September 11, 2011 – Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON, CAN

Pearl Jam Show Notes 9/11/2011:

Long Road is perfectly placed as the opener on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and you can feel the energy just exploding in the room. An intense Do The Evolution makes a rare appearance in the 2nd slot, followed by Once kicking the show into high gear. After Got Some, Eddie addresses the crowd saying the band was surprised to learn they hadn’t played Toronto in five years. The ending lyrics of Faithfull are changed to “What’s a man to do?”. Eddie precedes an ethereal Nothing As It Seems by telling the crowd, “Not to give away the plot, but Mike McCready does some crazy shit on this next one.” Small Town is a full crowd sing along which Eddie acknowledges by telling the crowd “That’s good singing Toronto!”. Eddie talks about how they had been working with Cameron Crowe, who is in attendance, for the upcoming PJ20 release. He says it’s kind of like looking back at Side A of their career and that he can’t help wondering what the last song on side B will look like. He then acknowledges that if you go back to the first record Neil Young was on, they would be calling it NY51 and that “he’s been making records for 51 years and he still seems younger than us.” Not For You features a great solo by Stone and a Modern Girl tag. The heart of the main set features a beautiful string of slower songs such as Just Breathe, Of He Goes and Daughter with a full It’s OK tag. The main set ends with a very interesting string of songs without much banter from Ed – Grievance, Down, Unthought Known, The Fixer and ends with Porch, which features dueling solos between Mike and Stone and a call and response singalong heading back into the final chorus.

Eddie addresses the crowd before the first encore by comparing Toronto to Seattle and that both cities “have large concrete erections” and notes that “yours is bigger, but in our defense ours has kind of a nice shape.” He then notes that all of the bands’ wives and girlfriends are in attendance and thanks them all. The first encore starts with the Man Trilogy. Nothingman, with great crowd participation, starts by Ed telling the crowd “If you got a good woman, don’t fuck it up!” A rocking Better Man features some great pyrotechnics by Mike and a lengthy Save It For Later tag. Black is gorgeous with Mike wailing and Matt hammering away during the jam, and the outro is simply beautiful. A nicely jammed out Rearviewmirror ends the first encore.

The final encore begins with the combo of Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns, showcasing Stone and Jeff locking in the groove perfectly and Mike taking the solos to new heights. This would mark the first instance that Chloe Dancer was played at a show in full. The whole band absolutely crushes Alive, but that’s almost nothing compared to what comes next. The band launches into Rockin’ In The Free World and is joined right before the final verse by Mr. Neil Young himself, unannounced, for an over-the-top ending jam. Rumor has it that only Mike knew this was going down, and the band appears visibly surprised and overwhelmed when Neil takes the stage. Mike hands over his guitar to Neil, and as the band begins to jam, it’s Eddie to the rescue as he flags down one of the roadies to get Mike a guitar so he can join in. They proceed to duel back and forth for what seems like an eternity, and RITFW finally comes to an end after 11+ minutes. It’s a fantastic ending to an absolute piledriver of a show!