Out the door to St. Louis shortly and I don't have time to do an in depth review of the Eddie Vedder show from Thursday night (before I got super sick), but getting to the show Thursday night sucked. Getting tickets flat out sucked...and when I got to the place, my seats really sucked (Gallery) I’ve had tickets in an arena balcony that have been better than these. Then to make matters worse Liam Finn for lack of a better word sucked. I was mad because I missed the first 10-minutes of his performance despite leaving my house at 6pm (door to door it is only 13 miles from my house). I eventually realized that if I had seen the last 10 minutes only it would have been better. He just wasn't that engaging...and I liked what I had heard of him before on record, I just feel he would be better with a band behind him. I was ready to have a sucky evening, but Eddie flat out hit it out of the park. He joked a lot and even pointed to my section and said he knows they are the worse seats in the world because he saw his first concert at this place and he went up there earlier today. This humor alone won me over.
Highlights included the high emotive "No More" where he pulled out the Iraq Veteran to come on stage with him who co-wrote the song. He pulled out the Cubs anthem "All The Way" to great applause as well.
The jaw on the ground moments of the evening were a completely subdued and reinvented "Better Man" and a shocking cover of "Hurt" Johnny Cash style where Vedder allowed his vocal talent to crawl under your skin. That alone was worth the entire jaunt to the theater.
Liam Finn redeemed himself in the encore as he ever so eloquently pounded the drums with a fierce determination as Eddie wailed on his electric for a moment so fleeting and free; I wanted to experience it all over again. Let's hope the tour birth's an official live album.
More next week...
xT
