but wish they still could. If I can provide a link for people that long for a former type of fun that has grown out of reach, then mission: accomplished. Who knows? Maybe this will all come to an end for me some day, as well. Good Lord, the horror.
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