Pearl Jam, the greatest American rock band, wrapped its four-night gig in Philadelphia this past weekend -- culminating with a Halloween show that was the LAST event ever at the famed entertainment arena, The Spectrum. Here's a recap:
- Yours truly sat out the opener, but attended the other three nights -- and thanks to fan club seniority, had great floor seats!
- The band played a total of 131 songs over the four concerts -- including 103 different songs.
- Of the band's total 110 studio album tracks, they played 83!
- Set lists for all nights can be found here.
- The three early shows clocked in around 2.5 hours each, with the final show a whopping 3.5 hours.
- Rumored guests for the final night were just that, rumors. Maybe Bruce Springsteen would have been there if he didn't attend the funeral for his cousin and road crew member earlier that day. And maybe Elton John would have been there if he wasn't in a London hospital recovering from the flu and an E. coli infection. Whatever the reasons, when you're a band of this caliber, you don't need guests to make the night memorable.
- Highlights for the final night including hearing "Bugs" and "Sweet Lew" for the first time live.
- And let's not forget it was Halloween night -- so in the spirit of the holiday, the band came out dressed like Devo and performed "Whip It" -- it was truly a classic moment -- which was captured by a fellow fan in this video here.
- As the band was in their final Spectrum encore performing Neil Young's "Rockin in the Free World," red, white and blue balloons and confetti fell from the rafters -- captured in the video here.
- Comcast-Spectacor and Live Nation representatives presented the band with Spectrum seats, bearing plaques commemorating their finale at the historic venue. Click here for more on the venue's history.
- For the Philadelphia Inquirer's coverage -- including a photo gallery -- click here.
- For coverage from Rolling Stone -- including another look at the Devo homage, click here.
- For coverage from Billboard, click here.
- My reviews: I continue to be amazed at how well the band is able to pull off integrating their new songs with the old. With other bands, you'll feel the crowd energy slip down when bands don't play their hits and try to feed you new tunes. But that is not the case with Pearl Jam. Every song -- whether old or new -- is savored by the strong fan base. And each night only built in terms of fan and band energy, so my final concert grades are as follows ~ 10/28: B+, 10/30: A-, 10/31: A. Not too shabby when you figure I'm pushing 50 total concerts by the band.
Note:
- A special thanks to @DirtyFrankDahmr for some of the supportive information.
- The free music download section will be back NEXT week. Click here for last week's list.
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